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Bayberry Island #3
Moondance Beach
In the latest Bayberry Island romance from New York Times bestselling author of The Sweetest Summer, it might take more than a magical mermaid statue to bring together a hard-headed Navy SEAL and the mysterious artist who’s loved him from afar....
Duncan Flynn long ago said goodbye to his hometown of Bayberry Island, Massachusetts, where a mermaid statue allegedly grants true love to the pure at heart. So when the injured Navy SEAL gets sent home—just in time to help his family prepare for the annual Mermaid Festival—he’s not in the mood to celebrate. Nor fall in love. But during a night run on the beach, a magnificently naked woman emerges from the surf who bears an uncanny resemblance to the mermaid in Fountain Square.
Adelena Silva’s otherworldly mermaid paintings have made her famous and wealthy, but Lena herself is a recluse—at least until Duncan Flynn comes home. She’s secretly loved him her whole life, and is determined not to let him get away again. But will revealing her truth win his heart, or cause Lena to lose him?
Duncan Flynn long ago said goodbye to his hometown of Bayberry Island, Massachusetts, where a mermaid statue allegedly grants true love to the pure at heart. So when the injured Navy SEAL gets sent home—just in time to help his family prepare for the annual Mermaid Festival—he’s not in the mood to celebrate. Nor fall in love. But during a night run on the beach, a magnificently naked woman emerges from the surf who bears an uncanny resemblance to the mermaid in Fountain Square.
Adelena Silva’s otherworldly mermaid paintings have made her famous and wealthy, but Lena herself is a recluse—at least until Duncan Flynn comes home. She’s secretly loved him her whole life, and is determined not to let him get away again. But will revealing her truth win his heart, or cause Lena to lose him?
352 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2015
53 people are currently reading
926 people want to read
About the author
Susan Donovan
46 books935 followersSUSAN DONOVAN's novels have won accolades for being witty, sexy, and entertaining. A former newspaper reporter with journalism degrees from Northwestern University, Susan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author whose novels have been translated into dozens of languages. Susan is a two-time RITA Award finalist, and her novel TAKE A CHANCE ON ME was named Best Contemporary Romance of 2003 by RT Book Reviews magazine. She lives in New Mexico with her family and dogs.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
dnf
September 30, 2016DNF @43%
It was a huge let down. The story moved very slowly. Although I liked the hero, the heroine really rubbed me the wrong way. In fact, the plot was pretty interesting but it was just…nope, not my cuppa.
I’m sorry.
It was a huge let down. The story moved very slowly. Although I liked the hero, the heroine really rubbed me the wrong way. In fact, the plot was pretty interesting but it was just…nope, not my cuppa.
I’m sorry.
September 4, 2015
This one kept my attention pretty solidly. It was well written and moved along briskly. I liked the hero. The heroine wasn't as well developed. There was a quasi mystical element that didn't really play out clearly. I don't think I've read this author before but I would be willing to try her again.
March 3, 2019
Lovely story about two incomplete people finding their other half..... However, there were many points where I felt like we were being told about the actions the main characters were taking, with not enough SHOWING of them doing it. Also, there was a lot of emotional unpacking that was glossed over at the end. So, only 3 stars.
February 23, 2018
Some strong language in this adult romance set on an island where many of the ladies believe in a mermaid folktale. Unlike the alluring sirens, this mermaid arranges true love. The water isn't warm on Bayberry Island but hearts are big.
I was pleased that even though the two people had known each other for years, the girl had moved there and was of different origins so it wasn't a case of close relatives in a small community.
The man is a Navy Seal who suffered severe injuries and is recovering at a faster pace than his carers would think is wise. The lady is an artist who likes isolation and does well painting mermaid scenes.
What I did get tired of, was the constant padding with the hero's thoughts about his war years and the heroine's childhood memories. Twenty-three years ago... back to the present. Twenty-two years ago.... This really came across as padding, which we stop reading, and I would leave it out except for cold-case crime stories.
If you have read other books about this island (I have) you will be happy with the details about the community, but the constant Mermaid Society involvement can get to feel repetitive.
I read an e-ARC from Fresh Fiction. This is an unbiased review.
I was pleased that even though the two people had known each other for years, the girl had moved there and was of different origins so it wasn't a case of close relatives in a small community.
The man is a Navy Seal who suffered severe injuries and is recovering at a faster pace than his carers would think is wise. The lady is an artist who likes isolation and does well painting mermaid scenes.
What I did get tired of, was the constant padding with the hero's thoughts about his war years and the heroine's childhood memories. Twenty-three years ago... back to the present. Twenty-two years ago.... This really came across as padding, which we stop reading, and I would leave it out except for cold-case crime stories.
If you have read other books about this island (I have) you will be happy with the details about the community, but the constant Mermaid Society involvement can get to feel repetitive.
I read an e-ARC from Fresh Fiction. This is an unbiased review.
December 3, 2019
This was a good read. Duncan is home on leave. He is struggling with the fact that his men died and he didn't. While home he sees Lena. He hasn't seen her in a long time. He of course realizes how beautiful she looks now. They have a fling but of course by the end it was so much more.
May 24, 2019
I added this years ago when I had different tastes, so when I read the summary again this many years later I was turned off by the mention of a magical mermaid statue. It sounds so cheesy and childish, and like a Hallmark movie with a dumb magical object that finds love. I was also really worried at the mention that Adelena had always loved him because that's usually a recipe for a virgin with no experience whatsoever with men and a hero who's the exact opposite. I saw that my library had it and so I thought I'd go ahead and read it.
It started with a pre-birthday party for Frasier, Duncan's dad. He was out with Duncan's brother, Clayton, and Ash and Nat, his brothers in law. Of course the cast has married coupled deliriously happy, who have presumably had their own books before this. Frasier said Duncan didn't want to come home because he didn't want anything to hold him here. Frasier asked the group what makes a man put down roots and of course they had to answer love. Ugh. I felt like puking. Especially when I read that Evelyn came to town to claim Clancy, and Frasier needed to thank her tomorrow. Nat had flew in to produce a show 3 years ago but he met Annie, quit his job, and married her. Ash came to develop the island, with bulldozers and everything, but he met Rowan and he stopped the destruction of the island, and married her...Yuck.
He's a retired Navy SEAL lieutenant who had an accident when his team was part of an explosion that killed his men and injured his leg, leaving him with a limp and a need for daily physical therapy. He would lift the leg 100 times in a day.
Duncan was staying at a B&B and an osprey feather showed up, what he believed to be a gift from his mom. He'd always received gifts from nature ever since he was 10 and confined to his bed, sick and couldn't go outside. Except his mom denied giving it to him and said she'd once thought it was his dad but they both knew he wasn't the type. His mom said he wasn't willing to hear the truth, but Duncan didn't pursue it. So I knew it was going to be dragged out even though it was so obvious. Embarrassingly, Adelena used to follow him around the island when he was in high school. She would sometimes keep him company when he was sick and they'd play checkers. He'd receive hundreds of offerings! She really sent him hundreds of anonymous gifts from nature his entire? That's...pathetic. When Duncan asked "Who could be leaving me all this crap, then and now?" I was embarrassed for her. Seriously, he thinks it's crap.
It was funny when his sister Rowan told him he was a natural with her baby, and that she hopes he has one of his own because he'd make a really good dad. I loved his reaction: his mood went foul and he said "For God's sake, Row."
I don't like cheating and sordid details in a book, absolutely won't tolerate it with main characters, but I don't like it with side characters either. It's upsetting and unfair to ask someone to forgive that. Frasier had dated their mom and Sally the big-boobed bimbo at the same time, and since his separation he's been seeing her. He brought her to his birthday party--he didn't know their mom would be there, but still.
I can't stand matchmakers; they annoy the crap out of me. So when his mom was at the Mayberry Island Mermaid Society meeting talking about true love between Duncan and Lena, I was so irritated. She had been the one putting Lena's provocative mermaid paintings up, and when he took one down, she brought another with more naked skin. Mona said they're not in the right place; Duncan wants to be back on active duty and Lena's consumed with art. He's blind and Lena won't make the first move. One of the women said they're heart-mates (who uses that expression??) and I just wanted the scene to end.
Duncan went running one night and trespassed on Lena's private property, unbeknownst to him, jumping her fence despite the posted signs. As he lay there he saw a tail and then a naked woman emerge and walk past him. And he recognized the legs from seeing Lena's legs at the party as he left. That's all he saw. Yeah, right. You remember someone by their legs. The next day he told Clancy about it and asked what Lena was like and that upset me. (After walking in on Clancy kissing his wife on his desk with her legs wrapped around him. Thank you, authors, for those awkward, unnecessary moments with family). You don't talk about the woman's nudity with your brother. Be classy and respectful and keep it to yourself. I didn't like how he asked why he would want to start dating a woman there, especially one who paid a mermaids. That was disrespectful of her work. The station had taken in a stray dog which was all over Duncan, and that seemed forced. When kids and animals come into a book that's the large indication to me that the author had no idea what to do and it was a last ditch effort. And I so didn't like that Clancy looked up Lena and showed him pictures of her. He hadn't seen her since high school so he should have seen her in the flesh for the first time, not been shown online what she looks like. What a terrible decision to make.
I was absolutely pissed when Sanders, her manager, saw a drawing of Lena's face and said Lena hadn't mentioned the artist in a while, and asked if he was doing okay. He said all of her relationships had imploded because she always told them she couldn't love them because she'd loved the same man since childhood. That was absolutely the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You're attached to someone you haven't seen since high school, and you're 31. Why even get into a relationship in the first place if you don't want to be with anyone else? That's stupid. She said he had to make the first move and it had to be his choice 100%. It did remind me of myself, waiting for the other person to make the move while you sit there for years doing nothing but waiting for something to happen, but didn't tame my disgust and aggravation. But I was happy that she'd had lovers, and the author even used the word wonderful. I almost lost it in shock! A heroine who enjoyed sex with other men; perish the thought!
I didn't like the decisions she made. In Rowen's perspective, (and I couldn't stand all the alternating points of view), Lena came sneaking in at night. Rowen knew that something was going on with Lena and Duncan because they both sneak in at night. Lena was talking about how she's been leaving the gifts, and Rowen and both their moms have always known. Duncan came in and that's how he learned Lena was the one giving him the gifts. And then he kissed her and put her on the kitchen table and that was moving way too fast. I didn't like how any of it played out.
She stopped it, which was good because it was way too soon, but her behavior bothered me. She acted like a fanciful little girl and not a grown woman. She stopped him and said "This is not the way." She told Sanders, who couldn't see any problem with Duncan's behavior, that it was scary and unexpected. She felt out of control and it's not how she pictured it happening. She thought it would be "the two of he slowly getting to know each other again. Having deep conversations and opening up to each other...and maybe then we could segue into a really good kiss or two." Ugh. She sounded like a child.
It was funny when he was helping her out with fans at her tent and a guy raised his shirt to show her his tattoo of her work, and Duncan grabbed him and told him to keep his pants on.
It sucked that he thought she'd stalked him, coming into his territory. When he helped her bring all her stuff back to her house, he asked how she'd done it. She said she knows where every squeaky floorboard is and how to turn the door handle just so...Yeah, she was sounding like a stalker.
In the studio before they left Duncan spied the drawing of her that he'd done when he was 14. He couldn't believe she had it. "Why was she so attached to a silly memory? Why was she so attached to him? What had she continued to leave him little gifts?
Duncan's stomach twisted in knots--it was too much. Her devotion made him deeply uncomfortable; it suffocated him."
Omg, I HATE when the heroines have embarrassing moments like this--and it's always the heroine.
It was insane and way too out there that when she kissed Duncan she received a message that she felt was from a wise woman, a goddess. She told her mentor about it and knowing that her mom came to Bayberry so Lena could meet Duncan. She heard a voice say in her mind that it will take time, he must come to her, and don't give up. Who comes up with this?!
The day he drew her when he was 14 and she was 11, their faces were close and he realize she was pretty and he kissed her. It was his 7th but it was Lena's first. He realized how much younger she was and he really was an ass the way he told her they should forget it ever happened. He's older than her and more mature and she's like his little sister. Them he blew the whole thing off like it didn't matter. It made me dislike him. And I always find it so tragic that characters who met as children didn't get together then and went off to have sexual relationships with other people.
They called Frasier "Da" and their mom "Ma." I kept waiting to hear they were Irish, but it never came.
It was so unrealistic that Duncan, a man, would describe that kiss as unearthly, that he felt something too. Come on. Is this romance or paranormal?
I liked their date at the clambake and that everyone was watching, but it was in Rowan's POV. I hated the choices she kept making for the POVs. I wanted to be in their POVs, not have to witness their date from a third party. But I did like when they were dancing and he told her he had to take her painting down because the mermaid wouldn't give him any peace. The date was cut so short though and so lacking.
One of their mom's friends let slip that they had a good run, and Lena and Duncan would be their last. The mermaid society would have to close because their president left and no one wanted to do it; they're old and it's outdated. They did Annie and Nat, Rowan and Ash, and Clancy and Evie. Rowan wondered if they were taking credit for her marriage but didn't pursue it, like the woman were crazy. I hate matchmakers.
Another reason why I didn't want to read was because I was fairly certain there would be no sex. Some authors you just know, and with this plot line that sounded so childish and a heroine who sounded like a child with a child's wishes, it only cemented that opinion. Especially when it was pg. 238 and they hadn't had sex yet and I feared they never would. They started on pg. 239 and I was shocked by how far she went, taking her dress off on the beach and then undressing him and giving him a hand job and then a blow job. I can't stand that happening their first time. Just ease into it and take it slow.
And it was exactly as I feared. Despite there being a blow job, the details were so lack. She didn't really describe their bodies or give details. It was vague and she went off on a tangent of flowery descriptions and nonsense thoughts that I absolutely loathe.
"They became part of the sea as they became part of each other. And when Duncan cried out and emptied himself inside her, he joined with the salty, life-giving essence of the ocean. With Lena, he returned to his origins."
"..she swore she heard a familiar tune in Duncan's deep whisper, asking her to come with him to the sea of love."
When they finally got down to it, it took about a page and it was her waxing poetic about it and it totally sucked. I also didn't like that they didn't use a condom because they didn't have one. They verified the other was healthy, like that's the only issue! And I was so pissed that Lena told him she hadn't been with a man in 2 years. Of course. Any time an author gives the woman a sexual past, it was so long ago that the hero can have something to be satisfied with; it's always a long drought before the hero. I guess purifying themselves of other men or something. It's outrageous.
They went back to her place and showered together, then had sex repeatedly throughout the night but she skipped over it. AHHH, that makes my blood boil. It's infuriating to be reading a romance with no sex. What's the point?
Lena had questioned him about the accident where he lost his teammates, and they talked about his survivor's guilt. I can't stand when authors have the characters have the exact same situations. He felt like he'd failed them and Lena could personally testify to letting someone down. She took her mentor to the doctors and dropped her off, was supposed to wait for her call to come get her, except she got to painting and didn't hear the call. The elderly woman had walked home and had a stroke walking up the stairs and died. And she feels guilty...so she knew exactly what he was talking about. So perfect.
Right after they had sex the next chapter she jolted us back to the past yet again. She remembered a time when Duncan didn't speak to her anymore, or look at her. He just patted her head and called her a kid. He was really unlikable. I don't like an asshole hero. And for some reason he had like selective memory or something, because he couldn't remember anything and forgot how mean he used to be. At the family party he remembered that he'd kept Clancy and Evie apart as teenagers. He hid a letter Evie wrote to him and it took them 18 years to get together. And he always got away with not apologizing to anyone. Everyone had already forgiven him so he just got off the hook.
After that disastrous birthday party where Frasier brought Sally, I didn't think we'd see her again. But at the party Sally showed up with Frasier again, sharing that she had cancer and she was so jealous of Mona she'd tried to one-up her, but she'd only been catch and release to Frasier. You don't hook up with another woman while you're still married to your wife, and bring the woman there to advocate for you to get back together. It's disgusting how cheating is handled and he didn't deserve her back.
That night Duncan shut down because his family was so accepting of her and he was getting in deep with her when he wasn't going to stay. Stupidly, Lena put up with it and offered to talk, accepting whatever he wanted to give without pushing. I was so annoyed at her. She deserved better than his moody butt shutting down on her.
They had sex when he should have been apologizing. Weirdly, she mentioned the dog going up the stairs with him, but had the dog go to another room. But right after they had sex, she had the dog jump up on the bed and turn its head away like their nakedness was too much. Ew. Why would you have the dog come in after they just had sex? What is up with the dog? Lena said holy moly and he said "Baby Jesus on the B train," whatever that meant. That is some stupid talking.
Duncan had asked why she kept the painting and afterwards she told him about the vision and that it was destiny and she'd loved him ever since. Duncan had to get up and go to the bathroom, then came out and asked her if she believed in the mermaid. She started acting really crazy and no wonder it freaked him out. It would anyone. She kept asking him questions in return. She asked if he was asking her if she believes there's unseen forces and magic in the world, then yes. He asked of she believed in the mermaid and she asked does she believe in mermaids in the sea or the mermaid legend. Then it ended with her saying wasn't he going to ask if she's the mermaid. He went along with it and she said you really want me to answer that? "That was it for him--he'd had enough. Duncan could see the conversation veering off into whether the moon was an alien hovercraft and the mating habits of Bigfoot." He said he couldn't do this and left.
"No wonder he'd left Bayberry and never looked back. This was place created by, and for, crazy people. Looking back, he saw that Lena had done a bang-up job masking her true feelings in those media interviews. No doubt sales would suffer if the world knew she was cuckoo bananas."
This close to the end, and they were having this stupid, ridiculous fight.
Duncan was sitting by the fountain and heard a voice say "she is yours and you are hers."
I couldn't stand his tendency to talk about Lena with other people--and their tendency to always ask him about her. The day of the mermaid ball he told his mom he'd thought Lena was a flake, dreamy and artsy and off in her own la la land. She believes in mystical forces and signs and destiny, the kind of gibberish he heard from his mom. At the ball he told Clancy that his wife lives in the real world but Lena is airy fairy and love only goes so far when your girl tells you she believes in mermaids and implied she was one herself.
The ending pissed me off; I was so mad. Lena left the party and went home, where she lit a candle and ended up falling asleep. She woke to the room burning, her beautifully designed studio and the drawing Duncan had made her. 20 years she had that and then they get together and the author felt the sadistic need to ruin it all. I will never understand decisions like that. And Lena never said anything more about it, like it didn't matter. Cut to one year later and it was the epilogue showing them married and her about to have their daughter. Duncan asked of she'd be a natural swimmer and she answered of course because her dad's a SEAL. Ok, whatever. Weird mermaid crap that's never explained. Is she a mermaid or isn't she? They left off with him thinking she was a witch who really thought she was a mermaid. How can you not address that?!
After that fight I just wanted to be done with these characters that I didn't particularly like.
This lost what it had on the beginning. The last 30% I just wanted to be done. They didn't have enough time together. There was hardly any communication between them. Lena had her head in the clouds the whole time, listening to a prophecy from when she was 11, just surrendering to this great mystery and acting like a child along the way. Really, you don't tell a man you're a mermaid or he's going to head for the hills. And she’s been telling men her whole life that she’s in love with someone else. Except she describes him as a stranger. He is not a stranger. She knew him from age 11 to what, 15? That is not a stranger. Duncan was an asshole to everyone, his siblings and family and Lena, and then he left to join the Navy and stayed gone, only coming back occasionally. He can't commit, is afraid to love, and thinks he needs to rejoin as the only way to honor his fallen comrades. He forgot his entire past and only bits and pieces came to him. He knows he should apologize about things he's done but keeps getting interrupted or forgiven by people who should at least make him say sorry. He continued being a jerk until almost the very end. And the author had Lena have a silly moment, thinking back on her telling Duncan she didn't need him and could take care of herself, but she did need him because she burned the place down and he had to save her life! Way to showcase the woman as forgetful &emotional, who can't be without a man or she'll burn her house down.
The relationship was a fail because Lena was kind of a stalker, coming on too strong, saving the drawing &loving him so long, and Duncan was a total closed-off jerk judging her and her lifestyle.
The legend went unexplained and I couldn't believe it. The whole book there's this mermaid legend, Duncan saw a fintail in the water right before Lena emerged, she told him to ask her if she was one, and her mom’s entire village thought the women in her family were witches. I expect some answers or something, but I got nothing. The whole thing is so flimsy. &she spent as much time in the past as she did in the present.
It started with a pre-birthday party for Frasier, Duncan's dad. He was out with Duncan's brother, Clayton, and Ash and Nat, his brothers in law. Of course the cast has married coupled deliriously happy, who have presumably had their own books before this. Frasier said Duncan didn't want to come home because he didn't want anything to hold him here. Frasier asked the group what makes a man put down roots and of course they had to answer love. Ugh. I felt like puking. Especially when I read that Evelyn came to town to claim Clancy, and Frasier needed to thank her tomorrow. Nat had flew in to produce a show 3 years ago but he met Annie, quit his job, and married her. Ash came to develop the island, with bulldozers and everything, but he met Rowan and he stopped the destruction of the island, and married her...Yuck.
He's a retired Navy SEAL lieutenant who had an accident when his team was part of an explosion that killed his men and injured his leg, leaving him with a limp and a need for daily physical therapy. He would lift the leg 100 times in a day.
Duncan was staying at a B&B and an osprey feather showed up, what he believed to be a gift from his mom. He'd always received gifts from nature ever since he was 10 and confined to his bed, sick and couldn't go outside. Except his mom denied giving it to him and said she'd once thought it was his dad but they both knew he wasn't the type. His mom said he wasn't willing to hear the truth, but Duncan didn't pursue it. So I knew it was going to be dragged out even though it was so obvious. Embarrassingly, Adelena used to follow him around the island when he was in high school. She would sometimes keep him company when he was sick and they'd play checkers. He'd receive hundreds of offerings! She really sent him hundreds of anonymous gifts from nature his entire? That's...pathetic. When Duncan asked "Who could be leaving me all this crap, then and now?" I was embarrassed for her. Seriously, he thinks it's crap.
It was funny when his sister Rowan told him he was a natural with her baby, and that she hopes he has one of his own because he'd make a really good dad. I loved his reaction: his mood went foul and he said "For God's sake, Row."
I don't like cheating and sordid details in a book, absolutely won't tolerate it with main characters, but I don't like it with side characters either. It's upsetting and unfair to ask someone to forgive that. Frasier had dated their mom and Sally the big-boobed bimbo at the same time, and since his separation he's been seeing her. He brought her to his birthday party--he didn't know their mom would be there, but still.
I can't stand matchmakers; they annoy the crap out of me. So when his mom was at the Mayberry Island Mermaid Society meeting talking about true love between Duncan and Lena, I was so irritated. She had been the one putting Lena's provocative mermaid paintings up, and when he took one down, she brought another with more naked skin. Mona said they're not in the right place; Duncan wants to be back on active duty and Lena's consumed with art. He's blind and Lena won't make the first move. One of the women said they're heart-mates (who uses that expression??) and I just wanted the scene to end.
Duncan went running one night and trespassed on Lena's private property, unbeknownst to him, jumping her fence despite the posted signs. As he lay there he saw a tail and then a naked woman emerge and walk past him. And he recognized the legs from seeing Lena's legs at the party as he left. That's all he saw. Yeah, right. You remember someone by their legs. The next day he told Clancy about it and asked what Lena was like and that upset me. (After walking in on Clancy kissing his wife on his desk with her legs wrapped around him. Thank you, authors, for those awkward, unnecessary moments with family). You don't talk about the woman's nudity with your brother. Be classy and respectful and keep it to yourself. I didn't like how he asked why he would want to start dating a woman there, especially one who paid a mermaids. That was disrespectful of her work. The station had taken in a stray dog which was all over Duncan, and that seemed forced. When kids and animals come into a book that's the large indication to me that the author had no idea what to do and it was a last ditch effort. And I so didn't like that Clancy looked up Lena and showed him pictures of her. He hadn't seen her since high school so he should have seen her in the flesh for the first time, not been shown online what she looks like. What a terrible decision to make.
I was absolutely pissed when Sanders, her manager, saw a drawing of Lena's face and said Lena hadn't mentioned the artist in a while, and asked if he was doing okay. He said all of her relationships had imploded because she always told them she couldn't love them because she'd loved the same man since childhood. That was absolutely the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You're attached to someone you haven't seen since high school, and you're 31. Why even get into a relationship in the first place if you don't want to be with anyone else? That's stupid. She said he had to make the first move and it had to be his choice 100%. It did remind me of myself, waiting for the other person to make the move while you sit there for years doing nothing but waiting for something to happen, but didn't tame my disgust and aggravation. But I was happy that she'd had lovers, and the author even used the word wonderful. I almost lost it in shock! A heroine who enjoyed sex with other men; perish the thought!
I didn't like the decisions she made. In Rowen's perspective, (and I couldn't stand all the alternating points of view), Lena came sneaking in at night. Rowen knew that something was going on with Lena and Duncan because they both sneak in at night. Lena was talking about how she's been leaving the gifts, and Rowen and both their moms have always known. Duncan came in and that's how he learned Lena was the one giving him the gifts. And then he kissed her and put her on the kitchen table and that was moving way too fast. I didn't like how any of it played out.
She stopped it, which was good because it was way too soon, but her behavior bothered me. She acted like a fanciful little girl and not a grown woman. She stopped him and said "This is not the way." She told Sanders, who couldn't see any problem with Duncan's behavior, that it was scary and unexpected. She felt out of control and it's not how she pictured it happening. She thought it would be "the two of he slowly getting to know each other again. Having deep conversations and opening up to each other...and maybe then we could segue into a really good kiss or two." Ugh. She sounded like a child.
It was funny when he was helping her out with fans at her tent and a guy raised his shirt to show her his tattoo of her work, and Duncan grabbed him and told him to keep his pants on.
It sucked that he thought she'd stalked him, coming into his territory. When he helped her bring all her stuff back to her house, he asked how she'd done it. She said she knows where every squeaky floorboard is and how to turn the door handle just so...Yeah, she was sounding like a stalker.
In the studio before they left Duncan spied the drawing of her that he'd done when he was 14. He couldn't believe she had it. "Why was she so attached to a silly memory? Why was she so attached to him? What had she continued to leave him little gifts?
Duncan's stomach twisted in knots--it was too much. Her devotion made him deeply uncomfortable; it suffocated him."
Omg, I HATE when the heroines have embarrassing moments like this--and it's always the heroine.
It was insane and way too out there that when she kissed Duncan she received a message that she felt was from a wise woman, a goddess. She told her mentor about it and knowing that her mom came to Bayberry so Lena could meet Duncan. She heard a voice say in her mind that it will take time, he must come to her, and don't give up. Who comes up with this?!
The day he drew her when he was 14 and she was 11, their faces were close and he realize she was pretty and he kissed her. It was his 7th but it was Lena's first. He realized how much younger she was and he really was an ass the way he told her they should forget it ever happened. He's older than her and more mature and she's like his little sister. Them he blew the whole thing off like it didn't matter. It made me dislike him. And I always find it so tragic that characters who met as children didn't get together then and went off to have sexual relationships with other people.
They called Frasier "Da" and their mom "Ma." I kept waiting to hear they were Irish, but it never came.
It was so unrealistic that Duncan, a man, would describe that kiss as unearthly, that he felt something too. Come on. Is this romance or paranormal?
I liked their date at the clambake and that everyone was watching, but it was in Rowan's POV. I hated the choices she kept making for the POVs. I wanted to be in their POVs, not have to witness their date from a third party. But I did like when they were dancing and he told her he had to take her painting down because the mermaid wouldn't give him any peace. The date was cut so short though and so lacking.
One of their mom's friends let slip that they had a good run, and Lena and Duncan would be their last. The mermaid society would have to close because their president left and no one wanted to do it; they're old and it's outdated. They did Annie and Nat, Rowan and Ash, and Clancy and Evie. Rowan wondered if they were taking credit for her marriage but didn't pursue it, like the woman were crazy. I hate matchmakers.
Another reason why I didn't want to read was because I was fairly certain there would be no sex. Some authors you just know, and with this plot line that sounded so childish and a heroine who sounded like a child with a child's wishes, it only cemented that opinion. Especially when it was pg. 238 and they hadn't had sex yet and I feared they never would. They started on pg. 239 and I was shocked by how far she went, taking her dress off on the beach and then undressing him and giving him a hand job and then a blow job. I can't stand that happening their first time. Just ease into it and take it slow.
And it was exactly as I feared. Despite there being a blow job, the details were so lack. She didn't really describe their bodies or give details. It was vague and she went off on a tangent of flowery descriptions and nonsense thoughts that I absolutely loathe.
"They became part of the sea as they became part of each other. And when Duncan cried out and emptied himself inside her, he joined with the salty, life-giving essence of the ocean. With Lena, he returned to his origins."
"..she swore she heard a familiar tune in Duncan's deep whisper, asking her to come with him to the sea of love."
When they finally got down to it, it took about a page and it was her waxing poetic about it and it totally sucked. I also didn't like that they didn't use a condom because they didn't have one. They verified the other was healthy, like that's the only issue! And I was so pissed that Lena told him she hadn't been with a man in 2 years. Of course. Any time an author gives the woman a sexual past, it was so long ago that the hero can have something to be satisfied with; it's always a long drought before the hero. I guess purifying themselves of other men or something. It's outrageous.
They went back to her place and showered together, then had sex repeatedly throughout the night but she skipped over it. AHHH, that makes my blood boil. It's infuriating to be reading a romance with no sex. What's the point?
Lena had questioned him about the accident where he lost his teammates, and they talked about his survivor's guilt. I can't stand when authors have the characters have the exact same situations. He felt like he'd failed them and Lena could personally testify to letting someone down. She took her mentor to the doctors and dropped her off, was supposed to wait for her call to come get her, except she got to painting and didn't hear the call. The elderly woman had walked home and had a stroke walking up the stairs and died. And she feels guilty...so she knew exactly what he was talking about. So perfect.
Right after they had sex the next chapter she jolted us back to the past yet again. She remembered a time when Duncan didn't speak to her anymore, or look at her. He just patted her head and called her a kid. He was really unlikable. I don't like an asshole hero. And for some reason he had like selective memory or something, because he couldn't remember anything and forgot how mean he used to be. At the family party he remembered that he'd kept Clancy and Evie apart as teenagers. He hid a letter Evie wrote to him and it took them 18 years to get together. And he always got away with not apologizing to anyone. Everyone had already forgiven him so he just got off the hook.
After that disastrous birthday party where Frasier brought Sally, I didn't think we'd see her again. But at the party Sally showed up with Frasier again, sharing that she had cancer and she was so jealous of Mona she'd tried to one-up her, but she'd only been catch and release to Frasier. You don't hook up with another woman while you're still married to your wife, and bring the woman there to advocate for you to get back together. It's disgusting how cheating is handled and he didn't deserve her back.
That night Duncan shut down because his family was so accepting of her and he was getting in deep with her when he wasn't going to stay. Stupidly, Lena put up with it and offered to talk, accepting whatever he wanted to give without pushing. I was so annoyed at her. She deserved better than his moody butt shutting down on her.
They had sex when he should have been apologizing. Weirdly, she mentioned the dog going up the stairs with him, but had the dog go to another room. But right after they had sex, she had the dog jump up on the bed and turn its head away like their nakedness was too much. Ew. Why would you have the dog come in after they just had sex? What is up with the dog? Lena said holy moly and he said "Baby Jesus on the B train," whatever that meant. That is some stupid talking.
Duncan had asked why she kept the painting and afterwards she told him about the vision and that it was destiny and she'd loved him ever since. Duncan had to get up and go to the bathroom, then came out and asked her if she believed in the mermaid. She started acting really crazy and no wonder it freaked him out. It would anyone. She kept asking him questions in return. She asked if he was asking her if she believes there's unseen forces and magic in the world, then yes. He asked of she believed in the mermaid and she asked does she believe in mermaids in the sea or the mermaid legend. Then it ended with her saying wasn't he going to ask if she's the mermaid. He went along with it and she said you really want me to answer that? "That was it for him--he'd had enough. Duncan could see the conversation veering off into whether the moon was an alien hovercraft and the mating habits of Bigfoot." He said he couldn't do this and left.
"No wonder he'd left Bayberry and never looked back. This was place created by, and for, crazy people. Looking back, he saw that Lena had done a bang-up job masking her true feelings in those media interviews. No doubt sales would suffer if the world knew she was cuckoo bananas."
This close to the end, and they were having this stupid, ridiculous fight.
Duncan was sitting by the fountain and heard a voice say "she is yours and you are hers."
I couldn't stand his tendency to talk about Lena with other people--and their tendency to always ask him about her. The day of the mermaid ball he told his mom he'd thought Lena was a flake, dreamy and artsy and off in her own la la land. She believes in mystical forces and signs and destiny, the kind of gibberish he heard from his mom. At the ball he told Clancy that his wife lives in the real world but Lena is airy fairy and love only goes so far when your girl tells you she believes in mermaids and implied she was one herself.
The ending pissed me off; I was so mad. Lena left the party and went home, where she lit a candle and ended up falling asleep. She woke to the room burning, her beautifully designed studio and the drawing Duncan had made her. 20 years she had that and then they get together and the author felt the sadistic need to ruin it all. I will never understand decisions like that. And Lena never said anything more about it, like it didn't matter. Cut to one year later and it was the epilogue showing them married and her about to have their daughter. Duncan asked of she'd be a natural swimmer and she answered of course because her dad's a SEAL. Ok, whatever. Weird mermaid crap that's never explained. Is she a mermaid or isn't she? They left off with him thinking she was a witch who really thought she was a mermaid. How can you not address that?!
After that fight I just wanted to be done with these characters that I didn't particularly like.
This lost what it had on the beginning. The last 30% I just wanted to be done. They didn't have enough time together. There was hardly any communication between them. Lena had her head in the clouds the whole time, listening to a prophecy from when she was 11, just surrendering to this great mystery and acting like a child along the way. Really, you don't tell a man you're a mermaid or he's going to head for the hills. And she’s been telling men her whole life that she’s in love with someone else. Except she describes him as a stranger. He is not a stranger. She knew him from age 11 to what, 15? That is not a stranger. Duncan was an asshole to everyone, his siblings and family and Lena, and then he left to join the Navy and stayed gone, only coming back occasionally. He can't commit, is afraid to love, and thinks he needs to rejoin as the only way to honor his fallen comrades. He forgot his entire past and only bits and pieces came to him. He knows he should apologize about things he's done but keeps getting interrupted or forgiven by people who should at least make him say sorry. He continued being a jerk until almost the very end. And the author had Lena have a silly moment, thinking back on her telling Duncan she didn't need him and could take care of herself, but she did need him because she burned the place down and he had to save her life! Way to showcase the woman as forgetful &emotional, who can't be without a man or she'll burn her house down.
The relationship was a fail because Lena was kind of a stalker, coming on too strong, saving the drawing &loving him so long, and Duncan was a total closed-off jerk judging her and her lifestyle.
The legend went unexplained and I couldn't believe it. The whole book there's this mermaid legend, Duncan saw a fintail in the water right before Lena emerged, she told him to ask her if she was one, and her mom’s entire village thought the women in her family were witches. I expect some answers or something, but I got nothing. The whole thing is so flimsy. &she spent as much time in the past as she did in the present.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 17, 2019
The book opens up to a confusing scene with a few characters to keep track of from the get-go.
I instantly could tell this author couldn't capture a man's voice. None of the men sounded like real men. You can't just have the guy cuss and think it sounds like a guy.
The humor was also sort of a miss, on the weak side, as in its intended to be funny but isn't.
I didn't find the drunken dad amusing or charming.
Lena was Mellie's daughter then all of a sudden 'Imelda Silva's daughter.' You should say Mellie is a nickname.
Idk if the author realized the synopsis made it sound like the heroine was a mythical mermaid. This might be because I read supernatural books. This wasn't helped when we get to her POV and it says 'she thanked the tides for delivering her to this place and time.' And Lena's grandpa calling her mom a witch and a sorcerer.
I found their first meeting to be ridiculous; she's supposed to be 7, yet feels his stare like a bee sting. Come on. I certainly didn't feel things like that with boys at that age.
I found it odd everyone said "da" and "granda" as if we were in Ireland. I think Duncan's great-great-great grandpa came from Ireland, but there was no Irish culture or anything mentioned to explain why they use those Irish phrases.
I was not amused by the idiot father bringing his girlfriend to the family party. I did not want Duncan's parents back together. She could do way better than him.
It took 80 something pages before the characters were near each other and they didn't even speak. Idk how she couldn't see Duncan when she walked right past him on the beach. He'd have to be buried in the sand not to see him. I waited that long and they didn't even speak.
I couldn't believe Duncan's mom deliberately put paintings of Lena as a mermaid in his room. That's a lil creepy for your mom to be putting sexy pictures up for you...even if she's trying to push them together.
When he sees Lena coming out of the water naked he doesn't recognize her as the mermaid in the painting. Bit he recognizes her ankle as Lena's from the party, which he saw from the top of the stairs. He sees her mom and recognizes the eyes as the same as the mermaid painting. That doesn't really add up.
Duncan, Mr. I-think-everyone-on-the-island-is-crazy actually gets a net and casts it out night after night hoping to catch whatever he saw in the water that night. You said it looked like a dolphin and there are dolphins and other creatures in the ocean so why do you need to catch whatever you saw? I find it to be really outlandish for a navy seal who's realistic and unbelieving of the mystical world to do that. And that reinforced my opinion this was a supernatural book.
It seemed incredibly unrealistic for Lena to expect Duncan to fight for her when he never even knew she had feelings for him. And she's waiting for him to come to her. I'm not even that delusional.
Him finding out she'd left the shells and had feelings for him was a letdown. You don't kiss someone when you haven't seen them since you were young and never knew she liked you, and when you didn't like her that way.
I felt bad for Lena because he acted like it was weird and then said she'd invaded his space and made it sound creepy...which it kind of was.
He smells her and recognizes it from his dream, as an earthy scent. As if you can smell in a dream or recognize someone's scent who you haven't been around since HS. My god romance books are ridiculous sometimes.
'"Can we get right to the margaritas? I'm in a tequila state of mind," Lena said with a smile.
Right then Duncan decided that Adalena Silva had her own version of a sense of humor. Sure, she was subdued and a little eccentric, but occasionally she'd come up with something sharp and funny, like the tequila comment, and it intrigued him.'
You shouldn't have to tell us a comment was funny. And I found that neither sharp nor funny.
I didn't think Duncan was nice as a kid or adult. Idk what Lena saw in him.
Him seeing the drawing she'd kept that he did of her was also a letdown. He reacted in Duncan fashion and didn't even realize how sweet it was. He was also an ass for not remembering that's the day they kissed. I just felt bad for Lena, that she'd cared for this guy and he hadn't even remembered or thought about her.
I was surprised they kissed and that Duncan could have forgotten. And if it meant so much to him, how could he forget?
I was very shocked to find out Lena had lovers, considering she'd held a torch for Duncan all those years and told her boyfriends she couldn't love them because she loved a man from her childhood. But I'm glad she wasn't a virgin while Duncan got with other women. Really tired of those tropes.
They never sounded like kids, in any of the memories. They always had too much awareness and the memories were too sexualized. I mean seven year olds finding awareness looking into each other's eyes? Give me a break.
This was when he was in eighth grade, so 13 or 14, and she was three years younger: 'She placed her hand on his chest, and he almost cried like a baby. He rubbed her back and she arched into it like a cat. And the two of them seemed to hang in the middle of space, just kissing.
Duncan closed his eyes, and as he began to breathe with her, strange and wonderful feelings washed over him. For a second, it really felt like they were the same person, together, discovering stuff that no other two people in the history of the world had ever discovered before.'
Did you forget you're writing about middle schoolers?! Actually she was probably in the 5th grade! Way too young to be kissing like that, or placing her hand on his chest and arching up into him.
And there's no way an 11 year old during her first kiss would be the best kiss Duncan had. Most people's first kisses are awkward.
Even more ridiculous is that Lena felt her mom brought her to the island so she could meet Duncan. This girl is delusional and pathetic.
I love romance books and the escapism you can find in them, but sometimes they're so unrealistic and ridiculous to even handle. As a freaking kid--10 or 11: "the understanding was overwhelming, and even as a kid I realized I had been given a glimpse into something very old and very powerful, and it just blew me away."
Who's first kiss, and especially as a child, was "beautiful and intense." She even hears words telling her 'it will take time. He must come to you. Do not give up.' I just can't. It's too much.
And why are you sexualizing things between two children? All of this would have been fine if they were teenagers.
I found everything ridiculous, Duncan thinking baby Serena looked like a master sergeant he had. Come on. Saying she could be the first female navy seal. Ugh, just stop.
She's hurt and mad at Duncan and paints a horrific scene of sharks and blood and eight lifeless bodies. Pretty creepy. But the author threw in some ridiculousness when Duncan realizes it's the ambush he went through. She was 'grieving with him.' He's creeped out that she brings him gifts but isn't creeped out by that?! You cannot grieve for someone you barely know and haven't seen and knew nothing of his friends or the circumstances of the ambush. This girl is stalkery and creepy.
Despite sneaking into his room repeatedly, Lena had no idea which painting was on the fireplace.
"I think my mother wanted to make sure I had a sexy mermaid roommate at all times." Um...that's weird.
Every character has a kid so we're in the world of pacifiers and carriers and idc to be in that world. As if everyone has to be settled with a kid to be happy.
I liked that her mentor told her to enjoy life while waiting for Duncan, probably meaning date other guys and have fun, and not just wait around for him. That was good advice. Because he certainly wasn't waiting for her.
Idl when the characters background are too similar just so they can understand each other. She got distracted painting and missed taking her mentor to her doctor appointment. She ends up having a heart attack and Lena feels guilty. All of this is so she can understand why Duncan feels guilty he didn't save his friends. It's too coincidental.
She's the 'most drop-dead gorgeous woman he'd ever known.' I'm sick of comments like that. What are the chances you'd end up the best-looking person he's ever seen?
When he kisses her or is intimate in any way he says it's like the dream. As if a dream would be that detailed, especially when he's never been with her before, so he has no experience to draw on with her. It's ridiculous.
'Duncan realized it was inexplicably warm, as if the water had changed temperature just for them.' Oh boy. The ocean warmed up for these two, cause they're so special.
'He'd had his share of skinny-dipping sex over the years, but nothing had come anywhere close to the intensity of this moment. He had the distinct sensation that he was carrying Lena over a threshold.' Idw hear of his past and how this measures up against the others. And threshold? Wtf does that even mean?
'When Duncan cried out and emptied himself inside her, he joined with the salty, life-giving essence of the ocean. With Lena, he returned to his origins'
'She swore she heard a familiar tune in Duncan's deep whisper, asking her to come with him to the sea of love.'
Their 'relationship' was too mystical, and the writing was a little too poetic and flowery for me.
Idk what her crush was even based on. He only spoke one complete sentence to her in three years. Barely looked at her. Only asked her to pass stuff across the table. It's sad, really.
This book should be titled He's Just Not That Into You, because I swear, he wasn't.
All we get is that he buttoned her jacket up...and why was he doing that? And this is what she held onto for all those years?! He didn't even tell her what was on his mind! We have no idea what he would have said.
He said he pushed down the memory of their kiss, because of how much it meant, and I just don't understand how that's possible. I mean, he never even talked to her for year after! It's a bunch of BS to me.
I couldn't believe Duncan kept Clancy and Evie apart as teenagers.
When Frasier shows up to another family party with Sally I had to set the book down and close my eyes. I just couldn't take it.
It's a bombshell that Sally has cancer and she's gonna get Mona back with husband, but I didn't care. I was annoyed with her.
The busybody matchmakers set up Ash and Rowan, Nat and Annie, Clancy and Evie. That's too much and just annoying.
There's a Serena at the party and I had no idea who that was. I forgot she was the baby.
Duncan knew Lena had known he was on her beach all those nights and that she came down to check on him even though Lena never told us that. How can you not mention that?
Duncan's feelings changed too soon and it wasn't believable. He still wanted to leave and then all of a sudden says he loves her.
Some of the language in intimate moments was cringeworthy: "holy moly" and "baby Jesus on the B train." Not even sure what that means.
She calls them not talking since they were kids and the fact that they were together now 'prophetic.' It's not strange at all that Duncan would return to his hometown where his family lives, and would see you, when you also live there. That's not normal at all...
The whole scene was cringeworthy when she tells him his kiss as a kid had been a sign that he was her destiny and she's waited for him. She sounds like one flew over the cuckoos nest. No bones about it. Hands down. This girl is certifiably crazy. Duncan goes to the bathroom and almost laughs. He called it 'woo-woo' and thinks he's trapped in his mothers mermaid meetings. I can't respect a guy that thinks the heroine is crazy, even though she is. I can't like a heroine that is crazy and pathetic. It's just embarrassing.
She basically believes in mermaids.
'"Aren't you going to ask me if I'm a mermaid?"
Duncan's head spun around. Lena stared at him with wild eyes.
"Sure, Lena. Are you a mermaid?"
"You really want me to answer that?"
That was it for him--he'd had enough. Duncan could see the conversation veering off into whether the moon was an alien hovercraft and the mating habits of Bigfoot.'
Totally painful and embarrassing.
He calls her 'cuckoo bananas' and then cries cause his heart is broken. Totally uncharacteristic.
Duncan hears "she is yours and you are hers" and it really just puts a cap on all this ridiculousness.
Beth, the mom of Duncan's deceased friend, said he got his sense of humor from his family but I found Duncan to have no sense of humor.
After basically admitting to Duncan she believed in mermaids and was some kind of mermaid herself I found it hypocritical and downright shocking that Lena found the mermaid society 'slightly absurd.'
He tells his mom he thought she was an actual mermaid. Which is insane. Duncan never said he believed that.
Then he's trash talking her to his brother and they're both basically making fun of her, that she believes in mermaids and said she might be one. He called her airy-fairy. How are we supposed to believe they'll be happy together or that he'll respect her?
I couldn't believe the book ended with the fire and that her amazing studio burnt down, with all her paintings and Duncan's drawing of her. The epilogue didn't even mention if the drawing survived the fire. I thought she was gonna try to save it. Or that Duncan would.
I didn't like how the pregnancy wasn't planned and took place only three months after the fire. She's having a girl, and that makes three girls in this family as if no one can have a boy.
There's a joke their daughter will be a natural swimmer, and it's a fitting corny end to this corny fantastical book. They don't know each other well enough to be together and having kids like that. It should end in them dating, because they've never had a relationship...It ended up feeling like Duncan got trapped there.
This was too cheesy, juvenile, mystical, corny and ridiculous for my tastes.
The book spent so long on Duncan wanting to join the navy and resist dating Lena that his change occurred too close to the end. There wasn't enough wrap up for them and things felt unfinished in the book.
The women didn't even announce they were taking over the mermaid society.
It just annoyed me that Mona gave into her crappy husband. Even more so because their family prayed to the mermaid for it. This freaking mermaid can't set up everyone in the Flynn family. It's just annoying how perfect everything is.
None of the characters were interesting or endearing to me. Idc to read about any of them. Rowan's book covers the festival too and I wonder if that's the case for Clancy's book also. That would get repetitive. You could cover the town during a different season.
Some authors write charming, funny, interesting characters, with a setting and people you love. This author is one who just doesn't have it to me; too corny and cheesy for my tastes. And the romantic scenes weren't detailed enough.
Duncan wasn't likable, he had no personality or sense of humor. He was sort of flat and robotic. He would speak proper sometimes, like 'I do not' instead of 'don't' and it made him sound like a robot. Lena was downright crazy, stalkery, pathetic. Duncan put her down so much and they were so different, he even said so himself, that I don't know how anyone can believe in their HEA. They're so different and incompatible. They believe in very different things, and I do believe she's too airy-fairy for him, like Duncan himself said.
They had no chemistry. Just because he said she's beautiful, etc. does not mean we feel their chemistry. I didn't buy their relationship at all.
I didn't like all the annoying matchmakers, any of the side characters, really anything about this. There were some slightly funny things, but a lot of it was a miss. I don't want to read any more from this series, and perhaps by this author if they're all so corny and unrealistic.
I instantly could tell this author couldn't capture a man's voice. None of the men sounded like real men. You can't just have the guy cuss and think it sounds like a guy.
The humor was also sort of a miss, on the weak side, as in its intended to be funny but isn't.
I didn't find the drunken dad amusing or charming.
Lena was Mellie's daughter then all of a sudden 'Imelda Silva's daughter.' You should say Mellie is a nickname.
Idk if the author realized the synopsis made it sound like the heroine was a mythical mermaid. This might be because I read supernatural books. This wasn't helped when we get to her POV and it says 'she thanked the tides for delivering her to this place and time.' And Lena's grandpa calling her mom a witch and a sorcerer.
I found their first meeting to be ridiculous; she's supposed to be 7, yet feels his stare like a bee sting. Come on. I certainly didn't feel things like that with boys at that age.
I found it odd everyone said "da" and "granda" as if we were in Ireland. I think Duncan's great-great-great grandpa came from Ireland, but there was no Irish culture or anything mentioned to explain why they use those Irish phrases.
I was not amused by the idiot father bringing his girlfriend to the family party. I did not want Duncan's parents back together. She could do way better than him.
It took 80 something pages before the characters were near each other and they didn't even speak. Idk how she couldn't see Duncan when she walked right past him on the beach. He'd have to be buried in the sand not to see him. I waited that long and they didn't even speak.
I couldn't believe Duncan's mom deliberately put paintings of Lena as a mermaid in his room. That's a lil creepy for your mom to be putting sexy pictures up for you...even if she's trying to push them together.
When he sees Lena coming out of the water naked he doesn't recognize her as the mermaid in the painting. Bit he recognizes her ankle as Lena's from the party, which he saw from the top of the stairs. He sees her mom and recognizes the eyes as the same as the mermaid painting. That doesn't really add up.
Duncan, Mr. I-think-everyone-on-the-island-is-crazy actually gets a net and casts it out night after night hoping to catch whatever he saw in the water that night. You said it looked like a dolphin and there are dolphins and other creatures in the ocean so why do you need to catch whatever you saw? I find it to be really outlandish for a navy seal who's realistic and unbelieving of the mystical world to do that. And that reinforced my opinion this was a supernatural book.
It seemed incredibly unrealistic for Lena to expect Duncan to fight for her when he never even knew she had feelings for him. And she's waiting for him to come to her. I'm not even that delusional.
Him finding out she'd left the shells and had feelings for him was a letdown. You don't kiss someone when you haven't seen them since you were young and never knew she liked you, and when you didn't like her that way.
I felt bad for Lena because he acted like it was weird and then said she'd invaded his space and made it sound creepy...which it kind of was.
He smells her and recognizes it from his dream, as an earthy scent. As if you can smell in a dream or recognize someone's scent who you haven't been around since HS. My god romance books are ridiculous sometimes.
'"Can we get right to the margaritas? I'm in a tequila state of mind," Lena said with a smile.
Right then Duncan decided that Adalena Silva had her own version of a sense of humor. Sure, she was subdued and a little eccentric, but occasionally she'd come up with something sharp and funny, like the tequila comment, and it intrigued him.'
You shouldn't have to tell us a comment was funny. And I found that neither sharp nor funny.
I didn't think Duncan was nice as a kid or adult. Idk what Lena saw in him.
Him seeing the drawing she'd kept that he did of her was also a letdown. He reacted in Duncan fashion and didn't even realize how sweet it was. He was also an ass for not remembering that's the day they kissed. I just felt bad for Lena, that she'd cared for this guy and he hadn't even remembered or thought about her.
I was surprised they kissed and that Duncan could have forgotten. And if it meant so much to him, how could he forget?
I was very shocked to find out Lena had lovers, considering she'd held a torch for Duncan all those years and told her boyfriends she couldn't love them because she loved a man from her childhood. But I'm glad she wasn't a virgin while Duncan got with other women. Really tired of those tropes.
They never sounded like kids, in any of the memories. They always had too much awareness and the memories were too sexualized. I mean seven year olds finding awareness looking into each other's eyes? Give me a break.
This was when he was in eighth grade, so 13 or 14, and she was three years younger: 'She placed her hand on his chest, and he almost cried like a baby. He rubbed her back and she arched into it like a cat. And the two of them seemed to hang in the middle of space, just kissing.
Duncan closed his eyes, and as he began to breathe with her, strange and wonderful feelings washed over him. For a second, it really felt like they were the same person, together, discovering stuff that no other two people in the history of the world had ever discovered before.'
Did you forget you're writing about middle schoolers?! Actually she was probably in the 5th grade! Way too young to be kissing like that, or placing her hand on his chest and arching up into him.
And there's no way an 11 year old during her first kiss would be the best kiss Duncan had. Most people's first kisses are awkward.
Even more ridiculous is that Lena felt her mom brought her to the island so she could meet Duncan. This girl is delusional and pathetic.
I love romance books and the escapism you can find in them, but sometimes they're so unrealistic and ridiculous to even handle. As a freaking kid--10 or 11: "the understanding was overwhelming, and even as a kid I realized I had been given a glimpse into something very old and very powerful, and it just blew me away."
Who's first kiss, and especially as a child, was "beautiful and intense." She even hears words telling her 'it will take time. He must come to you. Do not give up.' I just can't. It's too much.
And why are you sexualizing things between two children? All of this would have been fine if they were teenagers.
I found everything ridiculous, Duncan thinking baby Serena looked like a master sergeant he had. Come on. Saying she could be the first female navy seal. Ugh, just stop.
She's hurt and mad at Duncan and paints a horrific scene of sharks and blood and eight lifeless bodies. Pretty creepy. But the author threw in some ridiculousness when Duncan realizes it's the ambush he went through. She was 'grieving with him.' He's creeped out that she brings him gifts but isn't creeped out by that?! You cannot grieve for someone you barely know and haven't seen and knew nothing of his friends or the circumstances of the ambush. This girl is stalkery and creepy.
Despite sneaking into his room repeatedly, Lena had no idea which painting was on the fireplace.
"I think my mother wanted to make sure I had a sexy mermaid roommate at all times." Um...that's weird.
Every character has a kid so we're in the world of pacifiers and carriers and idc to be in that world. As if everyone has to be settled with a kid to be happy.
I liked that her mentor told her to enjoy life while waiting for Duncan, probably meaning date other guys and have fun, and not just wait around for him. That was good advice. Because he certainly wasn't waiting for her.
Idl when the characters background are too similar just so they can understand each other. She got distracted painting and missed taking her mentor to her doctor appointment. She ends up having a heart attack and Lena feels guilty. All of this is so she can understand why Duncan feels guilty he didn't save his friends. It's too coincidental.
She's the 'most drop-dead gorgeous woman he'd ever known.' I'm sick of comments like that. What are the chances you'd end up the best-looking person he's ever seen?
When he kisses her or is intimate in any way he says it's like the dream. As if a dream would be that detailed, especially when he's never been with her before, so he has no experience to draw on with her. It's ridiculous.
'Duncan realized it was inexplicably warm, as if the water had changed temperature just for them.' Oh boy. The ocean warmed up for these two, cause they're so special.
'He'd had his share of skinny-dipping sex over the years, but nothing had come anywhere close to the intensity of this moment. He had the distinct sensation that he was carrying Lena over a threshold.' Idw hear of his past and how this measures up against the others. And threshold? Wtf does that even mean?
'When Duncan cried out and emptied himself inside her, he joined with the salty, life-giving essence of the ocean. With Lena, he returned to his origins'
'She swore she heard a familiar tune in Duncan's deep whisper, asking her to come with him to the sea of love.'
Their 'relationship' was too mystical, and the writing was a little too poetic and flowery for me.
Idk what her crush was even based on. He only spoke one complete sentence to her in three years. Barely looked at her. Only asked her to pass stuff across the table. It's sad, really.
This book should be titled He's Just Not That Into You, because I swear, he wasn't.
All we get is that he buttoned her jacket up...and why was he doing that? And this is what she held onto for all those years?! He didn't even tell her what was on his mind! We have no idea what he would have said.
He said he pushed down the memory of their kiss, because of how much it meant, and I just don't understand how that's possible. I mean, he never even talked to her for year after! It's a bunch of BS to me.
I couldn't believe Duncan kept Clancy and Evie apart as teenagers.
When Frasier shows up to another family party with Sally I had to set the book down and close my eyes. I just couldn't take it.
It's a bombshell that Sally has cancer and she's gonna get Mona back with husband, but I didn't care. I was annoyed with her.
The busybody matchmakers set up Ash and Rowan, Nat and Annie, Clancy and Evie. That's too much and just annoying.
There's a Serena at the party and I had no idea who that was. I forgot she was the baby.
Duncan knew Lena had known he was on her beach all those nights and that she came down to check on him even though Lena never told us that. How can you not mention that?
Duncan's feelings changed too soon and it wasn't believable. He still wanted to leave and then all of a sudden says he loves her.
Some of the language in intimate moments was cringeworthy: "holy moly" and "baby Jesus on the B train." Not even sure what that means.
She calls them not talking since they were kids and the fact that they were together now 'prophetic.' It's not strange at all that Duncan would return to his hometown where his family lives, and would see you, when you also live there. That's not normal at all...
The whole scene was cringeworthy when she tells him his kiss as a kid had been a sign that he was her destiny and she's waited for him. She sounds like one flew over the cuckoos nest. No bones about it. Hands down. This girl is certifiably crazy. Duncan goes to the bathroom and almost laughs. He called it 'woo-woo' and thinks he's trapped in his mothers mermaid meetings. I can't respect a guy that thinks the heroine is crazy, even though she is. I can't like a heroine that is crazy and pathetic. It's just embarrassing.
She basically believes in mermaids.
'"Aren't you going to ask me if I'm a mermaid?"
Duncan's head spun around. Lena stared at him with wild eyes.
"Sure, Lena. Are you a mermaid?"
"You really want me to answer that?"
That was it for him--he'd had enough. Duncan could see the conversation veering off into whether the moon was an alien hovercraft and the mating habits of Bigfoot.'
Totally painful and embarrassing.
He calls her 'cuckoo bananas' and then cries cause his heart is broken. Totally uncharacteristic.
Duncan hears "she is yours and you are hers" and it really just puts a cap on all this ridiculousness.
Beth, the mom of Duncan's deceased friend, said he got his sense of humor from his family but I found Duncan to have no sense of humor.
After basically admitting to Duncan she believed in mermaids and was some kind of mermaid herself I found it hypocritical and downright shocking that Lena found the mermaid society 'slightly absurd.'
He tells his mom he thought she was an actual mermaid. Which is insane. Duncan never said he believed that.
Then he's trash talking her to his brother and they're both basically making fun of her, that she believes in mermaids and said she might be one. He called her airy-fairy. How are we supposed to believe they'll be happy together or that he'll respect her?
I couldn't believe the book ended with the fire and that her amazing studio burnt down, with all her paintings and Duncan's drawing of her. The epilogue didn't even mention if the drawing survived the fire. I thought she was gonna try to save it. Or that Duncan would.
I didn't like how the pregnancy wasn't planned and took place only three months after the fire. She's having a girl, and that makes three girls in this family as if no one can have a boy.
There's a joke their daughter will be a natural swimmer, and it's a fitting corny end to this corny fantastical book. They don't know each other well enough to be together and having kids like that. It should end in them dating, because they've never had a relationship...It ended up feeling like Duncan got trapped there.
This was too cheesy, juvenile, mystical, corny and ridiculous for my tastes.
The book spent so long on Duncan wanting to join the navy and resist dating Lena that his change occurred too close to the end. There wasn't enough wrap up for them and things felt unfinished in the book.
The women didn't even announce they were taking over the mermaid society.
It just annoyed me that Mona gave into her crappy husband. Even more so because their family prayed to the mermaid for it. This freaking mermaid can't set up everyone in the Flynn family. It's just annoying how perfect everything is.
None of the characters were interesting or endearing to me. Idc to read about any of them. Rowan's book covers the festival too and I wonder if that's the case for Clancy's book also. That would get repetitive. You could cover the town during a different season.
Some authors write charming, funny, interesting characters, with a setting and people you love. This author is one who just doesn't have it to me; too corny and cheesy for my tastes. And the romantic scenes weren't detailed enough.
Duncan wasn't likable, he had no personality or sense of humor. He was sort of flat and robotic. He would speak proper sometimes, like 'I do not' instead of 'don't' and it made him sound like a robot. Lena was downright crazy, stalkery, pathetic. Duncan put her down so much and they were so different, he even said so himself, that I don't know how anyone can believe in their HEA. They're so different and incompatible. They believe in very different things, and I do believe she's too airy-fairy for him, like Duncan himself said.
They had no chemistry. Just because he said she's beautiful, etc. does not mean we feel their chemistry. I didn't buy their relationship at all.
I didn't like all the annoying matchmakers, any of the side characters, really anything about this. There were some slightly funny things, but a lot of it was a miss. I don't want to read any more from this series, and perhaps by this author if they're all so corny and unrealistic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 30, 2015
Moondance Beach, Bayberry Island #3, by Susan Donovan
Grade: A
I devoured this book in one sitting because it was THAT good. I don’t remember the last time I gave an ‘A’ to a book but it’s few and far between. I love this Bayberry Island series so much and like most fans I have been anticipating Duncan’s book for awhile now. Usually I try not to get my hopes up about books anymore because I always seem to be let down but this book delivered everything I wanted and even some stuff I didn’t know I wanted but still loved. I don’t know if it’s the magic of the mermaid statue or the wonderful family and community of the island but this series is wonderful and on the top of my must read list.
Duncan Flynn made up for being a sick little boy by excelling as an adult and becoming a Navy SEAL and getting as far away from Bayberry Island as he possible could. When an attack leaves Duncan injured and all of his team dead, he has no choice but to come home and recover. The last thing Duncan wanted was to get involved in his parents drama and separation, help his brother out with the annual Mermaid Festival or to fall for the little girl he grew up with who is all grown up.
Adelena “Lena” Silva knew from the time she was a small girl that Duncan was the one for her and she has waited decades for him to come back to the island and be hers. Lena knows that Duncan is her other half but convincing him of it proves to be much more of a challenge than Lena ever expected. The more Duncan fights what they have the more Lena is crushed and starts to wonder if anything she does will convience this man they are meant to be together.
Duncan is the perfect broody, alpha hero who I just loved so much. Considering I was worried he would be a jerk like he was in a previous book I was very happy with him in this book. I love a story where the characters grew up together and the flashbacks of Duncan and Lena as children were my favorite parts by far. I liked seeing how their story evolved over time and why Lena was so content to wait years and years for this man to come back to her.
Lena is the best type of heroine: brilliant, funny, confident and wants her man for who he is not because she needs him for something. I loved her work and spent some time trying to imagine what her paintings would really look like. She also has a bit of mystery to her that I enjoyed and it kept Duncan on his toes for sure. As I’ve said before I love the Mermaid Festival and this one did not disappoint! There were a lot of loose ends tied up in this book and I’m really hoping it is not the last one of the series. I highly recommend everyone get lost in the magic of Bayberry Island.
Grade: A
I devoured this book in one sitting because it was THAT good. I don’t remember the last time I gave an ‘A’ to a book but it’s few and far between. I love this Bayberry Island series so much and like most fans I have been anticipating Duncan’s book for awhile now. Usually I try not to get my hopes up about books anymore because I always seem to be let down but this book delivered everything I wanted and even some stuff I didn’t know I wanted but still loved. I don’t know if it’s the magic of the mermaid statue or the wonderful family and community of the island but this series is wonderful and on the top of my must read list.
Duncan Flynn made up for being a sick little boy by excelling as an adult and becoming a Navy SEAL and getting as far away from Bayberry Island as he possible could. When an attack leaves Duncan injured and all of his team dead, he has no choice but to come home and recover. The last thing Duncan wanted was to get involved in his parents drama and separation, help his brother out with the annual Mermaid Festival or to fall for the little girl he grew up with who is all grown up.
Adelena “Lena” Silva knew from the time she was a small girl that Duncan was the one for her and she has waited decades for him to come back to the island and be hers. Lena knows that Duncan is her other half but convincing him of it proves to be much more of a challenge than Lena ever expected. The more Duncan fights what they have the more Lena is crushed and starts to wonder if anything she does will convience this man they are meant to be together.
Duncan is the perfect broody, alpha hero who I just loved so much. Considering I was worried he would be a jerk like he was in a previous book I was very happy with him in this book. I love a story where the characters grew up together and the flashbacks of Duncan and Lena as children were my favorite parts by far. I liked seeing how their story evolved over time and why Lena was so content to wait years and years for this man to come back to her.
Lena is the best type of heroine: brilliant, funny, confident and wants her man for who he is not because she needs him for something. I loved her work and spent some time trying to imagine what her paintings would really look like. She also has a bit of mystery to her that I enjoyed and it kept Duncan on his toes for sure. As I’ve said before I love the Mermaid Festival and this one did not disappoint! There were a lot of loose ends tied up in this book and I’m really hoping it is not the last one of the series. I highly recommend everyone get lost in the magic of Bayberry Island.
September 14, 2015
I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked Lena's character but I was a little bit concerned with the way she's been pining after Duncan all these years. He treated her like sh*t, dismissed her friendship as teenagers and completely forgets about her for years. Even when he's at home healing as an adult, Duncan still treats her poorly and all Lena can say is that he's her one and only, she loves him but he doesn't know it...blah blah blah. I literally wanted to shake some sense into this poor girl.
Duncan is at home recovering from an explosion that wiped out his entire unit leaving him with a bad case of survivor's guilt. He vaguely remembers Lena, but thinks she's hot. Ugh. He’s always so stoic and unbending in every interaction. I didn't like Duncan at all and I think Lena could do so much better. But she's a glutton for punishment, and so am I because I had to finish the book hoping that my opinion of Duncan would change. It did not.
I'm glad though that we did get closure on Fraiser and Mona's side storyline. That's Duncan, Clancy and Rowan's parents. I was also a little sad that there wasn't much more on what happened to the Mermaid Society. Is there going to be another book? And if so, who'd star in it? Inquiring minds want to know!
Overall, it was a so-so read. I really wished I'd liked it more.
***I was gifted an eBook copy from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. All conclusions reached are my own***
Duncan is at home recovering from an explosion that wiped out his entire unit leaving him with a bad case of survivor's guilt. He vaguely remembers Lena, but thinks she's hot. Ugh. He’s always so stoic and unbending in every interaction. I didn't like Duncan at all and I think Lena could do so much better. But she's a glutton for punishment, and so am I because I had to finish the book hoping that my opinion of Duncan would change. It did not.
I'm glad though that we did get closure on Fraiser and Mona's side storyline. That's Duncan, Clancy and Rowan's parents. I was also a little sad that there wasn't much more on what happened to the Mermaid Society. Is there going to be another book? And if so, who'd star in it? Inquiring minds want to know!
Overall, it was a so-so read. I really wished I'd liked it more.
***I was gifted an eBook copy from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. All conclusions reached are my own***
August 29, 2015
I received this book from the Goodreads First Reads program.
I enjoyed every minutes of this one. The story is romance with a playful innocence added in. It helps that I love mermaids and they are prevalent in the story. The characters come together in a real and believable way, but with undertones of magic that might or might not exist. I need to go back and read the first two books in the series now.
I enjoyed every minutes of this one. The story is romance with a playful innocence added in. It helps that I love mermaids and they are prevalent in the story. The characters come together in a real and believable way, but with undertones of magic that might or might not exist. I need to go back and read the first two books in the series now.
September 1, 2015
I was given a copy by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The characters were great and very believable. I was pulled in from the beginning, it is a very sweet romance story. I loved the setting where it took place, it was describe incredibly and I would love to visit there. The story is well written and moves along a great pace.
The characters were great and very believable. I was pulled in from the beginning, it is a very sweet romance story. I loved the setting where it took place, it was describe incredibly and I would love to visit there. The story is well written and moves along a great pace.
October 19, 2015
3.5 Stars.
December 31, 2015
3 stars
September 7, 2023
This is a fun summer romance on an island where the local legend centers around a mermaid statue and her supposed ability to influence a kind of matchmaking so that the couples who should be together eventually are. Lots of quirky characters. Perfect beach read! I discovered after I finished it that it is the third in a trilogy about the same island and most of the same characters. Now I need to go find the other two books…
September 16, 2017
I knew how this book was going to.ultimately end, as it's the third main book (5th if you count the short ones in between) in a series. However, I had no idea how I was going to arrive at the ending. I was not disappointed at all!
July 17, 2018
I won this book through Goodreads Giveaways. I really enjoyed how the author collaborated the past with the present. The story was well developed and so were the characters. I just love Lena and how inhibited she is and free spirited to plays well with Duncan being such a rule follower.
November 3, 2018
This is the first book in this series I’ve read. I liked the hero and the supporting characters. The heroine rubbed me the wrong way. A bit stalker - ish for my taste. Sometimes wonder if the wrong two were paired up.
November 13, 2023
This is the first of this series that I have read. Coming in at this point there were too many characters with too much baggage and too much backstory that I missed even though the author tried to stick it all in.
June 1, 2017
This book moved extremely slow.
October 14, 2017
Story was good but did not like the profanity. Too much profanity for my taste.
November 16, 2020
2/10 awkward
February 14, 2023
This is a steamy modern romance. However, I give it two stars instead of three stars because "being in love" doesn't mean you shouldn't practice safe sex, unless you are trying to have a baby.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 27, 2024
This was the best one in the series!
February 28, 2016
http://openbooksociety.com/article/mo...
Moondance Beach
Bayberry Island, Book #3
By Susan Donovan
ISBN #9780451419309
Author Website: http://www.susandonovan.com/
Brought to you by OBS Reviewer jerjen
Synopsis:
In the latest Bayberry Island romance from New York Times Bestselling author of The Sweetest Summer, it might take more than a magical mermaid statue to bring together a hard-headed Navy SEAL and the mysterious artist who’s loved him from afar….
Duncan Flynn long ago said goodbye to his hometown of Bayberry Island, Massachusetts, where a mermaid statue allegedly grants true love to the pure at heart. So when the injured Navy SEAL gets sent home—just in time to help his family prepare for the annual Mermaid Festival—he’s not in the mood to celebrate. Nor fall in love. But during a night run on the beach, a magnificently naked woman emerges from the surf who bears an uncanny resemblance to the mermaid in Fountain Square.
Adelena Silva’s otherworldly mermaid paintings have made her famous and wealthy, but Lena herself is a recluse—at least until Duncan Flynn comes home. She’s secretly loved him her whole life, and is determined not to let him get away again. But will revealing her truth win his heart, or cause Lena to lose him? (Goodreads)
Review:
Duncan Flynn is a Navy Seal, through and through. That is all he has ever wanted to be in his life, and he is excellent at his job. After being injured, he returns home to Bayberry Island to recuperate and become well enough to be cleared for active duty again. That he has returned home during the Mermaid Festival preparation and event is purely a coincidence, or is it? The Mermaid Legend is a legend that states that true love will be granted by the Mermaid, is one only asks for help. Duncan does not believe in the legend, but even he agrees that strange things begin happening when he sees Lena Silva again.
Lena has known Duncan since they were both children. When she and her mother move into the Flynn household so her mother can be their housekeeper, she meets a sickly young boy named Duncan. She is intrigued by him and loves spending time with him, even though at times he is surly and rude. She fell in love with that little boy and she has loved him since then. When she hears that Duncan is back in town, she hopes that the legend will come true and they will fall madly in love. But miracles and legends rarely ever come true.
Moondance Beach is such a good book. It is a book that has a little bit of everything: romance, survivor’s guilt, family, second chances and forgiveness. The characters are so realistic and well rounded and I enjoyed getting to know them better. Duncan is a stand-up guy who is strong, tough and dedicated. But he also has a softer side and he is suffering from not only physical wounds but also psychological ones. He does not see himself as a hero. Instead he feels like he let his fellow Navy Seals down. Lena is a famous artist who is a bit of a recluse. She knows that it is strange that she has continued to love Duncan after so many years. She feels that if things do not work out with him this time, there is no hope for them. She will have to give up on her childhood dreams and move on.
The Flynn family is a close knit loving family. They will tease each other mercilessly but they will do whatever is needed to help those in need. Having read the second book in the series, I already knew some of the family members and I enjoyed catching up and leaning what was going on in their lives. They all feel like real people and are people I would like to know.
The writing style flows smoothly and the book is an easy read. Throughout the entire book there are flashbacks to when Duncan and Lena are children, how they met and their younger relationship. I enjoyed this very much because it allowed me to know them even better and allowed me to watch how their relationship evolved. I feel like it added another layer to the story.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well crafted women’s contemporary read. This book is whimsical and magical but it also deals with some more serious issues. These concepts are expertly woven together to make for a completely entertaining read. After reading this book, I have picked up book one in the series. I hope there are more books to come so I can visit Bayberry Island and the Mermaid again.
Moondance Beach
Bayberry Island, Book #3
By Susan Donovan
ISBN #9780451419309
Author Website: http://www.susandonovan.com/
Brought to you by OBS Reviewer jerjen
Synopsis:
In the latest Bayberry Island romance from New York Times Bestselling author of The Sweetest Summer, it might take more than a magical mermaid statue to bring together a hard-headed Navy SEAL and the mysterious artist who’s loved him from afar….
Duncan Flynn long ago said goodbye to his hometown of Bayberry Island, Massachusetts, where a mermaid statue allegedly grants true love to the pure at heart. So when the injured Navy SEAL gets sent home—just in time to help his family prepare for the annual Mermaid Festival—he’s not in the mood to celebrate. Nor fall in love. But during a night run on the beach, a magnificently naked woman emerges from the surf who bears an uncanny resemblance to the mermaid in Fountain Square.
Adelena Silva’s otherworldly mermaid paintings have made her famous and wealthy, but Lena herself is a recluse—at least until Duncan Flynn comes home. She’s secretly loved him her whole life, and is determined not to let him get away again. But will revealing her truth win his heart, or cause Lena to lose him? (Goodreads)
Review:
Duncan Flynn is a Navy Seal, through and through. That is all he has ever wanted to be in his life, and he is excellent at his job. After being injured, he returns home to Bayberry Island to recuperate and become well enough to be cleared for active duty again. That he has returned home during the Mermaid Festival preparation and event is purely a coincidence, or is it? The Mermaid Legend is a legend that states that true love will be granted by the Mermaid, is one only asks for help. Duncan does not believe in the legend, but even he agrees that strange things begin happening when he sees Lena Silva again.
Lena has known Duncan since they were both children. When she and her mother move into the Flynn household so her mother can be their housekeeper, she meets a sickly young boy named Duncan. She is intrigued by him and loves spending time with him, even though at times he is surly and rude. She fell in love with that little boy and she has loved him since then. When she hears that Duncan is back in town, she hopes that the legend will come true and they will fall madly in love. But miracles and legends rarely ever come true.
Moondance Beach is such a good book. It is a book that has a little bit of everything: romance, survivor’s guilt, family, second chances and forgiveness. The characters are so realistic and well rounded and I enjoyed getting to know them better. Duncan is a stand-up guy who is strong, tough and dedicated. But he also has a softer side and he is suffering from not only physical wounds but also psychological ones. He does not see himself as a hero. Instead he feels like he let his fellow Navy Seals down. Lena is a famous artist who is a bit of a recluse. She knows that it is strange that she has continued to love Duncan after so many years. She feels that if things do not work out with him this time, there is no hope for them. She will have to give up on her childhood dreams and move on.
The Flynn family is a close knit loving family. They will tease each other mercilessly but they will do whatever is needed to help those in need. Having read the second book in the series, I already knew some of the family members and I enjoyed catching up and leaning what was going on in their lives. They all feel like real people and are people I would like to know.
The writing style flows smoothly and the book is an easy read. Throughout the entire book there are flashbacks to when Duncan and Lena are children, how they met and their younger relationship. I enjoyed this very much because it allowed me to know them even better and allowed me to watch how their relationship evolved. I feel like it added another layer to the story.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well crafted women’s contemporary read. This book is whimsical and magical but it also deals with some more serious issues. These concepts are expertly woven together to make for a completely entertaining read. After reading this book, I have picked up book one in the series. I hope there are more books to come so I can visit Bayberry Island and the Mermaid again.
March 6, 2023
The hero has always known what his life was going to entail since a young child. He's trained his body and tunnel vision his work ethic to fight for his country as a navy SEAL. He's never been big on sentiments or feelings and he's basically limited family interacts to holidays and births. But now, he finds himself back home after a devastating injury that killed his friends and left him badly scarred and burdened with a massive amount of guilt. He never really considered Bayberry island home. The myths and the 'magic' of the place always left him frustrated and rather uncomfortable. The legend of the Mermaid has always been a big hit with the locals but it never interested a strong and level-headed man like himself. Still, the paintings of mermaids are everywhere-there's even a sort of erotic one in his bedroom. These are painted by a childhood friend who he hasn't seen or spoken to for 20 some odd years but who has obviously made a name for herself in the art world.
The heroine had always known that what she and the hero shared is special and 1 in a million. She's known since they were teenagers after their first impromptu kiss when she received a vision of the future that they were destined to be together. She's loved him ever since with a single-minded devotion and a sometimes stubborn dedicated. See, she hasn't spoken to him for so long and is honestly too afraid to be the one to approach him but that doesn't stop her feelings. Their first meeting however doesn't go exactly to plan. When the heroine finds out he's realized it was her leaving him all those gifts these years she is frightened that he will take it the wrong way. Instead, he kisses her which just confuses her more because obviously he's uncomfortable with her actions but still desires her enough to make out. But she doesn't want just a psychical relationship. She wants the eternal love she knows lies deep inside him. From then on, they share dates and family functions where the hero declares he's returning to active duty and that nothing serious can develop between them. He is uncomfortable when he learns of the heroine's devotion to him and strong resists every and any attempt life has to rope him down. He's so dedicated to what he images his life to be that he's letting life pass him by. He uses excuses to push those around him away but he's met his make with the Mermaid legend and he's somehow got to be strong enough to love a woman as strong as the heroine.
Hmmmmm.....This is a hard one to rate. It's a contemporary. Meaning, it's quite- boring at times and it lacks the drama and the excitement of other genres. Still, I will say that I enjoyed the tormented hero and the devotion of the heroine. He was a frustrating character. First of all, he's described to be quite a beautiful man but he was a real asshole as a child and the flash backs show an angry and bitter young man who didn't think of anyone but himself. He's still like that just now he's carrying the guilt of his dead friends. He doesn't seem to want family attachments and the emotional thing doesn't sit too well with him. He's more likely to run for an uncomfortable emotional situation than gunfire. I got a little tired of his angsty guilt ridden routine as well as his excuses for developing human relationships. The heroine was sweet and strangely a mixture of seductive and innocent. She knew she wanted the hero, she knew they were meant for each other but she knew she had to wait for him to make the first move. She actually did begin to doubt herself now that she's reunited with hero after all these years because he refuses to believe in magic or love. They have a hot and cold sort of relationship and I wasn't entirely sold on the idea of them being true lovers. The plot was practically nonexistent which is typical for contemporary romances and I don't think the characters completely made up for the lack of story. On the fence about this one and as I won't be reading it again probably, I'll rate it a 2 star.
The heroine had always known that what she and the hero shared is special and 1 in a million. She's known since they were teenagers after their first impromptu kiss when she received a vision of the future that they were destined to be together. She's loved him ever since with a single-minded devotion and a sometimes stubborn dedicated. See, she hasn't spoken to him for so long and is honestly too afraid to be the one to approach him but that doesn't stop her feelings. Their first meeting however doesn't go exactly to plan. When the heroine finds out he's realized it was her leaving him all those gifts these years she is frightened that he will take it the wrong way. Instead, he kisses her which just confuses her more because obviously he's uncomfortable with her actions but still desires her enough to make out. But she doesn't want just a psychical relationship. She wants the eternal love she knows lies deep inside him. From then on, they share dates and family functions where the hero declares he's returning to active duty and that nothing serious can develop between them. He is uncomfortable when he learns of the heroine's devotion to him and strong resists every and any attempt life has to rope him down. He's so dedicated to what he images his life to be that he's letting life pass him by. He uses excuses to push those around him away but he's met his make with the Mermaid legend and he's somehow got to be strong enough to love a woman as strong as the heroine.
Hmmmmm.....This is a hard one to rate. It's a contemporary. Meaning, it's quite- boring at times and it lacks the drama and the excitement of other genres. Still, I will say that I enjoyed the tormented hero and the devotion of the heroine. He was a frustrating character. First of all, he's described to be quite a beautiful man but he was a real asshole as a child and the flash backs show an angry and bitter young man who didn't think of anyone but himself. He's still like that just now he's carrying the guilt of his dead friends. He doesn't seem to want family attachments and the emotional thing doesn't sit too well with him. He's more likely to run for an uncomfortable emotional situation than gunfire. I got a little tired of his angsty guilt ridden routine as well as his excuses for developing human relationships. The heroine was sweet and strangely a mixture of seductive and innocent. She knew she wanted the hero, she knew they were meant for each other but she knew she had to wait for him to make the first move. She actually did begin to doubt herself now that she's reunited with hero after all these years because he refuses to believe in magic or love. They have a hot and cold sort of relationship and I wasn't entirely sold on the idea of them being true lovers. The plot was practically nonexistent which is typical for contemporary romances and I don't think the characters completely made up for the lack of story. On the fence about this one and as I won't be reading it again probably, I'll rate it a 2 star.
March 6, 2017
Wonderful read, life issues but still a bit of magic!
September 7, 2015
Moondance Beach by Susan Donovan is the 3rd book in her Bayberry Island series. This is my first book by Donovan, and it will not be my last. I loved Moondance Beach, and now I have to go back and read the first two books of this series. This book does read very well as a standalone, as you learn about the earlier couples, but if you have the chance to start at the beginning, it probably is more fun to do so.
The backdrop of this series is Bayberry Island, where there is a mermaid statue that supposedly grants true love. The older women in town have their own mermaid committee and an annual Mermaid Festival, which they promote heavily, especially during tourist season.
Duncan Flynn has come home to recuperate from severe injuries he incurred as a Navy Seal. Duncan is a life time Seal, and pushes himself over and above to heal and go back to his duties. Duncan hates being in Bayberry Island, even if it is nice to see his family. As he runs on the beach late one night, he sees a naked woman come out of the waters, and swears she has a tail (like a mermaid).
Adelena (Lena) is our heroine, and has secretly loved Duncan since she was a child. But Lena is now all grown up, and a famous wealthy artist, who watches Duncan from afar, telling no one how she still loves him. Lena knowing Duncan is home for now, refuses to see him, since she feels he would need to come to find her, especially after all these years.
Duncan accidently does come across Lena, and is shocked that this beautiful woman is the girl who followed him everywhere when they were kids. Duncan fights his attraction to Lena, since he is leaving town as soon as he is able. Knowing that he hurt her years before when he would ignore her as a kid, he doesn’t plan on hurting her again. But again, the chemistry between them is scorching, and they both succumb to their lust for each other.
What follows is a nice steamy romance that is destined to be short lived, as they both know Duncan will never stay home at Bayberry Island. The Flynn family does their best to push them together, especially Duncan’s mom, who prays the mermaid legend will avail. Will Duncan leave Lena and break both of their hearts? Can he get over the horrid memories of when he was injured and lost his friends?
I enjoyed this story so much that I could not put it down. As much as I loved Duncan, I ended up loving Lena even more. She was such a great heroine; smart, savvy, strong, sensual, loving, independent and talented. I loved the entire Flynn family and enjoyed all the camaraderie between them. This is pure romance, with a great couple and wonderful secondary characters. Susan Donovan has now been added to my must reads.
Barb
The Reading Cafe
The backdrop of this series is Bayberry Island, where there is a mermaid statue that supposedly grants true love. The older women in town have their own mermaid committee and an annual Mermaid Festival, which they promote heavily, especially during tourist season.
Duncan Flynn has come home to recuperate from severe injuries he incurred as a Navy Seal. Duncan is a life time Seal, and pushes himself over and above to heal and go back to his duties. Duncan hates being in Bayberry Island, even if it is nice to see his family. As he runs on the beach late one night, he sees a naked woman come out of the waters, and swears she has a tail (like a mermaid).
Adelena (Lena) is our heroine, and has secretly loved Duncan since she was a child. But Lena is now all grown up, and a famous wealthy artist, who watches Duncan from afar, telling no one how she still loves him. Lena knowing Duncan is home for now, refuses to see him, since she feels he would need to come to find her, especially after all these years.
Duncan accidently does come across Lena, and is shocked that this beautiful woman is the girl who followed him everywhere when they were kids. Duncan fights his attraction to Lena, since he is leaving town as soon as he is able. Knowing that he hurt her years before when he would ignore her as a kid, he doesn’t plan on hurting her again. But again, the chemistry between them is scorching, and they both succumb to their lust for each other.
What follows is a nice steamy romance that is destined to be short lived, as they both know Duncan will never stay home at Bayberry Island. The Flynn family does their best to push them together, especially Duncan’s mom, who prays the mermaid legend will avail. Will Duncan leave Lena and break both of their hearts? Can he get over the horrid memories of when he was injured and lost his friends?
I enjoyed this story so much that I could not put it down. As much as I loved Duncan, I ended up loving Lena even more. She was such a great heroine; smart, savvy, strong, sensual, loving, independent and talented. I loved the entire Flynn family and enjoyed all the camaraderie between them. This is pure romance, with a great couple and wonderful secondary characters. Susan Donovan has now been added to my must reads.
Barb
The Reading Cafe
September 1, 2015
This is the third in a series but it is the second one I read. I had a hard time with the line the story (this one more than the last one even) walked between mysticism and the unexplained verses the paranormal. I'm more fan of straight up paranormal where mermaids, vampires, witches exist and while maybe regular people don't believe it, we the reader see their world and meet the characters.
The vague something is out there isn't my cup of tea, so take this review with that in mind.
I enjoyed the Sweetest Summer (Book 2) more because I liked both the characters. In this one I felt sympathy for Duncan but I thought Lena was borderline unstable. I think she was supposed to come across ethereal and mysterious but to me her behavior was off.
I understand she believed Duncan was her fated love but the way she went about it all was borderline obsessive and I thought creepy. She used to sneak in to his room a child to leave him little gifts because he was a sick boy (asthma I think and something else I don't remember). Her mom was the housekeeper so they lived in the house. Those gifts were fine because it was a little girl trying to make her friend feel better.
However, when he returns and they are both adults she comes in to the house (where she no longer lives) and leaves trinkets, walking in to his room when he's sleeping even. That was just weird.
I also didn't understand how Duncan didn't have clearer memories of their friendship and interactions as it was shown she spent enough time with him in his sickroom and followed him around as they got older.
Their childhood interactions were told in flashback and it took a while for them to even talk on page in the present. When they do and Duncan finds out she was his secret admirer he's a little freaked out and I can't blame him.
Lena held on to him emotionally as her one love. I felt waiting on him to figure it out himself because the disembodied voice in the wind told her it was the right thing to do was just odd. The experience after their first kiss when they were kids was odd.
That just sums up the book for me. Odd. I came very close to not finishing it but I wanted to see how they get their HEA.
It was okay. I think people who appreciate some spiritual mysticism in their stories may have better luck with this one than I did
The vague something is out there isn't my cup of tea, so take this review with that in mind.
I enjoyed the Sweetest Summer (Book 2) more because I liked both the characters. In this one I felt sympathy for Duncan but I thought Lena was borderline unstable. I think she was supposed to come across ethereal and mysterious but to me her behavior was off.
I understand she believed Duncan was her fated love but the way she went about it all was borderline obsessive and I thought creepy. She used to sneak in to his room a child to leave him little gifts because he was a sick boy (asthma I think and something else I don't remember). Her mom was the housekeeper so they lived in the house. Those gifts were fine because it was a little girl trying to make her friend feel better.
However, when he returns and they are both adults she comes in to the house (where she no longer lives) and leaves trinkets, walking in to his room when he's sleeping even. That was just weird.
I also didn't understand how Duncan didn't have clearer memories of their friendship and interactions as it was shown she spent enough time with him in his sickroom and followed him around as they got older.
Their childhood interactions were told in flashback and it took a while for them to even talk on page in the present. When they do and Duncan finds out she was his secret admirer he's a little freaked out and I can't blame him.
Lena held on to him emotionally as her one love. I felt waiting on him to figure it out himself because the disembodied voice in the wind told her it was the right thing to do was just odd. The experience after their first kiss when they were kids was odd.
That just sums up the book for me. Odd. I came very close to not finishing it but I wanted to see how they get their HEA.
It was okay. I think people who appreciate some spiritual mysticism in their stories may have better luck with this one than I did
November 27, 2015
Moondance Beach (Bayberry Island #3)by Susan Donovan
Duncan Flynn long ago said goodbye to his hometown of Bayberry Island, Massachusetts, where a mermaid statue allegedly grants true love to the pure at heart. So when the injured Navy SEAL gets sent home—just in time to help his family prepare for the annual Mermaid Festival—he’s not in the mood to celebrate. Nor fall in love. But during a night run on the beach, a magnificently naked woman emerges from the surf who bears an uncanny resemblance to the mermaid in Fountain Square.
Adelena Silva’s otherworldly mermaid paintings have made her famous and wealthy, but Lena herself is a recluse—at least until Duncan Flynn comes home. She’s secretly loved him her whole life, and is determined not to let him get away again. But will revealing her truth win his heart, or cause Lena to lose him?
My Review:
I really really loved Moondance Beach... Although I do have to say there were times I wanted to slap some sense into both Lena and Duncan I was longing for them to find their way into the "wake up" moment together. Lena was a person that touched me in a personal way and her plight touched me. I know what its like to be that forgotten person that pined after someone that longed forgot me. Its sad and its heartbreaking, but in Lena's position it makes it worse when the female is fighting to convince the male to love her in return. That's the plight we find her struggling with in Moondance Beach. Although I felt bad for her I couldn't help but cheer for her. I wanted her to get her happy ending. I love all the little ins and outs of their small town I loved it all. Moondance Beach was a beautiful story I enjoyed from beginning to end.
My Rating:
5 Stars
Reviewed By: Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews
http://kkmalott.booklikes.com/
Note: I received a print copy in exchange for an honest review from Berkley
Duncan Flynn long ago said goodbye to his hometown of Bayberry Island, Massachusetts, where a mermaid statue allegedly grants true love to the pure at heart. So when the injured Navy SEAL gets sent home—just in time to help his family prepare for the annual Mermaid Festival—he’s not in the mood to celebrate. Nor fall in love. But during a night run on the beach, a magnificently naked woman emerges from the surf who bears an uncanny resemblance to the mermaid in Fountain Square.
Adelena Silva’s otherworldly mermaid paintings have made her famous and wealthy, but Lena herself is a recluse—at least until Duncan Flynn comes home. She’s secretly loved him her whole life, and is determined not to let him get away again. But will revealing her truth win his heart, or cause Lena to lose him?
My Review:
I really really loved Moondance Beach... Although I do have to say there were times I wanted to slap some sense into both Lena and Duncan I was longing for them to find their way into the "wake up" moment together. Lena was a person that touched me in a personal way and her plight touched me. I know what its like to be that forgotten person that pined after someone that longed forgot me. Its sad and its heartbreaking, but in Lena's position it makes it worse when the female is fighting to convince the male to love her in return. That's the plight we find her struggling with in Moondance Beach. Although I felt bad for her I couldn't help but cheer for her. I wanted her to get her happy ending. I love all the little ins and outs of their small town I loved it all. Moondance Beach was a beautiful story I enjoyed from beginning to end.
My Rating:
5 Stars
Reviewed By: Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews
http://kkmalott.booklikes.com/
Note: I received a print copy in exchange for an honest review from Berkley
November 12, 2015
Duncan Flynn and his family have lived on Bayberry Island, Massachusetts for years. His mother is part of the Bayberry Island Mermaid Society, which believes in mystical powers of a mermaid legend. Duncan becomes a Navy Seal and only returns to the Island every few years until he is injured in the line of duty. Now he is living back at home and working hard to recover so he can return to the Seals. He finds himself drawn to Lena, a childhood friend, and their relationship grows throughout the story.
I have mixed feelings about this book. While I liked Duncan and Lena's relationship, their storyline didn't move fast enough for me. I had a hard time understanding the idea of Lena having a mystical mermaid connection. I would have liked to have seen more development of the mermaid storyline instead of just hinting at it here and there. I found that it took me a long time to finish this book because it didn't hold my interest until the very end.
I did like the author's writing style and I would read another of her books.
I received this book free through Goodreads first reads in exchange for my honest review. This is my honest review of Moondance Beach.
I have mixed feelings about this book. While I liked Duncan and Lena's relationship, their storyline didn't move fast enough for me. I had a hard time understanding the idea of Lena having a mystical mermaid connection. I would have liked to have seen more development of the mermaid storyline instead of just hinting at it here and there. I found that it took me a long time to finish this book because it didn't hold my interest until the very end.
I did like the author's writing style and I would read another of her books.
I received this book free through Goodreads first reads in exchange for my honest review. This is my honest review of Moondance Beach.
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