Good mermaid books must be hard to write. The last few I've read, "Wake" included, all suffered from the same problem of too much setting up of the scenario and very little action. In and of itself, that would be all right with good character development and plotting, but there is decidedly little tension in "Wake." The reader learns up front who the bad guys (girls) are and the rest of the book is essentially waiting for the protagonist, Gemma, to catch up. When there is no tension, conflict gets reduced to mere worry. There is also no surprise in the actions of the villains because they are all evil...with no shades of grey, their actions become predictable - especially in the context of a fairly standard storyline. I kind of expected more. I am a big Hocking fan and I was expecting characters with quirky idiosyncrasies to add humor and depth to the story, but that was missing in "Wake."

Another thing Hocking does in "Wake" is explain the characters' motivations through copious narration rather than crafting action and dialogue that explains itself. What that meant for me was that I could not get lost into the book because every time my emotions were engaged, the blunt narrative explanation would interrupt me, pulling me out of my emotions and into my thinking mind. Part of the problem is that Hocking is showing the two viewpoints of the two sisters, Gemma and Harper, but doing it through third person narration rather than letting the characters speak for themselves. Sometimes the narration read like a screenplay rather than a novel.

I love Amanda Hocking and I will read anything she writes. But, I really hope the action and dynamic tension picks up in "Lullaby."