ARC provided by Hachette in exchange for an honest review.

“Ships kept on disappearing. Since the start of man’s relationship with the sea, ships kept on disappearing. So assume the mermaids have never forgotten about us. We wrote them off as legends as soon as they were no longer knocking on our front door.”

This is such a hard review to write, but I suppose three star reviews usually are. I just feel really torn on this one! I loved so many aspects of this, but ultimately I feel like this just wasn't a book for me. I still encourage anyone who is intrigued by the synopsis to pick it up, especially if you like horror with science!

“Are mermaids real? Yes. Are mermaids friendly? No.”

Into the Drowning Deep is technically about killer mermaids, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about society and how we don’t take care of the habitats we are inhabiting, let alone the ones we aren’t. It’s about how we view animals as lesser, and we are supposed to use them as a means to further education and technology without ever getting emotionally involved. It’s about how humans do horrible things to our planet that is 71% covered in water, and one day it might be time for someone else, besides humans, to say enough is enough.

Ultimately, this book stars a cruise-like ship, that is traveling to a place in uncharted territories to the Mariana Trench, where a tragedy happened many years ago. On this ship, we get to see the crew and learn their backstories on why they were chosen for this expedition where they will once and for all find out if mermaids exist.

This book has so much good: the writing was so lush and beautiful in Seanan McGuire /Mira Grant’s signature way. This book is smart, and I actually learned quite a few things about aquatic life. This book is queer, and I was living for every aspect of this budding F/F romance the entire way. This book is filled with action and is so fast paced. This book has some amazing moral discussions that I think a lot of humans would benefit from thinking about.

“When someone kills an American citizen, we don’t say, ‘Oh well, we killed one of theirs last week; we’re calling it even,’” she said. “We declare war. We sweep civilizations off the face of the globe. They won’t care that they started it. They’re only going to care who finishes it, and to be honest, I’m not sure it’s going to be us.”

As for what didn’t work for me: this book is honest to God scary! I mean, for the most part the characters are trapped in the middle of a dark ocean, cut off from society, facing ocean-dwelling creatures that, up until this point, have only been in fantasy. I’ll admit, I’m a baby. I didn’t like to read this book at night (which is when I do most of my reading) and I didn’t like to read this book alone. I’m sure many of you will pick this book up and laugh thinking about how I couldn’t handle the spookiness, but it’s the honest to god truth on why I didn’t enjoy this novel as much as I feel I should have.

Content Warnings: Gore, a lot of blood, violence, death, and things in those similar veins.

Overall, and like I stated above, I still completely recommend this book. I can still see what an amazing and powerful book this was, while also just knowing that it wasn’t for me. And I ultimately hope you guys still pick this one up, because it’s unique, haunting, and so very powerful.

“It was beautiful, in its own terrible way. So many monsters are.”

Love her writing as seanan mcguire, but this was the first mira grant I’ve picked up (thank you netgalley and publishers) really cool take on the mermaid myth and ghost ship story, bloody but satisfying. Fast-paced and spooky until the blood literally hits the fans. Looking forward to trying more of her books as mira grant.

This was a great “monster” book! I always saw mermaids as beautiful and ethereal creatures but this book has definitely rewritten some of my original thoughts. The author does an excellent job of making the story seem believable. She uses scientific explanations and lingo without bogging down the story but adding “truthness” to it. I’ll be adding the next installment to by TBR list!

Leaving reviews on goodreads and amazon.

MERMAIDS ARE EVIL!!!!! I love Mira Grant because she takes chances. She has a rich imagination that could make corn flakes evil and scary. Read this at your own risk... Especially if you enjoy fishing and cruises.

I don’t read a ton of horror. I have a very active imagination and my brain chooses really odd images to haunt me with for years. (YEARS) When I do read horror, I choose authors that I feel I can trust, and Mira Grant is one of those authors I know I can trust. I know her horror isn’t going to cross lines that I’m not comfortable with. I wouldn’t describe it as safe horror, just “safe enough for me.”

That being said, Into the Drowning Deep was intensely creepy, full of suspense, and definitely left me with the feeling that I’m never going to ever be comfortable on another deep-sea vessel in my life.

Into the Drowning Deep follows Grant’s earlier novella Rolling in the Deep which is the story of how the Atargatis was lost. Into the Drowning Deep explores already dangerous territory, and they know – or at least they think they know – what they’re getting into.

Grant builds suspense like mist rising from the water. Over the course of minutes (pages), the fog slowly rolls in, building until suddenly you realize you’re completely engulfed. As I read through, I flipped pages at my usual rate, until the last three chapters of the book where I basically just skimmed pages because I NEEDED to know what was happening next.

As with Grant’s other horror series, part of the beauty – and horror – of her novels is that the science is so well researched that but for the fact that mermaids are not real, everything else she describes is plausible.

Another place Grant’s writing really shines is her characters. Grant understands people. She builds characters that are believable and real. Her characters are flawed people with all the trappings of humanity, and she writes inclusively as well. This cast is not 100% straight, white, able-bodied and neurotypical. It’s a delight. A weird thing to say about a horror novel, I know. But the cast is so wonderfully diverse that when I think of them, I am delighted. Not all of them are delightful, there are definitely a few that I was hoping would die along the way, but the cast as a whole was a delight. What’s the point of a horror novel if you don’t care what’s going to happen to the characters?

I am desperately hoping for a third part of the story. I enjoyed Into the Drowning Deep immensely, despite my renewed fears of deep water, and have so many new questions.

Into the Drowning Deep hit shelves November 14, 2017 and if you like horror and don’t necessarily mind being afraid of mermaids, you should run out and buy it right now.

Into the Drowning Deep is the first full book in the Rolling in the Deep series by Mira Grant*. There has been one novella "Rolling in the Deep" released prior to this. (I have not read that prequel.) Set aboard a ship, the crew on board is composed of scientists, network employees, and general contractors for various duties. There's a range of personalities, including an (all things considered) appropriate amount of egotistical nobbin heads, a few sharks on two legs, and surprisingly good people. There's also a believable amount of drama. It's a great book that will make you want to shove your responsibilities as adults to the side for several hours because nothing seems quite so as appealing as finishing this book as soon as possible. 

What I like about the author's writing is that it is so real. She takes our world, and changes it just enough so that it's only a hop, skip, and one measly dimension over. Zombies, Mermaids, doesn't matter. She says [for x book] "In my world, they exist." and you instantly agree. There's no suspension of belief necessary. No scoffing or rolling your eyes at the improbability of it all. She makes says its true, and for the entirety of that book, you never think to doubt her.

I loved that one of the characters in the book was autistic, but not portrayed in a way that made her 'special'. It was just a part of who she was. It shaped how she interacted with people, and how she dealt with situations, but it didn't define her. There was one passage in particular that really stood out to me when it came to this character. She's having a conversation with someone else, and she needs to get something clear. She says:

"...signals are hard. ... People don't say what they mean. They say things that live in the same neighborhood as what they mean, and then they look at me like I'm stupid because i don't pick it up instantly. I'm not stupid. I'm just not that specific kind of smart."

I also appreciated that one of the characters in Into the Drowning Deep is bisexual (much more common to find homo or hetero than bi) and that the author directly addresses one of the major biases bisexuals face when people find out about their orientation. 

" ... She wasn't a sl*t or a fence-sitter, or any of the other terrible things she'd been called ... She was just pickier about personalities than she was about genders."


There were lots of passages that I really enjoyed from Into the Drowning Deep that had nothing to do with the characters themselves. Just  the basic quips or observations that made me giggle. I thought I'd end with sharing my favorite one below.

"[Redacted] was convinced that the world for a group of scientists ought to be a blackout, because that was what the f*ckers seemed determined to cause."

I really liked Into the Drowning Deep. It had a steady pace to it, the characters were interesting and varied, and the dialogue kept me entertained. It made me feel very justified of my dislike of water when it's deep enough I can't see the bottom. It also had enough action and gore in it to satiate the horror hound in me. I liked it - a lot! - but I didn't love it. It didn't ensnare me the way the author's book Feed did. While I appreciated what I was reading, something kept me from fully immersing myself in the story. I think it may be because while I liked the characters, I never really connected with any of them like I did with characters in Feed.

I highly recommend Into the Drowning Deep, a fantastic and imaginative well-told tale of terror.

I have always been a Mira Grant fan from the the first time I read the Newsflesh books and in this one I can see a little bit of that. The way the little exerts from personal journals or blogs. Also I read the previous book in this series so I was ready for some answers just like the crew was. I loved it and can't wait to see where this journey takes me. Mira Grant you are awesome and I love your style of writing and look forward to many more books from you.

After devouring and loving Rolling In The Deep, I couldn’t wait to get on the ocean, set sail, and see how this next venture would wind up.

It’s been seven years since all were lost on the Atargatis. It’s no longer top news and many think it was a hoax. Imagine Network isn’t done yet. They commission a new ship, a much larger crew, security guards, and supposedly failproof systems to protect them from what they now know lives under the waves, deep in the Marianna Trench.

Among the crew is a girl who wants vengeance, a reporter trying to make her name, two big game hunters looking to add mermaid heads to their walls, more scientists than you can shake a stick at, and some who feel it’s their duty to be there.

There is a lot more character development in this second book. It’s a longer story and I needed that. Sure, I couldn’t wait for the mermaid scenes, and there were were plenty of crazy ones, but I wanted to care about the character’s, feel their hopes and fears, and worry for their safety. I also wanted to select the ones I’d feed to the mermaids. It’s fun to have some that you loathe. I imagine how they might meet their sticky ends. And Mira Grant doesn’t disappoint with any of this.

And the mermaids. We learn quite a bit about them. We already know they’re killers. Now we find out what they really are. What it might mean to mankind, and the world. Scary stuff, indeed.

If you like your mermaids dark and lethal, you’ll love this one. You don’t have to have read Rolling In The Deep to enjoy it. Mira does a great job of filling in the blanks without breaking the easy flow of the story. But why miss out on more fun. I’d recommend you read them both.

And I’m hoping for more in this series. That titillating ending has me crossing my fingers that the author hasn’t weighed anchor on these mermaids yet.

Seven years ago the Atargatis set off into the Mariana Trench to film a mockumentary, before they all disappeared. What actually happened to the cast and crew is made all the more infamous when discovered footage is leaked to the media. Some doubt its authenticity, and others say there is a predator of mythical proportions out in the sea. One thing that cannot be denied, however, is the fact that the Atargatis disaster affected everyone connected to those on board.

Now a new crew is assembling. A chance for the survivors to finally get some peace of mind. That is, unless they, too, fall prey to what lives beneath the waves.

There is an accompanying novella to this story which I believe details out the actual expedition of the Atargatis, but I found the opening of Into the Drowning Deep to cover everything quite thoroughly. In fact, I didn't even know until after I started reading the book that there was a prequel story, so it shouldn't affect your understanding of this story.

Despite having read a fair number of books by Seanan McGuire, this is my first book by Mira Grant. When reading a book by an author using a pseudonym, it can be easy to credit the ease of falling into a story based on the fact that you've, in reality, read that author before. Well, I find that I did quite easily fall into reading this story, but I enjoyed the subtle differences from the Seanan McGuire name. While both authors can be thought to write in a fantastical / science fiction style. I felt like Mira Grant (and this story in particular) is more grounded in reality with hints of sci-fi.

There is a lot of technological / oceanic jargon involved in the story, and for the most part I found it quite fascinating and only mildly confusing at times. The descriptions are detailed and do much to enhance the truly eerie aspect to the story:

The idea that mermaids are real, but they aren't necessarily your Disney variety, no way. It's true that sinister reiterations of the mermaid (or siren) mythology is nothing new, but in Mira Grant's hands there a freshness to the story that makes it feel utterly unique. The idea of these creatures lurking in the dark depths of the sea is a truly chilling mental image in my opinion and driving the story forward is finding out what actually happened to the Atargatis all those years ago. Actually coming face-to-face, as it were, with the mysteries below the surface of the sea and if it's all as horrifying as it seems to be.

Despite the narrative sometimes going off on long explanations dealing mainly with background info on characters and their lives / research, the read was pretty solidly paced and I'm now anxiously waiting to see what could possibly happen next.

This is definitely a case of it's me not the book. I do not want my opinion to deter anyone from reading this. While I have read and have enjoyed some science fiction it's not a genre I go to a lot. However, I have heard so much about this author and the killer mermaid story line did intrigue me so I decided to give it a try.

I may have enjoyed this more if it was about 200 pages shorter. The first half of this book is very slow as we're being introduced to many characters and because this book is so long it seemed very repetitive in places. When a book features a huge cast of characters I can't ever seem to find someone to root for. I didn't really care about anyone. There is also quite a bit of science talk and those parts I tended to skim because, well, me not so smart. Ha! I am in awe of the amount of research that clearly went into writing this book even if my pea brain couldn't absorb it.

I will say that the mermaids in this are ridiculously awesome in an "I'm going to chew your face off kind of way". The scenes with them were by far the bloody best.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Mermaids. Pretty girls wearing seashell bras, with long flowing hair. Maybe luring seafarers to their deaths, or falling in love with the land and giving up their fish tails for human legs, leaving the sea.

That's what most people think when they hear 'mermaid'.

But it's not what Seanan McGuire (aka Mira Grant) thinks when she hears mermaid. Nope, definitely not her. First she wrote a novella, Rolling in the Deep, which I forked up $40 plus shipping to Subterranean Press for. In it, a specialty tv channel, Imagine, sends a ship looking for mermaids. They made their fortune with mockumentaries, and Lovely Ladies of the Deep will be their masterpiece. Except, the ship turns up, bare of life, splattered with evidence of violence, and will recordings of horror mermaids left behind. Everyone assumed those are hoaxes, but none of the people sent on the ship are ever found.

Now it's seven years later, and Imagine is sending another ship, with even more scientists, and a lot of security this time, including two crazy big game hunters. This includes Tory, whose sister was Imagine's on-screen personality in the original expedition. She's been looking for what happened to her sister ever since. There's also her work partner, Luis, her bitter ex, Jason, the separated couple Theo, an Imagine executive, and Jillian, an expert on mermaids. There's the deaf twins and their sister who is also their interpreter. And the new on-screen interviewer who is on the autism spectrum and her former MMA fighter turned camera man.

Oh, and the main security system that would seal the ship in case of attack doesn't work yet.

Needless to say, they find the mermaids, and people start dying in gruesome ways, while everyone else tries to survive by figuring out the mermaids.

The original novella stood on it's own. And while this comes out of that novella, it pretty much stands on it own. However, it also cracks open the door just enough that another book is possible.

I'd read it. Actually, I'll read anything published under the Mira Grant byline. Heck, I read the last 130 pages in a single day because I couldn't stop reading.

Thank you to Orbit books and NetGalley for an advance copy of Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant for an honest review.

This is my first Mira Grant book I have read even though I have numerous other titles of hers on my TBR list. That will change after reading this book!! I am in love with this deliciously gruesome tale involving the search for the mermaids of myth and legend. Before you go and get this book be forewarned that this is in no way your cute Ariel from The Little Mermaid. These denizens of the deep are out for human flesh and will not stop till every last one has been consumed. After reading this I think that I will pass on ever taking a cruise, somewhere as far inland as I can get will do just fine, lol!!
A scientific expedition funded by an entertainment company goes out in search for the truth about mermaids. Do they really exist or are they simply a myth created by man eons ago? All communication from the vessel comes to a halt and the ship is later discovered dead in the water without a soul on board. The only evidence of the events are found on some videotapes from some of the passengers on board. Was this a hoax perpetrated by the entertainment company or a tragic excursion covered up by the entertainment company.
Seven years later another expedition is gathered to trace the path of the first to see if they can prove that the existence of mermaids is indeed true. Not every one that joins the crew this time around is a believer but that will soon change.

This is the first book in what looks to be a series called Rolling in the Deep which was also the title of a prequel. Victoria (Tory) lost her sister in a ship disaster while filming a “mockumentary” for an entertainment company looking for mermaids. However, images leaked out that looked like it was a slaughter by strange creatures, not a sea disaster. Tory has made it her mission since the tragedy to find out what is really going on in the Mariana Trench, where it all happened. Seven years after it all went down, the entertainment company wants to go back, but this time they will be prepared with scientists, including Tory, security people, and a huge ship because the images were right. It was a slaughter by what they believe to be mermaids, and they need to go back to prove the company wasn’t at fault. But with so many hidden agendas on board the new ship, will everyone get their answers or will it become another slaughter? I love this author whether she writers under Mira Grant or Seanan McGuire. She is so deft with weaving words into whatever atmosphere she wants, and this one was a doozy! Haunting, scary, creepy, touching, this book had it all. I must admit that I am afraid of deep waters, so that added to scary vibe, but to be fair, her wonderful writing probably scared those not afraid of the water. While the book did take a while to get going and the end was a little abrupt, this book was a wonderful read, and I really have to say I hope to read more about what was in the deep, because the end left me chilled wanting more! Highly recommend! Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books for the e-copy which I voluntarily reviewed.

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

Pros: excellent creature building, diverse cast, some tense moments

Cons: several minor items made me lose immersion, minor inconsistencies

Seven years ago the entertainment company Imagine’s ship Atargatis was lost in the Mariana Trench. Video, called a hoax by most, showed mermaid like creatures attacking the ship. Now, a new ship is being sent to find out what really happened.

There’s a great diverse cast. It was interesting seeing the hearing impaired twins interact with and without their translator (though I was surprised more people didn’t consider handwriting or typing notes to communicate with them). I really liked Victoria, and seeing her determination to discover what happened to her sister on the Atargatis. The book had some great friend duos between Victoria and Luis and Olivia and Ray. It’s not common to see close and supportive male/female friendships so it was great seeing those. While I didn’t particularly like Dr. Toth, I loved her mixture of curiosity and fatalism when it came to the mermaids.

The mermaids, or sirens as Dr. Toth preferred to call them, were incredible. They’re both alien and based on deep ocean creatures, beautiful and terrifying. I was impressed that the author makes it clear how they became objects of myth while also being quite different from the stories they inspired. I loved the hypotheses regarding aspects of their biology, mannerisms, and communication. The creature building was brilliantly done.

I appreciated that the romantic elements came with a healthy dose of communication and a lack of manufactured drama. It came up quickly but felt organic to the story.

There were several conversations and minor issues that kept bumping me out of the story. This ruined my immersion and lessened the tension. For example, when scientists start boarding the ship Ray and Olivia point people out to each other. Ray sees Luis Martines and knows a surprising amount of information about his life and field of study. He’s even read one of Luis’ academic papers. While I’ll accept that Olivia and Ray were given a crew manifest, he definitely knows more than a cursory search would bring up, even if Martines’ wealth makes him an intriguing subject. But then he doesn’t know who Dr. Toth is, which makes no sense if he studied the crew, considering she’s more famous and important as a subject for their work.

Another scene with Olivia made me pause when she thought about her family: conservative father, liberal mother. Apparently her mother doesn’t think she should ever have sex due to her ‘condition’, which doesn’t seem ‘liberal’ to me. Had Olivia framed her thought explaining that her mother believed she was liberal but her words to Olivia proved otherwise, it would have made more sense.

I noticed several minor inconsistencies. I’m not sure if other readers will find these as distracting as I did, but I’ll discuss them in the spoiler section below. Thankfully the last hundred pages or so didn’t include any of these so I was able to really get into the action and feel the suspense and horror of the ending.

The book wasn’t perfect but it has some great creatures and the ending is excellent.

***SPOILERS***

At the beginning of the book Victoria remembers her recent break-up, where her ex brought a box of her things to the cafe where they were meeting. While she walked out first, I had assumed that by bringing the box her ex signalled that things were over. But later in the book she thinks about the two reasons she dumped him, Luis comments that she was the one who broke things off, and the ex is shown bitter and vengeful about her leaving him.

A second instance happens with Blackwell. Early in the book he has a phone conversation with Golden, who is unhappy that Blackwell insists on going on the voyage personally. He’s so important Golden would prefer he send someone else. But we see a memo later where Golden tells Blackwell he’s sending him on the ship in part to prove his loyalty to Golden.

My father was born in a small town on the ocean, the kind of town where you don’t marry anyone from town due to the risk of three-eyed children. Luckily, my father married someone “from away”. I’ve got: two eyes, ten toes and ten fingers. My father taught me an appreciation for the ocean, tempered with a few ounces of fear. Mira Grant has captured the beauty, temptation and ruthless danger of the ocean.

The ocean and the monsters she harbors have captivated people’s imaginations since the dawn of time. The Odyssey, Moby Dick, 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea and Jaws have reinforced our fear and respect for the ocean. Into the Drowning Deep follows in their footsteps. I love seeing these books that play on my fear of what is hidden from view. There are monsters hidden beneath the gentle waves.

There is no doubt that Mira Grant can tell a great tall tale, or in this case – tail. She has taken what many would consider the gentlest/friendliest sea creature and has created a monster like no other. Into the Drowning Deep is filled with tension, suspense and terrifying action. I love how Mira Grant didn’t rush anything, she allowed the monster to reveal itself in its own good time.

If I have any complaints or disappointment with the book it would have to be with the social commentary. I’m a big believer in live and let live, I read fiction to get away from the crap that real life throws at me. It turns me off a bit when someone uses their job as a podium.

That being said, Into the Drowning Deep was a fantastic story. I enjoyed my voyage to the Mariana Trench. I’m hoping for a return voyage sooner rather than later.

*4 Stars

<i>Humanity had chosen the land over the sea millennia ago, and sometimes [..] she thought the sea still held a grudge.</i>

I've only read one series by Grant but I can safely say I have a love-hate relationship with this author's writing. I hate that there's so much to get through in order to get to the gritty, delicious, bits of her stories but I love it once I'm there. And like her <i>Newsflesh</i> series, of which the first was rough for me but was mostly plot set-up whereas books two & three took off out of control, INTO THE DROWNING DEEP feels similar in that first-book-in-a-Grant-series way. I'm hoping there's more to come from this world and that, with the foundation already down, it'll just explode out of the gates.

"<i>If these mermaids are intelligent, we'll learn to communicate with them.</i>"
"<b>Before or after they swallow our faces?</b>"
"<i>One hopes before, but beggars never can be choosers.</i>"

This story about killer mermaids, set in the very near future, was fascinating. Grant must've done countless hours of research because her writing is so dense with fact and science that it could stand up on it's own.. with only a little bit of fiction thrown in. It's sometimes slow going but is still so interesting. I learned so much about these different schools of study, different scientists that seem to focus on the same things but are after very different information or for very different purposes, and how it all pieces together to demonstrate how little we know about the world. That said, Grant is equally just as clever, funny, and scary as she is learned.

"<i>You know what I like about the ocean we [..] have? The part where we've dumped so much crap into it that it would be justified in becoming something out of a horror movie.</i>"

Despite some of the more plodding aspects of this story, we have a whole host of interesting and diverse characters with various representation, and some delightful spooky and horrific situations, even some POVs from dolphins, and I was really onboard with rating this a four for the overall experience. <b>Buuuut</b> that ending had me feeling a little nope about it all.

"<i>The problem with trying to define nature is that nature is bigger than we are, and nature doesn't care whether we know how to define it. Nature does what nature wants.</i>"

I really enjoyed some of the observations and dialogue about our existence, the world, and all the mysteries and dangers still out there. All the things we don't understand. Especially when held up against the stark violence and strangeness of Grant's monsters. It definitely drove that point home. Yes, this is fantasy and science fiction, but there was so much science, so much possible realness to the evolution, that it makes the whole situation even creepier. It did get a little repetitive, and when the book is over five hundred pages those familiar sentences stand out even more, but I did still quite enjoy this. And I would definitely pick up more from this world.. and more from the author in general.

3.5 "there was nothing in the world like the deep ocean, where life was rare and its hold was tenuous but tenacious, refusing to let go" stars

4.5 Stars!

My obsession with the Mariana Trench began when I was ten years old. It was that age when kids want to know about the biggest, the smallest, the oldest, the youngest, the highest and the deepest. I was thoroughly absorbed with the Mariana Trench, Challenger Deep, and... what was down there. I was briefly incensed when I saw something about how the Tonga Trench's Horizon Deep might be deeper, having invested a lot of energy on graph paper analysis of how Mt Everest would fit into the Mariana Trench. Plus, hey, I was a Northen Hemisphere girl. But no, Challenger Deep is the deepest point on this planet. How deep is the Challenger Deep crevice in the Mariana Trench? Jaw-droppingly deep, at 35,814 feet below sea level. Deeper if you believe the sonar studies. The Mariana Trench has also been the subject of wry urban legend. (Be sure to check out https://xkcd.com/1040/large/)

Beyond my Mariana Trench obsession, after growing up on stories of sweet little mermaids (á la Hans Christian Andersen or Günter Spang), then taking plenty of biology classes and having dealt with enough barracuda when fishing or diving, let's just say I was ready for a more realistic mermaid that accurately reflected that time-honored quote, 'the sea is unforgiving.' Rolling in the Deep, Mira Grant's fierce and relentless 2015 novella gave me the unforgiving and vicious mermaids of my dreams, I mean, nightmares. In that novella, an entertainment company with a broken moral compass seeks to make a splashy documentary (see what I did there?) that goes deadly wrong out over the Mariana Trench. Into the Drowning Deep is the novel that follows up on the Atargatis disaster of the novella, giving us a new journey into madness, seven years later, as scientists pursue the truth about the fateful journey of the Atargatis and her crew. The scientists aboard the Imagine Entertainment-owned and aptly-named Melusine want to know the truth about mermaids or sirens, as one scientist prefers to call them. Do they or don't they exist? Was the terrifying video footage, found and released by the US Navy, of the events on the Atargatis real or fake? And if mermaids are real, where can you get one? Of course, not fools, they provide heavy security and big game hunters of questionable morality to keep the dozens of scientists recruited for the mission safe. You know how that's going to work out...

Grant starts off slowly in this 436 page novel, building characters and relationships that, as we have already experienced in Rolling in the Deep, will serve to magnify the inevitable losses. It will be a full 165 pages in before the first of these shocking losses occurs. While some might be thinking of this as conventional horror, it's good to remember that Mira Grant does science-based horror. There will be no blood and gore without ASL, echolalia, odd symbiotic organisms, neurotoxins, and bioluminescence.

In spite of its initially slow pace, this book was an engrossing read. It hasn't escaped my notice that this is #1, as in first in a series, where #0.5 was Rolling in the Deep. I'm hoping that in #2 we get to learn more about a mermaid I'll call Savior.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher & author for allowing me to read and review "Into The Drowning Deep".

I have previously read the Newsflesh series of books by Mira Grant, and I am part-way through the Parasitology series - I greatly enjoyed the first, and am liking the second.

I have to admit that the beginning of this book seemed to me a little slow and plodding, but once we got to the 'action', it really picked up and had me enthralled.

In the near future, we have discovered that mermaids are real - not only real, but deadly. Into The Drowning Deep tells the story of the second expedition to make contact with them - and hopefully survive.

The cast of characters is believable, and quirky - as are most of the author's characters. And when they interact, it creates a great story line. There are heroes and villains and sirens/mermaids/whatever. Ms. Grant has even incorporated two deaf (twin) scientists, LGBT persons and other memorable characters.

This is a very enjoyable book and I definitely recommend to fans of Mira Grant, and fans of good stories.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! I finished this book with full-body goosebumps and chills!
Into the Drowning Deep is a TERRIFYING and FUN read! If you’re trying to stop biting your nails, this is maybe not your best choice of books, because YIKES, the pacing is tight! I mean, killer mermaids?! What more do you really need in life?


This book is super page-turnery - I was frustrated every time I had to put it down to deal with real life. It has a BIG and fantastic cast of fleshed-out characters (more flesh for the mermaids to eat? Hahahahaha, I digress). There are queer & bisexual main characters, deaf twins (who are not having the hearing world's crap, thankyouverymuch), so many smart scientists and someone called a sirenologist, which sounds like a pretty great job if you ask me. This book passes the Bechdel Test so many times over that I think it made up for books I've read in the past that didn't. I loved that the story pivoted around climate change repercussions!


This looks to be the beginning of a new series from Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire in case you didn't know). Surprisingly, there is no cliffhanger ending, so do not let that hold you back from picking it up. However, the door is HUGELY WIDE OPEN for future books. I can’t WAIT!