Sea Treasure by Johanna Hailey

 

DNF @ p.110

Have you ever read a book where even though you didn't like it, you were still charmed by the author(s)? That was me with this book. Johanna Hailey is a pseudonym used by two authors, Marcia Howl and Sharon Jarvis, who I believe were both bodice-ripper authors. They have a fun high fantasy romance series under this name called the Paradise series and it is charming and fun, but this book was-- if you pardon the mermaid pun-- a flop.

It's a shame because the premise is SO good. A pirate and a mermaid romance that sort of has a Count of Montecristo revenge plot underpinning it? That sounds so awesome. And the beginning is great. Michael Glenmorgan has watched his entire world crumble to ruin thanks to his enemies and his ex-fiancee. His father uanlived himself from the shame and he can't go back to his mother, at the risk of putting her in danger. When he's shot, Meg the mermaid pulls him from the waves. Oh my god it literally feels like Little Mermaid fanfiction.

The problem is that it's just too long and the purple prose bogs it down too much. Paradise worked where this one did not because it's a fully immersive fantasy world and the info dumping felt more charming and zany than it did boring. Both of these authors clearly have a lot of fun writing and their books have the vibe of someone who really likes unicorns and spent a lot of their formative years writing fanfiction. Which, OBVIOUSLY, I approve of. And it works in some of their other books but not in this one, which is a shame because it was quite hard to hunt a copy of this one down.

I might come back to this another time but probably not. I skimmed a little and it seemed boring. RIP.

2 out of 5 stars