The Upstream Writer: Reader's Review: "Verona--The Complete Mermaid Tales" by Pauline Creeden

Synopses from Amazon:

For SCALES...

Verona is a bottom feeder. She is the one mer in her clan who is considered the ugliest and least intelligent. Growing up with the constant bullying and abuse wasn’t the worst of what her kind had in store for her. At seventeen years old, she must now endure “The Reckoning.”

The scales will measure her worth to her clan. Will she endure thirty days as a land-walker to gather information and knowledge to appease her clan and return a valued member? Will she wait three years, until she is twenty, and find a mer of her kind to accept her and marry her? Or will she suffer exile for the rest of her life?

~<>~

For SURFACING...

When Verona choses to stay on land to be with the one she loves, she has no idea how much her life is about to change. It’s the full moon and another of the Mer is coming ashore. She never imagined Bailey would come after her…

Logan’s suffering big changes of his own. His grandmother is hospitalized with a terminal illness. The woman he loves is something he never would have thought possible… a mermaid. But he has new competition for her feelings in the form of a merman. And there’s another, bigger problem surfacing. His body is undergoing changes he can barely comprehend. Now, he can’t get the witch’s voice out of his head.

Another full moon approaches… And the witch wants to take lives, break hearts, and enslave Logan. Will they be able to stop the witch, or will it mean Verona will have to give up everything she loves and return to the sea?

>>>>>>

My Review:

Now that's how you tell a Mermaid story!

Pauline Creeden lends a fresh voice to urban fantasy with the tale of Verona, the outcast mermaid who comes ashore on the island of Chincoteague, off the coast of Virginia. I had already read Submerged, the prequel novella, and Salt, the first novel in the series, so all that remained was to read Scales and Surfacing to get the full effect--and what an effect it was!

Scales tells essentially the same story as Submerged, but from Verona's perspective, rather than Bailey's. I was immensely pleased to watch the old "familiar" scenes play out, with all of the same dialogue... but the implication is different when the perspective changes. Still, Creeden keeps it all consistent, allowing Verona's story to be revealed in more detail and coloring her with more sympathy by disclosing her thoughts and impressions and feelings, the same way she also evoked a sense of understanding why Bailey would respond the way he did, based on his own thoughts and impressions, as impassive as they were!

The means of introducing Verona to life on the shore was a brilliant, gradual approach: from the wild ponies of Assateague as her first land-creature, then to the harbor of Chincoteague where she learned of human conventions from watching soap operas and game shows through the window of one woman's boat. Her interactions with Bailey are a brilliant depiction of how intention can be misinterpreted, and a desire to help can look like a bid for manipulation, if the trust is not there.

Then Surfacing comes as the sequel to Salt, and brings everything Creeden has built to a rousing conclusion. There's just more of everything: more interactions with Bailey as he comes ashore, determined to convince Verona to go back with him or risk never returning, himself. More peril from werewolves and witches--the network of balanced connection Creeden has created with her lore (whether original or based in common folklore) is just fantastic! There is more worry and sorrow for Logan, as he wrestles with Bailey's negative view of his friendship with Verona, the increasing peril for his friends and family, the longer they go unwittingly interacting with these mermaids who are being hunted by wolf-shifters controlled by witches from the mainland--and his own increasing attachment to Verona herself. It's breathtakingly beautiful, riveting, and simple all at the same time, and I couldn't stop reading until I'd finished it!

I'm definitely giving VERONA: THE COMPLETE MERMAID TALES a full *****5 STAR***** rating, and adding an Upstream Writer Certified WHOLEHEARTEDLY RECOMMENDED endorsement, not just for its excellent treatment of the subject matter and some healthy moral lessons, but the overall "cleanliness" of the story (sans the witchcraft aspect, but even that's depicted as a tool of the enemy) makes it a fantasy story worth reading. It's vivid, it's tangible, it's an experience like no other--when you read this book, you'll come away feeling like you've seen a real live mermaid, not just the cheap, splashy fantasy tales set in fictional locations that don't actually feel like a real place. In Creeden's stories, you feel the gritty sand, you taste the salty air, you smell the briny seawater. Her skill as a writer really does make Verona--dare I say it???--part of your world. It's perfect summer reading for mermaid-lovers anywhere!

Further Reading: (Also By The Author/Clean Reads/Beaches/Mermaids/Urban Fantasy)

Verona: The Complete Mermaid Tales--Pauline Creeden