Abe, Shana - The Last Mermaid
Thu, Jul. 1st, 2004 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterThe book is actually three novellas structured around one of those curse/legend type stories, so I was a bit reluctant to pick it up... I'm generally not a big fan for romance short stories because there's not enough pages for character development, but each novella here clocks about 200.
Legend is that a siren falls in love with a human man, Kell, and they live together on an island for years and years. Unfortunately for the siren, Kell eventually begins to feel pent in and opens the locket she wears containing his soul and dies on the spot. So she curses the island to be unapproachable until, of course, three couples unite in true love. I have to say, I found the practice of having one's supernatural lover keep one's soul in her locket pretty freaky.
The first story was a little blah to me, partly because I started it right after I finished Cuevas' Dance. It was sort of hard getting back into normal romance novel mode after that, heh. It's set around 500 AD, which isn't a period of great interest to me, and it seemed pretty standard. The current siren of the island saves a prince from drowning, etc. However, the siren, Ione, is pretty convincingly alien, and there are some nice moments in which you can tell she completely does not understand why Aedan (the prince) insists on certain things, like clothing. It's not played for humor, just incomprehension. Actually, she sort of reminds of Illyria, strangely.
I liked the second story best -- Georgian period and female assassins will do it every time ;). And a male siren who is nice and falls in love with female assassin. Yeah, hits a large portion of my buttons. And I just liked Leila a lot because she was so somber and serious, and thus, I liked Ronan because he liked her. Also, this is one of the rarer romances in which the hero, though in love with the heroine, is willing to stand back and wait for her to make up her own mind and tries not to force the issue, despite a few inopportune kisses.
The third story, set in the present time, didn't work quite so well as the first or second. The lovers here are supposed to be the reincarnations of the siren and Kell, except I don't think enough time is given over to this concept... the author does try to sketch out the siren and Kell's characters, which did work, but I think it happens at the expense of the hero and heroine, sadly. I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite being siren, the heroine is actually the reincarnation of Kell, and the hero is the reincarnation of the lovesick siren. I sort of wanted more exploration of issues like abandonment and feeling caged in by love that I was a little disappointed by the ending.
But, all in all, not bad, and now I think I might pick up some of Abe's backlist. I really liked her Secret Swan, but her first book (Rose something) was so bad I didn't finish it.
Legend is that a siren falls in love with a human man, Kell, and they live together on an island for years and years. Unfortunately for the siren, Kell eventually begins to feel pent in and opens the locket she wears containing his soul and dies on the spot. So she curses the island to be unapproachable until, of course, three couples unite in true love. I have to say, I found the practice of having one's supernatural lover keep one's soul in her locket pretty freaky.
The first story was a little blah to me, partly because I started it right after I finished Cuevas' Dance. It was sort of hard getting back into normal romance novel mode after that, heh. It's set around 500 AD, which isn't a period of great interest to me, and it seemed pretty standard. The current siren of the island saves a prince from drowning, etc. However, the siren, Ione, is pretty convincingly alien, and there are some nice moments in which you can tell she completely does not understand why Aedan (the prince) insists on certain things, like clothing. It's not played for humor, just incomprehension. Actually, she sort of reminds of Illyria, strangely.
I liked the second story best -- Georgian period and female assassins will do it every time ;). And a male siren who is nice and falls in love with female assassin. Yeah, hits a large portion of my buttons. And I just liked Leila a lot because she was so somber and serious, and thus, I liked Ronan because he liked her. Also, this is one of the rarer romances in which the hero, though in love with the heroine, is willing to stand back and wait for her to make up her own mind and tries not to force the issue, despite a few inopportune kisses.
The third story, set in the present time, didn't work quite so well as the first or second. The lovers here are supposed to be the reincarnations of the siren and Kell, except I don't think enough time is given over to this concept... the author does try to sketch out the siren and Kell's characters, which did work, but I think it happens at the expense of the hero and heroine, sadly. I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite being siren, the heroine is actually the reincarnation of Kell, and the hero is the reincarnation of the lovesick siren. I sort of wanted more exploration of issues like abandonment and feeling caged in by love that I was a little disappointed by the ending.
But, all in all, not bad, and now I think I might pick up some of Abe's backlist. I really liked her Secret Swan, but her first book (Rose something) was so bad I didn't finish it.
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