In the crowded streets of Santa Cruz, it’s easy for someone to disappear.
Banished to land as a traitor, Iris lures prey to the ocean with each Harvest moon in the hopes that she will one day return to her siren clan in the sea.
When Jace moves into town, however, he threatens everything Iris wants. After all, a siren isn’t supposed to fall in love with her prey. Despite her best efforts, Iris is drawn to the boy who shows her the goodness within humanity. Maybe even something worth saving. An idea that is fatal for a siren.
But as Jace hears Iris’ siren’s song–a hypnotic melody that leads men to their deaths beneath the waves–they are both out of time. Jace will be her next victim.
As the tide runs red with the blood of the Harvest, Iris and Jace must both decide where their loyalties lie and how far they’re willing to go to defend them.
No one escapes a siren’s song.
Amazon Link: The Harvest (Call of the Sirens #1)
Author: K. B. Benson
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Rating: 3/5 stars
This book had so many issues that I almost didn’t finish it. For one thing, the narrative couldn’t decide how it wanted to handle the Point of View. The first few chapters are in Iris’s POV, which already reveals that she is a siren who lures men to their deaths. But then the bulk of the story is told from Jace’s perspective as he is in the dark, and hide what Iris is really thinking, instead of alternating between the two of them regularly like most dual POV novels. Then later, it has to catch up with flashbacks to show was Iris was thinking during all her time with Jace. That makes the pacing so disjointed and hard to follow.
The magical rules also aren’t clear at all, even after Iris explains them. How often is the Harvest? We know it’s tied to the moon cycle, but it doesn’t happen every full moon. Is it every two months or three? Only a couple of times a year? Why? The whole timeline was very fuzzy about how long it was between different events.
Also, it’s set in Santa Cruz, but with no real knowledge of geography in that area. There aren’t really any caves in the area and thunderstorms are extremely rare. And if there is a thunderstorm in the fall, then everyone is freaking out because lightning strikes mean a very high risk of wildfires. Davenport Beach is the site of many scenes and it’s described as walking distance from Santa Cruz High School. But it’s in Davenport, several miles north of Santa Cruz. (And since it’s outside the city limits, not in the jurisdiction of the SC police.) A glance at a Google map contradicts so many things in the story. I don’t expect everyone to have the same level of knowledge of Santa Cruz as me, since I grew up there, but it felt like the author didn’t even try.
Finally, the ending made no sense. One or both characters should have died at the end. That was made very clear repeatedly throughout the narrative. I’m not sure how the series can continue.
