I'm pretty sure this is the book that Tumblr has been waiting for. A human warrior raised to battle mermaids falls in love with the enemy. Except this fierce warrior is a woman. Yep, you got it. Ice Massacre is not only a story about mermaids with a kick-butt protagonist; it also features a lesbian love story. It’s subtle, but it’s there! Oh and get this, not only are they in an interspecies relationship, they're also in an interracial relationship. Meela, our main character is a P.O.C. Tumblr h

I'm pretty sure this is the book that Tumblr has been waiting for. A human warrior raised to battle mermaids falls in love with the enemy. Except this fierce warrior is a woman. Yep, you got it. Ice Massacre is not only a story about mermaids with a kick-butt protagonist; it also features a lesbian love story. It’s subtle, but it’s there! Oh and get this, not only are they in an interspecies relationship, they're also in an interracial relationship. Meela, our main character is a P.O.C. Tumblr has been asking for this type of story for years!



I didn't have high expectations going into this. As you know I've been obsessed with mermaids since the ripe old age of, oh say, BIRTH. (Seriously, I just love them so much.) This love has led to me to read my fair share of mermaid books and 96.7% of the time they let me down. (Plus I never could jump on board with the whole warrior-princess-thing.) You can see why I wasn't really setting the bar high. However, I was pleasantly surprised with this one! If I'm sounding overly sassy here, I don't mean to be, I just want to make it clear that I expected to just skim through this story and be bored. I was anything BUT bored!



The story sets off in a similar tone to The Hunger Games. Meela is getting ready to fight a battle she never expected to fight. Every year her island sends twenty men to fend for their land and every year one man returns… if he’s lucky. Even Meela’s own brother succumbed to the mermaids during his voyage. This is the first year that women will be going into battle. In the first few chapters Meela reminds me of Katniss. She doesn’t want to fight but is willing to make the sacrifice she needs to keep her family safe. There is even a "Gale" that professes his love and vows to wait for her. The similarities end about there. Things really start to get interesting when we are taken back to a 10 year old Meela's narrative when she meets her mermaid friend, Lysi, in secret. This is when the foundations for the story are built for us. I enjoyed reading about Meela’s childhood because it gave us inside look at the characters and where everything began. Cut about halfway through, we return back to a present day Meela who is about to set sail. Things on the ship are intense. There are some characters who I wish got thrown overboard. The last half of the novel is mostly battles and crazy weather conditions that the girls need to brave in order to survive. I thought I’d really be bored with this section of the novel, as mentioned previously I’m not into all that warrior type fantasy, but I surprisingly loved it. I was on the edge of me seat and frantically turning the pages to see if my favorite characters would be killed next.



What I liked about Ice Massacre, besides the thrill of it all and Tiana Warner’s writing, is that it gives a fresh and different take on mermaids but still rings true to the original myth. They are still luring men to death with their beauty and voice, but underneath their beauty is a sickening monster that feeds on human flesh. (Gross right?!) These mermaids aren’t sitting on rocks brushing their hair with a fork. ::cough:: dinglehopper ::cough:: They are warriors with unimaginable speed and are terrifying enough to scare the devil himself when they are in fighting mode. (I don’t know what this says about me, but I want to be a mermaid even more now.)



This novel went above and beyond all my expectations. It was thrilling, terrifying, magical, and overall fantastic. I can’t wait to read the sequel!