Fins

Time for a review of Fins, by the lovely Ashley Knight

Mermaids. I love mermaids.

In this young adult novel, Morgan discovers that her parents have been keeping secrets from her. Elan’s mother has a new husband. And a new baby. And an ancient curse. Oh, and by the way, honey — you’re a mermaid!

Thanks for the head’s up, mom!

This is a fun, frothy novel, with likable characters and a gorgeous mer hero, Thayde. I happen to think that male swimmers have the finest bodies in the world. I fancied the hero probably looked like Matthew Mitcham:

Yum.

While Morgan is still trying to deal with her new family, Akin, a snotty bastard from a rival family, assaults and tries to rape her. Akin’s half-brother, the gorgeous Thayde, rescues her and beats back Akin. However, Thayde’s on family cast judgement on him, and, because he is honorable, he lets them strip him and tie him to a pole. One by one, they take turns torturing him….

It is now up to Elan to rescue him.

This was my favorite scene in the book. I love torture scenes! What does that tell you about me? Let’s not dwell on that. Moving on….

There were a few places where I felt the book kept to the shallows instead of swimming deeper. Elan’s father dies at the beginning of the story, for instance, but this hardly figures in the plot. Morgan and Thayde meet in dreams before they do in real life. I don’t mind this device in and of itself, but the danger is that it can shortchange the development of love between the hero and the heroine. It is already a given they are in love, so we are not shown how and why. I would have liked to spend more time with Thayde and Elan growing to know each other.

Different kinds of mermaids have different colored tails (I love that!) and different powers. Because Morgan is a half-human, her powers should be weak, if she can even phase to mer form at all… yet not only can she phase, she has extremely strong powers.

Unfortunately, even if she can rescue Thayde from his own family, there is still a sea witch type character lurking in the background, who’s curse means that Elan and Thayde might be forced to relive the same tragedy that once separated her mother from her true love.

I wonder if we can expect a sequel about Elan’s little sister?