Review Detail

The writing is strong and easily conveys both images and emotions to the reader. It flowed smoothly and made it easy to fly through this book. As far as the world-building goes, Burton creates a mystical and dangerous world, where sirens have all been wiped out except for one, and there’s a magical hierarchy in the world. The world and the story kept me intrigued and reading, and thinking about the book when I had to put it down.

I love a book with a diverse cast, and this features all Black and Brown characters. Characters have different magical alignments, and there are characters who are fae, human, or mixes between the two. There’s also a cute queer couple in the story.

This is a plot-driven story, with several subplots that propel the story at a consistent pace. There aren’t any parts where it drags or I lost interest; as a matter of fact, I kept getting more interested. The plot twists only served to make me more intrigued by the story and where it was going to go.

I also enjoyed Saoirse’s character—she’s got a lot of the traits of the typical tough, independent YA female main character, but we also get to see her sweet and sensitive side when it comes to her family, especially her younger sister, of who she is very protective. In addition, there’s a lot of internal dialogue that clues us in to what she’s going through. We get to see her relationships to others develop, and the way in which she connects to Prince Hayes is done beautifully and realistically. There’s a very slow-burn romance that builds throughout the book, but it never overtakes the story.

Overall, this is a fantastic start to a series. I consider this especially impressive because it’s a debut, and it provided more of what I wanted from Skin of the Sea, although this one didn’t fully hit the mark. I was a bit confused about how Saoirse didn’t actually spend very much of her time in the water, just near it, but I did enjoy the creative and unique take on siren lore and kingdom politics. This is a series I’ll be eagerly watching out for the next book, especially since there was a cliffhanger ending and I need to know what is going to happen next.