**Thank you, Netgalley and publisher, for giving me an electronic ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**

Mermaid Moon was filled with magic and beautiful descriptions of the world. The descriptions are very lyrical and but also very stiff at times too. Everything starts to go downhill when Sanna is sent out on a quest from sea to land to find her mother and falls into a hedge of white roses only to make them red with her blood.

All of my knowledge of mermaids is a sweet Disney Princess and the terrifying monsters from Harry Potter’s Tri-Wizard Tournament. So it was a pleasure to read Mermaid Moon, which was considerably darker than The Little Mermaid but not quite as creepy as J.K. Rowlings creations.

I started reading this book and found that it was not for me. I didn't want to review a book that I didn't finish.

This was a rare story about mermaids. The story tells the tale of a mermaid searching for her lost mother. I found the main character hard to connect with. Still, the writing is very lyrical, and I recommend this for those that love fairytales!

I didn't connect with the MC, she felt somewhat distant to me, and over all just felt lost in the writing. Ended up DNFing.

Loved this book! I loved the author's look on mermaid society, belief system as well as their magic. Only thing I found annoying was the constant reminder of the character's name and who they were constantly. I'm like dang is this girl a goldfish or something? LOL but overall, I did feel like it was a bit much for nearly 500 pages. I may or may not have dozed off a couple of times while reading (but then again I'm trying to squeeze reading in after a night of studying and adulting). I look forward to anything else Susann Cokal has to publish though! I enjoy fantasy worlds no matter how long they take to read.

As a result of my various committee appointments and commitments I am unable to disclose my personal thoughts on this title at this time. Please see my star rating for a general overview of how I felt about this title. Additionally, you may check my GoodReads for additional information on what thoughts I’m able to share publicly. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read this and any other titles you are in charge of.

Such beautiful writing! It provided great imagery of seas and mermaid tails. I loved the grittier version of mermaids instead of your "Disney" mermaids.

A very long, satisfying tale. I love mermaid stories, and ones where mermaids transform into humans, especially when they aren't love stories. This book is a fabulous tale of life and death and magic

This was a middle-of-the-road read for me. While I liked a lot of aspects, there were some things I disliked, and overall, I just didn't feel strongly enough about the book to really warrant adding an in-depth review to the blog.

I very much enjoyed reading this book, I liked that it was different from the typical mermaid story. I really enjoyed Sanna and going on this journey with her. Overall this is a great read that both adults and children will enjoy.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely fell in love with the cover and the synopsis! It made me really excited to pick up this book, however 21% into the book, I really didn't feel invested in the story. I ended up DNF-ing the title shortly after that, because it felt like a chore to continue reading it.

This was an interesting rendering of a mermaid tale. Lush and beautifully written, Cokal is able to pull you in and keep you submerged, much like the threads of seaweed will do. While I really enjoyed the writing style, the story was lack luster at many points. It was a struggle to continue, as I really just did not care about the characters throughout. 3/5 stars.

Author #Susann Cokal has written a delightful novel of belonging, sacrifice, fear,hope, and mortality.
Sanna is a mermaid-but she is only half seavish.The night of her birth, a sea witch cast a spell that made Sanna’s people,including her laddish mother, forget how and where she was born.Now she is
Sixteen and a outsider in the seavish matriarchy,and she is determined to find her mother and learn
who she is.She apprentices herself to the witch to learn the magic of .......
And now I will leave the rest to you the reader!🌸

Ever have the desire to be transported right in the middle of a dark and twisted fairytale? If so, I feel Mermaid Moon is the book for you! Inspired by Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, Mermaid Moon is a magical and intriguing story. Heads up, I’m not talking about your red head little mermaid that Disney made a sweet cute story - this is perfect for fans of the original dark shadowy fairytales.

I could not rave about the writing in this novel enough! Cokal is truly gifted. The words are enough to make anyone fall in love with this story alone - poetic and beautiful the words come alive off the pages and surround you. The writing is descriptive, and the world is built beautifully.

My one issue is I can’t see this working for everyone out there - if you need a good and heavy plot as the basis for anything you read, this probably isn’t for you. Compared to the wonderful built world around you, the plot tends to take a back seat. I urge you to still give it a try as it truly works for this story and this author.

Sanna is half seavish, making her an outsider in the flok. The merfolk are matrilineal, and her mother was landish. Sanna wants to search out her roots, so she becomes the apprentice to the sea witch. Crafting legs to walk on land, Sanna looks for her mother, instead finding a witch who has drained life and magic from a series of victims in order to live forever.

Influenced by the Hans Christian Anderson story of the Little Mermaid, this young adult novel follows the mermaid desiring to go to land to find her missing mother. The actual story takes place over the course of a week, and Sanna learns a lot about herself and the nature of love during that time. There is love of a child for a parent, and parent to child, extended family members, teacher/student caring, as well as romantic and platonic love. There are many relationships within the novel, not always explicitly discussed. Sanna has always felt love from her father, but when she discovers that her mother had been forced to leave her behind and everyone had forgotten her, she wants to find what she had been missing without her mother.

The story flows ridiculously fast, and while the Baroness is used to getting her own way and has magic of her own, it still seems unrealistic for the speed at which everything progresses. She can determine that Sanna should marry her son Peder right away, as that would be a way to control Sanna's magic, but to have everything set up for a grand wedding and a water garden created within three days stretches my incredulity. The language and descriptions are sumptuous, and I love the fact that the merfolk have such a different society than the landish folk. Other than that, I wasn't too convinced by Sanna's actual romantic choice at the conclusion of the novel.

Such a sweet and interesting book. Gorgeous writing, magical plot and well developed characters. Highly reccomend.

Sadly, I couldn’t get into this book. There just seemed to be a gap between the reader and the characters. I love the cover though. It is beautiful and lyrical.

This story was pretty good - I enjoyed a lot of it, especially given that mermaids are pretty rare (but slowly rising!) in YA these days so I'm always down to read something about them! I think I just didn't vibe well with the writing style of this, which is more on me than anyone else. But the story was interesting overall, and it's definitely a good read for someone looking for something lush about mermaids!

4 stars

Sanna is a mermaid that longs to solve the mystery of who her landish mother is. With the help of magic she is able to go ashore and look for her mother, but in the process she finds more mysteries and trouble than she intended.
This is not my first book by Susann Cokal so I was not really sure what to expect when I started this book. Everything I love about this book is so hard to describe without giving too many details that could ruin the book. Cokal has a way of making everything she writes seem so poetic, even if she is describing ugly and terrible things, you almost seem to forget the nature of the acts because the words are so lovely. I have come to expect a certain element of weirdness when it comes to her books.
The characters were an interesting mix for me in this one, I wasn't particularly attached to any of them, and the ones I was rooting for were more background characters, but I was curious to see what would happen to them and enjoyed watching all the strong personalities at play. There was such an air of mystery surrounding each character that I had to see it all through. The side characters are what really made this book for me, there were a lot of different personalities that really shined through for me and I enjoyed them all so much. They each were given such detail that you got to see little personal things for each character that they all shine differently.
The genre of this book would be hard to describe, historical fantasy is the best I can phrase it. Everything is written so that you believe you could find these people, this place or these events in a history book, and the magical elements aren't so high fantasy that they are unrealistic. Mermaids are a part of many different culture's lore, and magic can easily be explained as miracles, and this book is just an interesting mix of the two. I want to this book as like a Grimm Fairytale, at first glance it is this beautiful story, but some of the finer details are dark and twisted. I can't wait for what Susann Cokal has in store for us next!