Songs from the Deep by Kelly Powell — ARC Review

Summary:

A girl searches for a killer on an island where deadly sirens lurk just beneath the waves in this gripping, atmospheric debut novel.

The sea holds many secrets.

Moira Alexander has always been fascinated by the deadly sirens who lurk along the shores of her island town. Even though their haunting songs can lure anyone to a swift and watery grave, she gets as close to them as she can, playing her violin on the edge of the enchanted sea. When a young boy is found dead on the beach, the islanders assume that he’s one of the sirens’ victims. Moira isn’t so sure.

Certain that someone has framed the boy’s death as a siren attack, Moira convinces her childhood friend, the lighthouse keeper Jude Osric, to help her find the real killer, rekindling their friendship in the process. With townspeople itching to hunt the sirens down, and their own secrets threatening to unravel their fragile new alliance, Moira and Jude must race against time to stop the killer before it’s too late—for humans and sirens alike.

Review: 3 Stars

When I first saw Songs from the Deep I was pretty excited. I feel like there aren’t many books out there about mermaids or sirens and I was very excited to see how sirens were depicted in this novel. I really wanted to love this book, but I just didn’t. Songs from the Deep wound up being more of a murder mystery and hardly wound up having sirens as a part of the story at all. It just wasn’t what I expected it to be and I found myself pretty disappointed.

The romance in this book was something that really bothered me. Throughout most of the book I didn’t even realize that Moira had feelings for Jude. The two of them just seemed like they were friends. I felt like the romance had no sparks to it at all and it certainly didn’t feel real to me. I think Jude and Moira made good friends, but in YA I feel like unnecessary romances are thrown into stories all the time, I think part of the reason it didn’t feel real is because these characters lacked emotional depth. I didn’t find myself very invested in their story and the characters never made me feel emotional.

The plot was not really what I ha expected, but it did keep my interest and even though I didn’t find the book extremely compelling I did finish the book pretty fast. Th murder mystery didn’t keep me on the edge of my seat and the way it turned out didn’t really shock me, but it did keep me interested in the story. Songs from the Deep had a gothic feel to it that I really liked, but it just felt like it was lacking many elements. I had expected this book to be about sirens and to really fascinate me, but for the most part the sirens were seen from a distance. There was only one scene where a siren was seen up close. The story was more about how the townspeople felt about the sirens instead.

I had pretty high expectations for this book and it just didn’t live up to them. The murder  mystery kept em from putting the book down, but it didn’t have any great plot twists or keep me on the edge of my seat. I didn’t love the characters or the plot and I was pretty disappointed by how little the sirens appeared in the story.

Author Bio

Kelly Powell has a bachelor’s degree in history and book and media studies from the University of Toronto. She currently lives in Ontario. Songs from the Deep is her debut novel.