Review: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown - Farah

Title: Lies Beneath (Lies Beneath #1)
Author: Anne Greenwood Brown

Publisher: Delacorte Books For Young Readers

Publication Date: June 12th, 2012

Genre(s): Young Adult (Mermaids/Fantasy)

Challenges: TBR, A-Z, Debut

Source: NetGalley
Format: Digital ARC

Pages: 303

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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 prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge. They blame Hancock for their mother's death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family's homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock's daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistable good looks and charm on ususpecting girls. Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there's more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him.

Lies Beneath was the first mermaid book I ever read. I didn't know anything about mermaids other than the ones I read about in fairytales. Lies Beneath completely changed what I think about the cute fish creatures. In here, the mermaids eat, or kill, humans to survive. It was interesting to start a book about creatures I never read about before, so that had a new air to it. The story is from a male's point of view, who is the main protagonist, Calder White. The nice thing is that he doesn't "find out" he's a mermaid, he already knows, unlike all the other paranormal books. 

Calder White gets called back by his sisters, who are also mermaids. They say that they finally found Jason Hancock, the man they have been seeking revenge on for most of their life. When Calder swims back to where his sisters are, they start to plan against Jason. Jason Hancock already has two daughters, and that's when they decide to let Calder to take the situation is his hands. The story was interesting through this point, until it was obvious how the story was going to end. One of the girls, Lily, is about his age. The other sister, Sophie, is about seven years old. Calder decides to get close to Lily, so he can easily get to her father. What I didn't like was how the ending was not shocking, and how it was transparent. I hoped the author included a bit of a twist toward the end or so, to leave the readers shocked. 

The story felt kind of long as well. It was all about the revenge, and I hoped there was something else in the story as well. It was still fun, and the writing was very easy to understand. I just felt like Calder and Lily's relationship developed really fast as well. I actually thought this was a stand alone novel, but I just found out there was going to be a sequel to the story. Overall, I really enjoyed Lies Beneath and I'm interested to see in what direction it takes in the second book. 

3.5 musical notes - It was great!