Name: Everblue
Rating: 3.714285714285714 (21 reviews)
ISBN: 9780982903391

Brenda Pandos

As two friends are getting ready to go away to college, one disappears with a family secret.

Everblue

She wanted her life to change... he wanted his to stay the same. Best friends share everything with each other. Or do they? Seventeen-year-old Ashlyn Frances Lanski is tired of her boring, single life. Spending time with her best friend Tatiana, dreaming about kissing Tatiana's twin brother Fin, and swimming competitively are her only sanctuary. The girls plan to leave their drab lakeside town far behind for college. But when Tatchi fails to return home after a family emergency, and no one knows where the family has gone, Ash chooses to do something drastic to find them. Ashlyn is about to discover what she'd thought to be true her whole life, wasn't, and the truth, too fantastical to imagine.

Eleanor Luhar

Ah, who doesn't love a good mermaid story?

I started reading this a while ago, but never got to the end. This time I actually finished it, and am about to start the sequel, Evergreen.

Basically, Ashlyn's best friend, Tatiana, is a mermaid. Her whole family are mer, including her twin brother Finley, Ash's long-term crush. Their father guards the Lake Tahoe gate to Natatoria, the underwater land of the mer.

When their dad is requested for a mission, the twins and their mother are stuck in Natatoria. Meanwhile, Ash is getting close to the most popular guy at school, while worrying herself to death about her friends' disappearance.

Fin sneaks out of the gate without permission, witnessing Ashlyn falling off a boat and injuring herself. The only way to save her would require the life-long joining of their souls. As punishment, Fin is thrown in an underwater prison, until Tatchi breaks him out and the pair escape Natatoria together. Again, they are captured - only this time, their punishment is to be promised. For mer, a promising is more powerful than marriage. But Fin is already promised to Ash, and he refuses to allow Tatch to be promised to someone she loathes so much.

Their father returns to break them out of Natatoria for good, but for Tatch he's too late. The family flees without her, blocking up the gate in Tahoe. For a while, Fin and Ash finally get to be together, until the family receives word of mermen heading their way.

I'm really not a romance person, especially not cheesy romance. I do love a good mermaid book, and the way this is about a human girl and a merman (as opposed to the other way round) is refreshing. But it's just a bit too lovey-dovey for me, and rather predictable.

Ashlyn herself seems to overreact rather a lot, and a lot of her "serious" problems are pretty, well, stupid. To be fair, I know of a few teens that would react in a similar manner, but they are not the kind of people I want to be around. So basically, Ash got on my nerves a bit throughout this book.

Natatoria is nicely developed, and the story behind the king and his son's love for Tatch is a good detail. It's not an ordinary mermaid book, but still has a nice hint of magic and mystery.

It's a relatively easy read, but a bit too cheesy for my taste. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. 3 stars for Everblue.

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Renee Delcourt

In love

No seriously. I am in love with this book and series already. It did take me a little bit to get into it. 
The book follows Ashlyn, Finley, and Tatiana. Finley and Tatiana are twins with a secret. Ashlyn is best friends with Tatiana and has had a long standing crush on Finley. When the twins leave suddenly Ash starts to think something bad must have happened to them since she and Tatchie had been planning to go to Florida for college together. From then on things just get weird. Some guy named Collin is breaking into Finley's car and she can't shake the feeling that something is wrong.

The story takes place at Lake Tahoe as well as a fictional realm of merpeople. 

This book was packed with a little bit of action and a lot of fantasy. I loved it. It's a different take on the myths surrounding mermaids. It's definitely unique and beautifully written. The story switches off between Ash and Finley. It's definitely a romance, but it almost doesn't seem like that at first since most of the story Fin and Ash aren't anywhere near each other.

I would suggest this book to anyone who loves fantasy or romance. I will be buying the rest of the books.

Everblue

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