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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
For a little mermaid retelling I actually really liked this. It followed the source material and then when a little further into things after surpassing the original. I liked the extension into getting the kingdoms set up to run better and I enjoyed the romantic stuff. All you can eat soup is a little silly but let’s be real- a book about merpeople doing it is generally a little silly. I think a few times I was thinking the sentence structures were a little repetitive but generally I enjoyed the vibes of this book!
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was an amazing retelling of The Little Mermaid, managing to keep so many elements of the fairy tale, with plenty of nods to the Disney movie, but also changing it enough to be a unique story and fit with the villain-love theme.
Averil was a great heroine in that she was so very, consistently curious and somewhat naive but also able to take charge when it mattered. I'm glad Kenney made it pretty clear from the beginning that Averil was simply infatuated with Prince Kerrin's looks and enthusiasm and that she (like the readers) came to despise him the more we got to know him.
Zoltan was an excellent male lead insofar as he had to balance likeability and typical misunderstood villain tropes with actually being pretty cutthroat and putting himself first. I still can't get over people calling him a witch though, even though it was necessary for the sake of the retelling....
The last 10-15% of the book was good but definitely fan service for smut. I could have just done with the very ending scene, which was hinted at earlier, but overall, despite some clunky monologuing at times, I thought this was an excellently told story, and I really couldn't put it down!
Averil was a great heroine in that she was so very, consistently curious and somewhat naive but also able to take charge when it mattered. I'm glad Kenney made it pretty clear from the beginning that Averil was simply infatuated with Prince Kerrin's looks and enthusiasm and that she (like the readers) came to despise him the more we got to know him.
Zoltan was an excellent male lead insofar as he had to balance likeability and typical misunderstood villain tropes with actually being pretty cutthroat and putting himself first. I still can't get over people calling him a witch though, even though it was necessary for the sake of the retelling....
The last 10-15% of the book was good but definitely fan service for smut. I could have just done with the very ending scene, which was hinted at earlier, but overall, despite some clunky monologuing at times, I thought this was an excellently told story, and I really couldn't put it down!
"If you keep calling me shrimp I’m going to call you ‘octopus,’".
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
I loved this book so much. I read it so fast and I can't stop thinking about it. It's a story of what happens if the handsome prince isn't so nice and the sea with is a morally gray man who just so happens to be gorgeous. The spice was great the enemies to lovers I ate up.
I like this tail better
A solid 4. You know, I always felt like the prince was a dumb choice. If you felt that way, this book is definitely for you. If you ever vote for the villain. Or dream of a misunderstood hero, here you go.
I don’t usually like FMC to fulfill the virgin trope, but with her being also new to legs, it felt less like the innocent and naive story it usually is
A solid 4. You know, I always felt like the prince was a dumb choice. If you felt that way, this book is definitely for you. If you ever vote for the villain. Or dream of a misunderstood hero, here you go.
I don’t usually like FMC to fulfill the virgin trope, but with her being also new to legs, it felt less like the innocent and naive story it usually is
❛ The sea flows through both of us, fills us, slips in and out of throats and gills, whispers in our ears. We are one with it, but it does not define us, because we are more than the sea, more than the air. He and I—we are something altogether beyond. ❜
4 STARS ✨
We love it when a handsome, angsty sea witch makes a bargain with the daughter of his worst enemy with the full intent of destroying him and ends up falling in love with her, willing to do anything to protect her, in the process.
The Sea Witch is the first standalone in the For the Love of the Villain, where Kenney takes the fairytales we know and love and spin them for an older audience, where everything you thought you knew about the villain is thwarted and we see them interact with our heroes in lights that we are not used to. The Little Mermaid was one of my favourite movies as a child so I was incredibly excited to see it transformed with one of my best loved and see where it lead. I did originally start this on patreon, and was around one hundred pages in, but just ended up waiting for the full thing to be released because, whilst I loved the daily doses, I wanted to devour it all in one go, being the horrendously impatient human being that I am.
Was it worth the wait? Yes.
Did it live up to my expectations? Definitely.
I couldn't stop laughing with this one; Averil made me chuckle the whole way through as she battled to adapt to the human world and the challenges that it brought, some completely innocent, some not so much. I have been listening to Labour by Paris Paloma and I think that it definitely fits with Averil's life until her revelations throughout the novel.
Also, I have to say it. . . the headers for the chapters are gorgeous.What a slay.
This book is longer than most of Rebecca F. Kenney's works, but I do think that it worked well. A lot of the time when reading Rebecca's standalones, I find myself wishing that there was more and craving to have an extension of their story, and, although I loved Zoltan and Averil as much as the other characters of Rebecca's I've read, I did feel as if the longer length helped to tie up all of the loose ends of their story whilst having a few chapters to just enjoy them as a couple before it came to an end. Usually, I'm full on Hamilton, and never fully satisfied, but with The Sea Witch, I was. Although, Rebecca could probably write a twenty page novelette and I'd still read it. This is the ninth work of Rebecca's that I've read, I think, and I don't think I'll ever tire of the range of her imagination whilst hitting the nail on my favourite tropes.
4 STARS ✨
We love it when a handsome, angsty sea witch makes a bargain with the daughter of his worst enemy with the full intent of destroying him and ends up falling in love with her, willing to do anything to protect her, in the process.
The Sea Witch is the first standalone in the For the Love of the Villain, where Kenney takes the fairytales we know and love and spin them for an older audience, where everything you thought you knew about the villain is thwarted and we see them interact with our heroes in lights that we are not used to. The Little Mermaid was one of my favourite movies as a child so I was incredibly excited to see it transformed with one of my best loved and see where it lead. I did originally start this on patreon, and was around one hundred pages in, but just ended up waiting for the full thing to be released because, whilst I loved the daily doses, I wanted to devour it all in one go, being the horrendously impatient human being that I am.
Was it worth the wait? Yes.
Did it live up to my expectations? Definitely.
I couldn't stop laughing with this one; Averil made me chuckle the whole way through as she battled to adapt to the human world and the challenges that it brought, some completely innocent, some not so much. I have been listening to Labour by Paris Paloma and I think that it definitely fits with Averil's life until her revelations throughout the novel.
Also, I have to say it. . . the headers for the chapters are gorgeous.
This book is longer than most of Rebecca F. Kenney's works, but I do think that it worked well. A lot of the time when reading Rebecca's standalones, I find myself wishing that there was more and craving to have an extension of their story, and, although I loved Zoltan and Averil as much as the other characters of Rebecca's I've read, I did feel as if the longer length helped to tie up all of the loose ends of their story whilst having a few chapters to just enjoy them as a couple before it came to an end. Usually, I'm full on Hamilton, and never fully satisfied, but with The Sea Witch, I was. Although, Rebecca could probably write a twenty page novelette and I'd still read it. This is the ninth work of Rebecca's that I've read, I think, and I don't think I'll ever tire of the range of her imagination whilst hitting the nail on my favourite tropes.