135) Siren by Tricia Rayburn

The Blurb :

Vacationing in Winter Harbor, Maine, is a tradition for Vanessa and Justine Sands, and that means spending time with the Carmichael boys. This summer, Vanessa is determined to channel some of her older sister’s boldness, get over her fear of the ocean, and maybe turn her friendship with Simon Carmichael into something much more.
But when Justine goes cliff-diving after a big family argument, and her body washes ashore the next day, Vanessa is sure that it was more than an accident. She is more certain of this, when she discovers that her sister was keeping some big secrets and Caleb Carmichael’s gone missing. Suddenly, the entire oceanfront town is abuzz when a series of grim, water-related accidents occur, with the male victims washed ashore grinning from ear to ear.

Vanessa and Simon team up to figure out if these creepy deaths have anything to do with Justine and Caleb. But will what Vanessa discovers mean the end of her summer romance, or even life as she knows it?

My Thoughts :

If I had read this book and not listened to the audiobook I am pretty sure I would have not finished this one. As it was I contemplated giving up on Siren after listening to the first few hours. However I decided to keep going in the hope that the story would warm up and get better as things progressed but as it was I ended up feeling disappointed and bored.

The concept isn't that bad and there is a serious lack of this paranormal type of creature in the genre. However the whole mystery of what was going on in Winter Harbor was ruined by the obvious title of the book. The only mystery was how the lead character Vanessa fit into the whole thing and how she would stop it. Other than that the rest of the story was a slow, yawn filled and unnecessary build up to nothing totally exciting.

What bugged me about this book in particular was the leaps in the story. One minute Vanessa is on holiday and suddenly she is running out of a funeral. I seriously though I had fallen asleep and missed some of the story but it turned out that the author thought it would be cool to give the reader a shock and make them go back (or rewind) and read the previous few pages again.

Also the lack of the paranormal element till the last third of the book left me wondering if I was wrong about this being paranormal at all. I kept asking myself why am I still listening to this? No cool mermaid like creatures or special abilities other than making men smile to death. It was an anti-climatic end to a very long-winded introduction to the creatures I was dying to finally meet.

All in all this story is very tame and certainly quite lame. I hate giving books bad reviews but this one dragged on way too long and didn't really keep me interested most of the time. If a copy of the sequel happens to come into my possession I may give it a go to see if the author manages to rescue the good concept. Otherwise this is one a younger teenager may appreciate despite the characters being in their late teens.