If you love the idea of enemies to lovers, mermaids, and fighting for peace, Oceansong is for you. This one gives Romeo and Juliet meets mortal enemies. Plus mermaids! Keep reading this book review of Oceansong for my full thoughts.
Summary
Fish are mysteriously disappearing, starving the people in Angie Song’s Alaskan hometown. Angie, a snarky, guarded aspiring marine biologist and dock worker, enthusiastically joins the hunt to find out where the fish are gathering. When her family and the villagers discover that merfolk are responsible, they vow to destroy every last one. In the midst of the conflict, Angie faces off with a merman and fails to pull the trigger.
Inquisitive Mer-Prince Kaden is just as snarky as Angie, but he’s willing to talk and stop the brutal massacring of his people. The two form a cautious alliance to broker peace between the humans and mer before any more of them die.
Angie’s family becomes suspicious of her time near the water and threatens her future career. If the Mer-King and Queen learn of Kaden fleeing to the surface from an engagement he doesn’t want and falling for a landwalker, he’ll be exiled.
As tensions clash in this modern-day Romeo and Juliet meets The Little Mermaid, no one is safe in the desperate fight to control the sea’s resources. Despite the risks, Angie and Kaden’s forbidden relationship ignites. And as she learns about the mer’s mysterious world and the reason why the fish are gone, Angie starts to question who the true monster is, and where her loyalties lie. Taking the wrong side means choosing between family and her job, or the man she’s fallen for and the merfolk she’s come to respect—or losing it all.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the author. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Oceansong is a book that explores fear, survival, ignorance, and hatred. With a basis of enemies, it explores how easily people rise to dehumanization, to ignorant and cruel remarks, when they feel threatened. How a cycle of violence, retribution, and revenge only leads to continual bloodshed. It exposes the cruelty of humanity. The ways we lash out, destroy, and take when we feel like we have to protect who we love. It becomes an Us versus Them.
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How do we ever escape the vicious cycle? Oceansong examines how we can be united by fear. At the same time, it’s also a love story. A story of enemies who learn that there’s more similarities than they thought. That with an open mind and heart, there’s a path forward. While the resolution felt a bit hasty in some ways, I enjoyed Oceansong. It’s been way too long since I’ve read a book with mermaids and the chemistry between Angie and Kaden was certainly cute!
Find Oceansong on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.