Book Review (66).

Tempest Rising (Tempest #1)

by Tracy Deebs

Publication: 1st September 2011

Publisher: Bloomsbury Australia

Pages: 341

Genre: Paranormal

Age Appropriate: Young Adult

Tempest Maguire wants nothing more than to surf the killer waves near her California home; continue her steady relationship with her boyfriend, Mark; and take care of her brothers and surfer dad. But Tempest is half mermaid, and as her seventeenth birthday approaches, she will have to decide whether to remain on land or give herself to the ocean like her mother. The pull of the water becomes as insistent as her attraction to Kai, a gorgeous surfer whose uncanny abilities hint at an otherworldly identity as well. And when Tempest does finally give in to the water's temptation and enters a fantastical underwater world, she finds that a larger destiny awaits her—and that the entire ocean's future hangs in the balance.

My Thoughts.

Tempest Rising was such a great book and definately different from the current mermaid books out there.

It's about a girl named Tempest who is fast approaching her seventeenth birthday when she will have to decide to stay human or become a mermaid like her Mum who left six years ago on Tempest's eleventh birthday, and never came back, and it's the resentment that she holds for her Mum leaving that makes her want to never become a mermaid.

Tempest with her Father helped raise her two younger brothers and with her boyfriend Mark she's happy out surfing the waves at the beach, while out one day at the beach she meets a mysterious boy named Kona who she feels instantly attracted to.

After gills appear and a tattoo on her back at her seventeenth birthday party and a mysterious glow that envelops her body she makes it to the beach across from her house and is attacked by the Sea Witch who first came after her when she was a little girl, which ties in to her Mum and a prophecy which she's told she is a part of.

And after Kona  is struck by lightening she finds the the only way to save him is to drag him into the ocean which begins her transformation eventually into a mermaid.

While down below she finds her mother, I wasn't happy how this part of the storyline played out it was very abrupt and I felt that it should have been resolved a lot better than it was.

I liked both worlds and how Tempest struggled to figure out where she really belonged.

A great story with beautiful imagery and a fresh take on the mermaid mythology.

I'm definately looking forward to the next book in this series.

I give this 4/5.

A Big Thanks To Sonia @ Bloomsbury Australia.