Abyss: A Siren Book by Tricia Rayburn
As usual when I review sequels, spoilers – and fairly major ones at that – for the first two books in this trilogy, Siren and Pulse.
| Abyss: A Siren Book by Tricia Rayburn | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Robert James
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| Summary: Despite a slightly anti-climactic ending, this third in Tricia Rayburn's Siren trilogy has strong enough characters and an impressively dark streak to make it, and the series, worth recommending | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 416 | Date: February 2013 |
| Publisher: Faber and Faber | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0571273966 | |
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Vanessa is getting weaker and weaker, unwilling to use her powers of seduction to kill someone as she must do if she doesn't want to die herself. When there are more deaths, and Vanessa starts receiving anonymous messages from someone who seems to know her secret, she must work out whether she's ready to face her destiny.
I really enjoyed the first book in this series, thanks to wonderful characterisation and an interesting mythology which Rayburn has created for her sirens, but felt the second suffered from a love triangle seeming to be shoehorned in and my favourite characters from book 1 not playing too much of a part in it. Here, it’s great to see Vanessa’s friend Paige and love interest Simon featuring far more heavily, and the relationship between Vanessa and Simon – as she tries to work out if he loves her naturally or due to her siren powers, and if he can come to terms with everything she needs to do to survive – is excellent. We also get to see more of Vanessa's birth mother, and there's a couple of intriguing new characters, in particular Vanessa and Paige's new work colleague Natalie.
In addition to the strong characters, it’s an exciting read, with more bodies turning up and Vanessa and her friends frantically trying to work out what’s happening, and is also one of the darkest teen novels I’ve read recently, with Vanessa constantly being reminded of what she needs to do in order to survive.
The main issue I had with this one was an anti-climactic ending – the final confrontation seemed to be rather too short for my liking; this was particularly noticeable given just how well-written the endings to the first two books were, leaving me on tenterhooks both times. Despite this, it’s still well worth reading and the trilogy overall is one that I’d certainly recommend to fans of paranormal romances.
For more dark paranormal romance, Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl is the first book in one of my very favourite series. If you're after a frothier sort of mermaid, I loved Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs.
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