Publisher: DAW
339 pages
2009
Source: Birthday present
Description: There is an old story — you might have heard it — about a young mermaid, the daughter of a king, who saved the life of a human prince and fell in love.
So innocent was her love, so pure her devotion, that she would pay any price for the chance to be with her prince. She gave up her voice, her family, and the sea, and became human. But the prince had fallen in love with another woman.
The tales say the little mermaid sacrificed her own life so that her beloved prince could find happiness with his bride.
The tales lie. (From the back cover.)
Review: This is the second book in a series that takes Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty, and answers two important questions 1)What happened after the fairy tales ended? and 2)What if these heroines kicked ass? You don't need to read the first book, The Stepsister Scheme, to understand this one, but I'd recommend reading it first. (Mainly, because it's a good book.)
The series is a lot of fun, but if you're only familiar with the Disney version of fairy tales, some of the elements in the character backgrounds are going to seem very dark, especially Talia's (aka Sleeping Beauty.) Her's can seem pretty dark, even if you're familiar with the the Brothers Grimm version of the story.
As the back cover hints at, the events of The Little Mermaid in this world are rather a bit more depressing than the original. The events of this story take place afterwards, but we do get bits and pieces of what happened. However, these are well balanced with action and humor.
I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as I enjoyed the first book. The story didn't flow quite as cleanly, since this story requires our heroines to spend far more time traveling and trying to figure things out, but I still enjoyed it.
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