Release Date: September 4th, 2012
Published By: Little Brown Books
Pages: 304
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Rating: 3 out of 5

Synopsis: Celia Reynolds is the youngest in a set of triplets and the one with the least valuable power. Anne can see the future, and Jane can see the present, but all Celia can see is the past. And the past seems so insignificant — until Celia meets Lo.

Lo doesn’t know who she is. Or who she was. Once a human, she is now almost entirely a creature of the sea — a nymph, an ocean girl, a mermaid — all terms too pretty for the soulless monster she knows she’s becoming. Lo clings to shreds of her former self, fighting to remember her past, even as she’s tempted to embrace her dark immortality.

When a handsome boy named Jude falls off a pier and into the ocean, Celia and Lo work together to rescue him from the waves. The two form a friendship, but soon they find themselves competing for Jude’s affection. Lo wants more than that, though. According to the ocean girls, there’s only one way for Lo to earn back her humanity. She must persuade a mortal to love her . . . and steal his soul.

Review: Fathomless is the third book in the Fairytale Retelling series that Jackson Pearce has written. The first was Sisters Red (based on Little Red Riding Hood), followed by Sweetly (Hansel & Gretel) and now Fathomless (The Little Mermaid).

I appreciated what Jackson did by trying to tie all three books together with clever character references that you only pick up half way through but I just didn’t feel like this book had ENOUGH of a tie in with Sisters Red or Sweetly… and even when we did get the tie in, it felt kinda weird and forced. I have to admit that whilst I loved the attempt, it just maybe fell a bit short of my expectations. So disappointing considering Jackson Pearce is one of my favourite authors!

So I feel at this point in the review, I should possibly take a step back to clarify. Loved the story itself, I always really appreciate how Jackson will write a book with a fresh perspective on a very old story, and she will make it all brand new as though it’s a story that you’ve never heard of. She’s super creative and I loved the concept behind Fathomless.

The storyline itself. I felt like it could have been about 50 pages longer to explain itself fully at the end, as I got the impression the ending felt a bit rushed and ‘not quite finished’. I loved the start and the middle and felt like I was really being taken on a journey, it was the ending that came from nowhere and shocked me a little bit though! To be honest, I didn’t know what I expected - safe to say I didn’t expect that. lol This is where the tie in to Sisters Red and Sweetly come in. The wolves. I just didn’t think they fit into this scenery. I can see the attempt to make it fit, but warewolves + mermaids just didn’t sit 100% right with me. To me, it interrupted the flow of the story, and made me stop mid-sentence going “huh?”.

I am rating this a 3 - because I DID like the book overall minus my couple of meh moments. I still have hope that any more books in this series will be amazing, since Jackson is a pretty consistent writer. Fathomless in my opinion wasn’t her best, but if you’ve read Sisters Red and Sweetly, I would still highly suggest reading this - other people have disagreed with my opinion and rated this 5 stars, so see what you think!