The Mermaid's Madness

by Jim C. Hines

Book Overview

What would happen if a star writer went back to the darker themes of the original fairy tales for plots, and then crossed the Disney princesses with Charlie's Angels ? What he'd end up with is The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0756405831
• ISBN13: 9780756405830
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: Daw Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.1" x 6.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Always remember, the weirder the fantasy mashup...

...The more convincingly real the characters must be. This book does it quite well. I've read Goblin Quest by the same author and found it fun, so I thought I would try something from his other series. So I picked up The Mermaid's Madness. And it is a series. Surprisingly, it seems to be written episodically rather than as a serial, which makes me a little happier every time I run across it. It works with The Dresden Files and It works here too. I didn't feel lost by starting "in the middle" at all. I really, really liked the re-envisioning of "the Little Mermaid." I am familiar with the original bloody tale and I found this new take with its slight twist and liberal dose of intrigue-mixed action rather fun. Main characters weren't obnoxious... The villain had read the Evil Overlord's Not to Do list... Pacing was nicely done... It all added up to a book that I had a harder and harder time putting down. Snow (Snow White) was by far my least favorite part of the book. For a sorceress, she sure seemed to have big problems focusing... especially if some fine looking example of the male of the species came wandering around. I found that whole trope a little overdone by the middle of the book. I also thanked all the muses of writing that by the end it added a measure of awkwardness to offset it. I also have the feeling that someone (preferably Talia) always needs to be around to knock sense into her at times. Lannadae was also somewhat irksome, albeit in a much smaller way. She had just a little too much of the "damsel in distress" coupled with a lot of naivete about her for me to enjoy her presence overmuch. Lirea (the Little Mermaid) by contrast be came more and more interesting as the story progressed. She read less and less like a single minded raging creature of vengeance and more like a creature deserving of caution laced with a profound sense of pity for the trials she had been put through. At some point I stopped hoping that Talia would beat her skull in and rather that Lirea would be locked into a padded room wearing a jacket with very long sleeves. And to top it all off, I didn't feel like I was being led by the nose to come to this conclusion, that Lirea's parts were written convincingly enough for me to feel sorry for her. The over arching plot was cleverly done, as I said before. I always enjoy it when I'm kept guessing about who exactly is the one pulling the strings until at least halfway through the book. I really liked how a lot of the villain's motivations were bound up and through a certain abalone knife. I liked the other two of the super girl power trio a lot better. Danielle's (Cinderella's) adventures as meshed in with her new position as Princess of the Realm really worked. I appreciated the politicking that occurred as fallout from incidents in the storyline. I also found the small quiet moments where she spent time with Jakob and Armand delicately sweet. They balanced out the butt-kicking parts nicely. Congratulations

Enjoyed it more than the first.......

Just finished reading this book last night, and WOW, what a good book. I was on pins and needles throughout the whole exciting book. Jim has the amazing ability to bring three of our favorite Fair-Tale Princesses, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella to realistic life, only in his books these girls are now called, Snow, Talia and Danielle. This book to me is better than the first, because our girl's personalities are becoming more announced, and we also learn more about they're past and possilbility's of they're lives in future books. This book is about the story of Lirea, the little Mermaid. I won't go into a synopsis because other reviewers have, but I was blown away at the ending of the book. I will never see the story the same way again. Can't wait for the third book of this series, but I have to wait another whole year. Called Hood's Revenge it should be very exciting, if you want excitement,humor and a little sadness with your Fairie Tales read these books, you will be glad that you did.

Great Book!

This sequel to "The Stepsister Scheme" is everything I had hoped it would be. I love the strong female characters and the twists on classic fairy tales. Sometimes when writing adaptations of old characters they can be shallow. This is not the case for the characters in this book series. I enjoyed the unpredictable events and original storyline and am eagerly looking forward to the next book in the series!

More thrilling heroics for the princesses!

Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty - the three princess heroines of The Stepsister Scheme are back in this much (for me) anticipated sequel! What happens after the fairy tale ends? That's the essential question that Hines's series attempts to answer. The first book tells us the fates of Cinderella (Danielle) after she's married her prince, of Sleeping Beauty (Talia) after she's awakened from her long sleep, and of Snow White (Snow), after she's escaped the murderous intentions of her stepmother. Hines takes the darker versions of these tales, and twists them into something highly original and new. The three familiar princesses now serve Danielle's mother-in-law, Queen Beatrice of Lorindar, going on secret missions to aid diplomacy, stop wars, save princes, and protect the kingdom, where Danielle is now Princess. I've been waiting for The Mermaid's Madness literally since I finished the last page of The Stepsister Scheme. It was the sort of book that made you want to keep reading, that made you want to stay in the world and find out what happens next. The title alone, but virtue of the fairy tale roots of this series, lets us know right where we're starting off. With the tragic tale of the little mermaid. But with Hines at the helm, the tragedy of the story is twisted into something much more complex. We begin with Princess Danielle on a mission of diplomacy with Queen Beatrice, their yearly tithe and renewal of peace with the merfolk, who prefer to be called undine. Since the undine are usually a matriarchal culture, it makes sense for the Princess and Queen to take the lead. Unfortunately, things go very wrong, very quickly. For instead of the King they are expecting, they are greeted by his mad daughter, Lirea, wronged by her human lover and looking for vengeance against all humans. In the ensuing conflict, Queen Beatrice is grievously injured. This leaves Danielle and her friends Talia and Snow to find both a cure for her ailment, and to find a way to stop Lirea from making war against their kingdom - and all of humanity. Of course, it's much more complicated than that, as the girls quickly discover. Once again, Hines gives us excellent world building and characterization. We get to see a bit more of Danielle's Prince Armand in this one, which I appreciated quite a bit. We feel so much of her love for him in the last book, but in this one we actually get to see them interact as a couple. New characters are introduced, as well - the mad Lirea and her sister, Lannadae, and a new Prince of a neighboring kingdom, who I'm guessing just may return for future books. But the heart of the series is the relationships between our three princesses, and Hines does an excellent job portraying the myriad ups and downs of the bonds of love and friendship so important between a woman and her best friends. The girls argue, fight together and for each other, and hold each other up when needed. We find out a few more details fro

Sequel to The Stepsister Scheme.

When the princesses travel by ship to the kingdom of the mermen and mermaids, the Queen is attacked by a mermaid princess. The Queen's body is badly wounded, but her soul has left. As Danielle, Snow, and Talia rush to save their beloved Queen, they must hunt down the mermaid and recover her magical knife that has somehow captured the soul of the Queen. But the little mermaid has a story of her own, and it's quite different than what the storybooks say. In the The Stepsister Scheme, we are introduced to Danielle Whiteshore (Cinderella), Talia (Sleeping Beauty) and Snow (White). The three princesses have a much darker history than the stories say. They aren't princesses that need rescuing. Each has their own gifts and abilities to save themselves, and those they love. When their mother-figure, the Queen, is in mortal peril, the princesses once again show sterner stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, even more than the first. With a huge twist on the Little Mermaid story, the princesses stand up against the dangers of the sea as well as odd magic from a legendary sea witch. Steeped in adventure and danger, this dark fairytale is like no other. And a huge twist in the story had me at the edge of my seat until the very end. Fantasy and fairytale fans beware; you'll be hooked on this mermaid's tale.