Lies BeneathAnne Greenwood Brown
Delacorte BFYR/YA fiction
Release Date: June 12, 2012
The lore of mermaids and mermen is real. Just wait until you meet Calder White in this addictive debut novel that is destined to make a splash!
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 must prey on humans and absorb their positive energy. Usually they select their victims at random, but this time around the underwater clan chooses its target for a reason: revenge. They want to kill Jason Hancock, the man they blame for their mother’s death.
It’s going to take the whole White family to lure the aquaphobic Hancock onto the water. Calder’s job is to gain Hancock’s trust by getting close to his family. Relying on his irresistible good looks and charm, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock’s daughter Lily. Easy enough, but Calder screws everything up by falling in love—just as Lily starts to suspect that there’s more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined, and just as the mermaids threaten to take matters into their own hands, forcing Calder to choose between family and the girl he loves. One thing’s for sure, whatever Calder decides, the outcome won’t be pretty.
I want to get this out of the way– yes, Lies Beneath has some similarities to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga. Among other traits, both feature love triangles involving humans and supernatural beings, both feature slighlty unhealthy and stalker-ish relationships and local legends feature prominently. There will be people who condemn this book as nothing more than another Twilight- wannabe.
With all due respect, those people are crazy. While neither will be accused of being great literature, Lies Beneath delivers a well paced story with three dimensional characters. You actually care what happens to all of the characters!
Dashing the sweet, Disney-esque version of mermaids, Calder and his sisters exemplify perfectly the mythos of the siren song– mesmerizing readers, drawing them deeper and deeper, then dashing them against the sharp rocks of completely unexpected plot twists in the final chapters.
My verdict: Read it! Quite honestly, I can’t wait for friends and family to read this book, so that we can talk about it! I am eagerly anticipating more from this debut author. And a theatrical film version. And the proliferation of “Mrs. Calder White” t-shirts.
