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|date=February 2012
|website=http://web.me.com/triciarayburn
|summary=Not quite as good as the first in this trilogy, Tricia Rayburn's latest paranormal offering is still worth checking out thanks to her excellent writing style and a great ending which sets up the concluding installment instalment well.
|cover=0571273963
|aznuk=0571273963
As always with my sequel reviews, spoilers ahead. Fairly major ones, at that. You have been warned!
Also, a quick Public Service Announcement. Pulse is book 2 in the Siren series, the sequel to [[Siren by Tricia Rayburn|Siren]]. It was published in America as ''Undercurrent'', which had me confused for months. Not saying anyone else would be as easily confused as me, but just mentioning it...
Right, onto the review. Vanessa and her family have returned home from Winter Harbor, with Paige in tow due to the deaths of her sister and mother. Now in a relationship with Simon, Vanessa should be happy - but she's struggling to adjust to life as a siren, and is still keeping her secret from everyone. Disturbed as she seems to see Raina and Zara in her thoughts all the time, and confused by the way she affects men now, how can Vanessa move on with her life?
I enjoyed Siren, Tricia Rayburn's first novel in this series, due to its excellent characterisation and the outstanding development of the relationship between Simon and Vanessa. I was expecting more of the same here, and have to be honest and admit that I was just a tiny bit disappointed. Most of the characters from the first book (except for Vanessa herself, of course) fade into the background slightly here as we move towards something of a standard love triangle plot between Vanessa, Simon, and heartthrob Parker King. Parker is a really good character, in fairness, but the relationship between Simon and Vanessa was so good in book one that it seems a shame to sideline Simon for large amounts of this one. Similarly, I really enjoyed Paige, her grandmother Betty, and local writer Oliver in the original, and all of them have fairly small parts in this one.
Having said that, it's by no means all bad news. The paranormal aspect - which I'd thought in the first book was somewhat less impressive than the human relationships - is well-handled and builds to a really exciting climax. There's also an intriguing subplot as Vanessa deals with her anger at finding her family had lied to her for so long, and tries to find out more about her real mother. As well as this, I still love Rayburn's writing style, especially when it comes to descriptions of Winter Harbor and the atmosphere she creates there.
All in all, this is perhaps not quite up to Siren's standards, but as a series , this is still an enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to the conclusion, Dark Water.
My absolute favourite supernatural series is The Caster Chronicles, starting with [[Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl]]. For a rather lighter paranormal tale of sea-dwelling creatures, the incredibly cute [[Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs]] is an absolute gem. We also have a review of [[Abyss: A Siren Book by Tricia Rayburn]].
{{amazontext|amazon=0571273963}}
