Rogue Wave by Jennifer Donnelly

Rogue Wave
Jennifer Donnelly
Genre(s): Fantasy, Mermaids, Young adult
Published: January 6th 2015
Pages: 313
Rating: 2 stars

“Serafina, Neela, Ling, Ava, Becca, and Astrid, six mermaids from realms scattered throughout the seas and freshwaters, were summoned by the leader of the river witches to learn an incredible truth: the mermaids are direct descendants of the Six Who Ruled-powerful mages who once governed the lost empire of Atlantis. The ancient evil that destroyed Atlantis is stirring again, and only the mermaids can defeat it. To do so, they need to find magical talismans that belonged to the Six. 

Serafina believes her talisman was buried with an old shipwreck. While researching its location, she is almost discovered by a death rider patrol led by someone familiar. . . . The pain of seeing him turned traitor is devastating.

Neela travels to Matali to warn her parents of the grave threat facing their world. But they find her story outlandish; a sign that she needs to be confined to her chamber for rest and recovery. She escapes and travels to Kandina, where her talisman is in the possession of fearsome razormouth dragons. 

As they hunt for their talismans, both Serafina and Neela find reserves of courage and cunning they didn't know they possessed. They face down danger and death, only to endure a game-changing betrayal, as shocking as a rogue wave.”

A word of advice to anyone who read Deep Blue ages ago and is finally picking up Rogue Wave: re-read the first book and save yourself the headache of trying to remember what happened, and the time take flipping back to the glossary to see what on earth every other word means.

The second book in the Waterfire Saga wastes no time in diving straight in to the mirror we left Sera in. It doesn't take her long to escape and soon we're plunged into her underwater world, with more puns and unpronounceable terminology. Having left well over a year between reading the first and second books, I was left floundering, eternally grateful for the glossary that still didn't really clear up my confusion.

There was still a lot of setting things up for the next book, I found, with a lot of Sera swimming around searching and Neela sitting around trying to escape. In the first hundred pages not a lot had happened (except Mahdi arrived into the picture in what was no doubt meant to be a twist in the tail tale but wasn't) and the time scale for everything became very questionable.

Nevertheless, it was an easy read. Perhaps a little young for me, but no doubt thrilling to those in the intended age rage.