From Kiera Cass, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Selection series, comes a sweeping stand-alone fantasy romance.

A girl with a secret.
The boy of her dreams.
An Ocean between them.

Years ago, Kahlen was rescued from drowning by the Ocean. To repay her debt, she has served as a Siren ever since, using her voice to lure countless strangers to their deaths. Though a single word from Kahlen can kill, she can’t resist spending her days on land, watching ordinary people and longing for the day when she will be able to speak and laugh and live freely among them again.

Kahlen is resigned to finishing her sentence in solitude…until she meets Akinli. Handsome, caring, and kind, Akinli is everything Kahlen ever dreamed of.

Falling in love with a human breaks the Ocean’s rules. But for the first time in a lifetime of following the rules, Kahlen is determined to follow her heart.

 

Sigh. I really wanted to like this book, but I just didn’t. I’ve actually put off writing this review for a few weeks (and even debated not writing one at all) because I love Kiera and I want to like everything she does.

I shouldn’t be surprised because I bought her self-published version when it first came out (my BFF Nicole and I were big fans of her YouTube channel, TwiCurls, and met her back in 2009 to get our copies signed. Yes, we are nerds. #noshame) and unfortunately I didn’t really like it back then either. I held out hope for this version because it was getting a do-over with the help of an editor.

While I do feel like certain aspects felt better (mind you I read the original over 7 years ago so my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details), this story just falls flat for me.

Not a whole lot happens, and most of the book is just filled with Kahlen’s inner turmoil about a boy she met five seconds ago. The story drags on and is pretty dull, in my opinion. I think there was more interaction between Kahlen and Akinli in the first version, but again my memory may be fuzzy on that.

The concept is neat – I really liked the idea of the Ocean (always capitalized) being a sentient being and those parts were somewhat intriguing, but for the most part I was bored and spent my time wishing I had the ability to speed read.

It seems to be getting decent reviews on Goodreads, so maybe if I had never read the original version and hadn’t known where the story was going I would have enjoyed it more this time around. Overall, a bit of a disappointment, though not a surprising one.

 

Did you read this book? What did you think?