LIES BENEATH

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.