Sometimes following your heart can end up destroying the ones you love.
When seventeen-year-old Eviana Dumahl is faced with the responsibility of an arranged marriage and clan leadership, she is forced to choose between the life required of a mermaid and one of a teenage girl simply infatuated with the wrong guy. Kain, her devoted fiancé would make a wonderful husband except that she’s been in love with Brendan, a shape-shifting selkie, ever since they were kids. Choosing to abandon her family, her clan, and her life with Kain will have dire consequences far beyond anything she could have imagined.
A war is brewing amongst the clans and Eviana unwittingly becomes a pawn in the intricate schemes of a twisted mastermind. With Brendan’s life on the line, she has no choice but to involve those who she once considered friends. Amidst encountering senseless tragedies and immense loss, Eviana discovers that she is more valuable as a clan leader than anyone ever suspected. Her survival is not only dependent upon the loyalty of her friends, but also on her acceptance of a life that she had so adamantly tried to escape.
Promises is the first book of The Syrenka Series trilogy following Eviana and her friends through the perils of growing up in a discrete world that inherently threatens human society.
I'm so, so happy I got to read this book. First, I haven't read a book with mermaids before (unless you count The Little Mermaid, but that was ages ago), so this was new territory for me. Second, it's fantasy, so I knew for sure that I was going to love this book.
What I loved about this book is that you get to see each and every character both as a sea creatures and as humans. That was very interesting. And I loved the fact that mermaids are presented as being on top of the food chain. It was fun to see other creatures besides vampires that could be rulers of all races.
There were also mythological references about mermaids and how they created and when. Then there are the selkie references and I was so happy about that. If I didn't met many mermaids in my books, I hear a lot of stories about selkies and I was excited to see them included in the fantasy world, because I believe they are very interesting creatures. Plus, it's fresh. I mean, how many creatures get to shift into an animal dressing in the skin of said animal?
Besides the fact that she's a mermaid, Eviana seemed like a normal teenager to me. A girl that's stubborn, strong willed, brave. She's in love with a selkie shifter, but she's been promised to another boy since she was a little girl. You can call it a love triangle and you wouldn't be mistaken. She loves Brendan, even though everyone is against their relationship, and she chooses to run away with him. She has a sense of right and wrong, more than I expected. Yes, part of why she ran away was because of her rebelliousness, but it was also because the idea of being married to one guy and being in love with another was wrong. She's also very naive, but that is mostly due to her mother, who never thought of sharing details of the things she was supposed to expect once Eviana became a clan leader. I didn't really like her mom very much because of that.
There were a lot of surprises and a lot of twists and turns that I didn't expect. Also, I didn't expect to like Kain. I liked Brendan, the selkie, a lot, but I was expecting a dull Kain, not a hot, swoon-worthy Kain. I love the fact that both guys are really strong characters.
And, in case you didn't notice, this book has an AMAZING cover! I would stare at that cover over and over again, without getting tired. In fact, all covers in this series are amazing, gorgeous, beautiful.
I say you should definitely read this book. If you like fantasy and YA, you really should try it! And at the end of this book you'll find a sneak peak for the next book in the series, Betrayal.
