Memoir of a Mermaid by Adrianna Stepiano_Review

Reviewed for Goodreads Book Review Program Group


Memoir of a Mermaid: When, at last, he found me. (Book #1) by Adrianna Stepiano
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When Seraphina Shedd graduates high school, she is handed the keys to her Grandmother’s home. She’d lost her dad when she was ten, rescuing her from her sudden inexplicable disobedience, and was reared by her grandmother until the latter’s death. Now she’s free of the family friend who despises her, but is still fearful of moving on, into the unknown. Unbeknownst to her as yet, Seraphina is venturing into a much greater unknown than just the anxiety of leaving her Bar Harbor high school, of returning alone to her Grandmother’s home, and of finding a career and making her own way through life. For Seraphina Shedd is hardly an ordinary, routine, average, eighteen-year-old graduate. She is a product of the ocean, playing an essential role in the protection of the contemporary marine environment and thus of this planet.


Suspension of disbelief is so realistic in this novel; while the protagonist is thinking, “No, that can’t be,” early on in the story, the reader is thinking instead, “oh yes, it can! That makes such good sense!” That is how very easily the reader is hooked into a tale of the fantastical-it just seems right. Character delineation is very superbly and subtly done; and there is good character evolution, especially in the role of Seraphina, whose life is very unusual, but again, acceptable as real. One of my favourite portions of the novel, in addition to the scene at the swimming pool between Seraphina and her favourite teacher Mrs. Z, was the ending, because author Adrianna Stepiano leaves us simultaneously with a gasp of “What?!” and with a potential cliffhanger that will make readers eager to await the next book in the series.



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