Review- Lies Beneath

Title: Lies Beneath

Author: Anne Greenwood Brown

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Release Date: June 12, 2012

Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads

Source: ARC compliments of NetGalley and Delacorte

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 irresistible good looks and charm on unsuspecting 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.

My thoughts: 

I have always been a firm believer in the fact that there is not enough mermaids in YA fiction. Mermaids have always been my favorite form of paranormal characters and sadly the YA mermaid books are few and far between. Ever since I saw The Little Mermaid in theaters with my grandma when I was four years old, I knew I was hooked (pun intended, haha)! I don't care if the mermaids lure men to their deaths with their beautiful songs or if their only joy in life is collecting forks and other human objects, we need more of it in YA!

I really enjoyed Lies Beneath. I came into it completely objective and I actually thought it was the story of a mermaid because of the cover and not a merman. I really liked the creativity that Brown had with the story. It's not your typical story of merpeople living in colonies under the sea. Calder lives with his sisters and they murder humans for their life force. It's very intoxicating for them which is why they are drawn to humans in the first place. They live on land (even though they move around) but they can't be out of the water for more than twenty-four hours at a time. Every winter they are drawn back to Lake Superior where they were born. But this particular winter, they go back to murder a man who unknowingly owes them a life debt.

What I loved most was the perspective of the guy. From the beginning we really don't know a lot about him, but throughout the story his life is revealed and how he came to be a merman. I definitely don't picture Calder as the person on the cover of the book but more of a surfer build, tan with shoulder length blond hair. Absolutely swoon worthy! Lies Beneath is also a story about romance. He's definitely falling in love with Lily when him and his sisters are trying to lure her dad to his death.

I loved the whole mystery surrounding the reason for the life debt. I always enjoy a good mystery especially if I can't guess the ending!  There's a lot of family history that they uncover and it had me anxiously reading until the last page! Lies Beneath is an excellent YA mer story that I will be continuing to read in the future. I give Lies Beneath 4 hearts because I finally have a book boyfriend that is a merman!