Review by Booklist Review
Mermaids are real! Executives at Imagine Entertainment know this all too well. Seven years ago, they sent a ship to the Marianas Trench to film a cryptid mockumentary as proof of their existence. But the SS Atargatis was found adrift, with all hands lost. Leaked film footage, which the public believes to be a hoax, showed sea creatures viciously attacking the crew. Now the company's founder and CEO, hoping for redemption, is sending a fully equipped, exploratory vessel back to the deep ocean. The Melusine is jam-packed with security guards, a couple of professional big-game hunters, and several scientists, including Victoria Tory Stewart, sonar expert and sister to the Atargatis reporter, and Dr. Jillian Toth, the world-famous sirenologist who provided the destination for the previous expedition but refused to go on that voyage. The mermaids are still there, and they are hungry. Can anyone hope to survive once the attack begins? Grant follows Feedback (2016) with a fast-paced thriller pitting apex predators against scientific whiz kids in an all-out horrorfest.--Lockley, Lucy Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
There's some solid gore and nastiness in this sequel to Grant's novella Rolling in the Deep, but a mix of overwrought prose and questionable decisions prevent it from being much more than a 1990s horror throwback. Years after the ship Atargatis disappeared while attempting to film a fake mermaid documentary for Imagine Entertainment (a fictional company in the SyFy vein that inexplicably shares a name and nothing else with a real studio), the company finally decides to send another expedition, this time one with actual scientists. Key among the crew are marine biologist Victoria "Tory" Stewart, whose sister vanished on the Atargatis, and Dr. Jillian Toth, a sirenologist who considers herself a leading expert on mermaids. Grant's concept-mermaids as vicious creatures-is golden (and a late revelation about their biology is pretty nifty), but the prose gets bogged down in cliché ("She would show them all" appears, unironically, as a standalone paragraph) and long and meandering passages with little payoff. The neat hook and Grant's fan base will still prop the book up, but there's too little depth in these depths. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Seven years ago, the Atargatis sailed on a voyage to the Mariana Trench in the Pacific to film a mocumentary about the mythological mermaids said to live in the trench. Six weeks later, the ship was discovered adrift with no survivors. Now a new team sets out to seek answers. For young marine biologist -Victoria -Stewart, it is finally her chance to determine what happened to her sister on that previous doomed trip-and to avoid the same fate. VERDICT Grant's ("Newsflesh" series) skillfully crafted story combines science, horror, and mystery into a gripping novel of terror on the sea. Readers will never look at mermaids in the same way again. [Previewed in Marlene Harris's "Galaxy Quests" sf/fantasy preview, LJ 4/15/17.]-KC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
