About as exciting as a handful of chum.
Riding the wave of mermaid paranormalia is a young merman with a mission.
For 18-year-old Calder White, family life is a little different. He spends part of his year living in Lake Superior with his three sisters, plotting revenge on Jason Hancock, the son of the man the merpeople hold responsible for killing their mother. Calder plans to lure Jason into the water by using Jason's daughters Lily and Sophie, but he does not count on falling in love with Lily nor on her learning of his true nature. When he is about to spring the trap, Calder finds himself out of his depth and drowning. Narrator Calder isn't particularly self-reflective, which ably conveys his emotional numbness but also makes him rather dull. There’s little that's engaging about Brown’s treatment of the mermaid mythology, the characters or the plot, making it an underwater retread of stories about sparkly creatures and dangerous love. Initially borrowing from Native American tales, Brown dumps the legends quickly into the inky depths. Astute readers will see the entire plot arc from the first few pages, which makes Calder and Lily’s romance feel forced from the beginning.
About as exciting as a handful of chum. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)Pub Date: June 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-385-74201-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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