Okay, the series is picking up. The twists were fantastic. I loved how it started with Marisol being too strong rather than lacking confidence like the previous two sisters. In defense of her sister, she kills a man and flees her home to protect her sisters from the town mob. But then when a surprisingly high bounty results in countless mercenaries chasing her, and she realizes they can't sense her when she is over water and hires herself out as a cabin boy, the expected high jinx ensue. Also, the captain had already met you, and he sees through her disguise...doesn't he?

This story covers a bit more geography than the previous books. In addition to ending up in a different kingdom, Meri gets to visit the undersea kingdom, an adventure seldom allowed to humans. She meets mermaids, sirens, and selkies, to name a few of the wonderful fairy tale characters. That is something I have been so impressed with in this series, that each kingdom has different creatures, similar to how our world has different races and animals native to different countries.

I do still have objections to the male love interest's behavior, just like I have in the previous books. On multiple occasions, he tells the girl "you are mine," and I'm just not a fan of possessive statements. He also holds her close and won't let her go, despite her saying no. She doesn't actually want him to let her go (which we know since we know her inner monologue), but whenever I read stuff like that, I feel like it reinforces the terrible things that men and women are both taught to believe about relationships. Women: they should play hard to get. Men: if the woman says no, that means try harder. But maybe I'm just getting too old for this and teenagers will find it dreamy.

Even with my one objection, I think this was Chanda's best book of the series so far. I've also heard they keep getting better, so I'm looking forward to reading the rest. ( )

I really enjoyed this one. So far I've loved all the books in the series. It's such a fun and romantic take on classic fairytales. This is the only one I listened to the audio instead of reading. It is the only one I could get as and audio from my library. It's to bad because I actually really enjoyed this narrator. But I will still continue this series I'll just be reading it. :) ( )