Book Review: The Lord and the Mermaid

Author: Bernadette Rowley
ISBN: 9781760300746
RRP: $3.99

Mermaids are a legendary creature that have been around forever, in folklore they are different in different regions and it is the same with fiction. Everyone who creates mermaids in their fiction has the ability to imagine them however they like. I don’t know that I have ever known them to be anything but exquisitely beautiful but that doesn’t necessarily make them kind or harmless.

The mermaids that Rowley has imagined are exquisitely beautiful, and extremely dangerous. They lure sailors with their song so that they can kill them and use their seed to procreate…. how romantic.

Merielle has never fit in with her family and when she realises that she can’t possibly live out her life luring sailors to their death she knows she needs to run. Rebelling is not possible in the mermaid kingdom, they will just have you bewitched so that you are happy to live your life this way. She takes her chances but things don’t go to plan and she finds herself washed up on a beach injured after being caught in a storm.

Who should come across her but Nikolas Cosara, a man with a mighty grudge and inherent distrust of her species. Meri awakens just in time to stop him from plunging a knife into her and manages to convince him to help her recover.

No matter how hard I think on this I keep coming back to a comparison between Merielle and Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Merielle loves to frolic with the sea creatures and has glorious red hair. She seems to have an innocence that reminds me of the carefree and inherently good merpeople of The Little Mermaid. Merielle is the only one of her people to have this trait, as the rest of them are not so nice.

I enjoyed The Lord and the Mermaid, I found it quite light reading but I did find that it dragged at times and could have been just as effective with a smaller page count.

Nikolas Cosara has suffered tragedies that have seen him exile himself to a cliffside cottage overlooking the beach, out of society and away from life. His cousin is the Queen and she wants to see him resume his position in the Navy and finally take a wife, neither duty appeals to him at the moment as he has not yet finished wallowing in his guilt.

Much of this story is quite predictable, I could have mapped the storyline from quite early on, but there is still enjoyment to be had in the execution.

Rowley writes a starcrossed lovers story of two people not only from different classes but completely different worlds, different species, and the obstacles they must overcome before they can be together. Is it possible? Can they ever be together? Writing this now I was just thinking about a question I have been left with, but this is book one of a saga so I am thinking my answer may be coming in a later instalment.

There are places this one fell a little short for me, but I don’t want to go too far into it and jeopardise anyone else’s enjoyment. Overall though this was a lovely story of second chances, moving on and finding hope with the added bonus of hot lords and stunning mermaids.  Being a romance there is also steam and sizzle, and not a little tension.

I will definitely be looking out for the second one in this series.

To follow Bernadette you can find her on Facebook, Twitter and her Website.

The Lord and the Mermaid is available June 25 from Momentum and from all good ebook retailers.

Michelle

I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!