Lies Beneath – A Book Review for the Debut Author Challenge

June 12, 2012

Hi everyone! Welcome to another installment of the Debut Author Challenge! If you don’t know what it’s about, just click the link to find out more!

For this round, we have Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown.

The blurb:

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive Calder and his sisters must prey on humans and absorb their positive energy. Usually, they select their victims at random, but this time around, the underwater clan chooses its target for a reason: revenge. They want to kill Jason Hancock, the men they blame for their mother’s death.

It’s going to take a concerted effort to lure the aquaphobic Hancock into the water. Calder’s job is to gain Hancock’s trust by getting close to his family. Relying on his irresistible good looks and charm, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock’s daughter Lily. Easy enough, but Calder screws everything up by falling in love – just as Lily starts to suspect there’s more to the monster-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined, and just as the mermaids threaten to take matters into their own hands, forcing Calder to choose between them and the girl he loves.

One thing’s for sure: whatever Calder decides, the outcome won’t be pretty.

I couldn’t stay away from this book. Let’s face it – most YA is written for girls, and from a girl’s POV. And it all seems to be about vampires, lately. Not that a well-written vampire story isn’t enjoyable, but it’s getting kind of old.

Lies Beneath completely blew me out of the water . . . yes, the pun is intended.

This book first interested me because it’s from the boy’s POV. I’ve never come across a YA book told from that perspective (Breaking Dawn does not count).

Calder’s story drew me in completely. His history of how he became a merman is heartbreaking, but he soon finds out there’s much more behind the life he thought he knew with his mermaid “mother” and “sisters”.

It’s been a while since a book was able to draw me in and make me absorb it, without worrying about typos and awkwardly worded sentences.

This book did that. The pacing was perfect – it was slow when it needed to be, but didn’t leave you wondering when the action was going to happen.

This book will be going on my “to-buy” list.

You should get it too.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for free from the publisher through the DAC ARC Tours in exchange for an honest review of this book.