The Painted Maidens Trilogy

Tags

book, fantasy, review, series, Terra Harmony, The Betrayed, The Painted Maidens, The Rising, The Taking, urban fantasy, Young Adult

Blurb: Seventeen-year-old Serena is the youngest member of a dying race. The increasing acidity of the ocean is destroying her home, slowly eating away at the once thriving underwater landscape. But since the night of Serena’s birth, it is an outside force that most threatens their dwindling population. Werewolves, who once served as protectors for mermaids in the Kingdom of the Undine, now seek to eliminate all who dwell in the ocean—and Serena is about to find herself right in the middle of the deadly conflict.
Given the title of Werewolf Liaison, Serena is determined to make things right for her people. When she ventures to The Dry, she meets Liam, the werewolf with hazel eyes, and her whole world gets turned upside down. As Serena discovers the real history between werewolves and mermaids, she is left wondering who her true enemies are.

Review: I think the thing that says the most about this series is that I almost always hate stories written in the present tense. I still finished all three books. In fact, the writing got better in each book.
Another thing I loved about this series was that there was no love triangle. Love triangles are extremely over done. In a book that isn’t about romance I appreciate that there isn’t a lot of focus wasted on “will she pick this boy or that boy?” I feel like authors and the world in general underestimate a girl’s ability to prioritize.
I love Serena from the beginning of the book until the end. Outcast by both circumstance and choice, she takes it in stride. Her best friend is in love with one of her many bullies and she supports him anyway. She handles her many relationships in a way that I would have envied at 17.
The problem with reviewing a whole series at once is that I can’t reveal many of my favorite things with out spoiling earlier plot twists. If you’re looking to read some urban fantasy outside of anything you’ve probably read before, I’d suggest giving this trilogy a try. Just remember that it (the present tense writing) gets better as you read from one book to the next. The story is there the entire time.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 for originality and wonderful story telling.