Of Royalty and Rules

Being half-Syrena is a troublesome place. Emma feels out of place in both worlds, but in Anna Banks' Of Triton, she gets to know just how much of an outsider the Syrena really think she is. 

Emma barely adjusted to the idea that she was half-Syrena (mermaid) before finding out her mother was a Syrena princess. In fact, she was THE Syrena princess who was thought to be dead and was the cause of the war between the two kingdoms. When Galen recognizes her, he immediately brings his brother Grom, to the surface to reunite with Nalia, his mate who he thought died in a mine explosion. This could have been a beautiful reunion if Nalia hadn't kidnapped Emma to escape the Syrena she was convinced would imprison her and murder her daughter. 

When Nalia finally sees Grom with her own eyes and realizes she didn't cause his death all those decades ago, she can barely control her love for him. What she didn't expect was that Grom had already been bonded to Paca, the commoner claiming to have the Gift of Poseidon, the ability to communicate with all marine life. With Grom bonded, the next in line to marry Nalia, according to Syrena law, is Galen. Faced with the fact that her mother is supposed to marry Emma's boyfriend, she is desperate to find a way around the law. Unfortunately, that means Nalia and the other royals returning to the water to challenge Grom's bonding and reinstate Nalia as his queen. But the kingdom they return to isn't exactly the one they left, and no one is in more danger than Emma, the abomination in the eyes of all Syrena. 

The first book in this series was seriously funny. I mean laugh out-loud like a fool kind of funny. That was part of the reason I loved it. While I really liked this story as well, it just wasn't as funny as the first book. I missed that. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the back story into the Syrena and the action of everything, but I really missed the spunky, sassy characters and the silliness that made Of Poseidon so very funny.

Still, this was a good story and a great continuation of the series. This series would be great for low-skilled older students, but it is fairly clean and would be appropriate for younger, stronger readers. The books are pretty brief, so the stories fly by pretty quickly. I am looking forward to the third book, but I hope Anna Banks puts more of that snark I loved so much into this upcoming installment!