Book Review: The Lurid Sea by Tom Cardamone (2018)

Described as "either the most lyrical filth I've ever read or the most sexually explicit novel of Ancient Rome ever put to paper" how could I not be excited at the release of this Ancient Roman gay merman erotic horror novel? That's five boxes checked before we even get into the fact that it's written by Tom Cardamore author of the anthology Pumpkin Teeth - Which if you haven't checked out you should do so there are some really good stories - although no specifically merman ones there is 'Bottom Feeder' in which rich and bored men turn themselves into manatees.

The Lurid Sea takes its inspiration from the manga Thermae Roma. The story follows son of Neptune Nerities cursed by his father to time-travel back and forth for eternity to a variety of bathhouses around the world where he has to perform oral sex on all the men he finds there. Instead of treating it like a curse however our lusty merman revels in his sexual odyssey. The only downside is that he finds out his half brother (son of Pluto - death) is following in his wake, slaughtering many of his lovers.

The 'merman' content is negligible - despite being a son of Neptune, Nerities doesn't have many merman attributes - he can breathe underwater, hold his breath and has an affinity for language being able to understand all human speech, like his father can understand all the sea creatures. There is a water connection and he is transported by a giant whirlpool/vortex - plus of course his prison is always a bath house. But those of you looking for a fish tail, telepathy or any interesting transformation skills, forget it.

The erotic content of this is repetitive and boring in the extreme - we're told the bathhouses and the men are different eras but essentially they are the same and there is barely any variety - Nerities arrives, sucks off a load of men on to the next - I really wished that there was some variety in the sexual escapades but honestly other than the two times Neptune's involved it's rather dull.

What makes this interesting is the use of classical mythology and the horror element. I love Nerities' back story and the scenes with his unnamed mother are wonderful. I also rather liked Neptune. However the star of the show is his incestuous lover and nemesis, half brother Obsidio - their first sex scene on top of a corpse in a cemetery sets the trend for their twisted relationship and the later half of this novel where Obsidio follows Nerities its a wonderful metaphor for STDS - the linking of sex and death is beautifully handled. I just wish there had been more story and more Obsidio instead of endless repeats of oral sex - we could have had him following early on and this would have made a brilliant horror story.

Overall I was really disappointed with this it had so much potential and draws on such a wealth of Classical mythology and ends up being the erotic adventures of a lusty male sea nymph. I like the fact that this exists, but honestly there are so many other better gay merman novels out there...

3/10

Cover art is Youth & the Dolphin by Felix d'Eon - And fans of gay mermen should check out his work it has a wonderful vintage feel and is choc full of mermen and other mythic creatures - A perfect choice for this novel.

Felixdeon.com

Book Review: Shark Bait by Daisy Harris

Book Review: Shark Bait by Daisy Harris (Ocean Shifters volume 3)

The heroine here is were-sea dragon princess Sophia Aleahar - she's the girl Kai Nasu jilts for mermaid Alara in the previous book Mere Passion.

After 17 mating refusals Sophia is getting desperate. She's about to go into heat and needs to find a mate before then so she's got some choice in the matter. She sets out to find Kai and beg him to reconsider cancelling their engagement (totally unaware he's fallen for Alara). On the way she gets kidnapped by were-sharks.

In the ship's hold she meets another prisoner, the captain's son Raider ShaCrayz - he's held in contempt by the rest of the were-sharks because he is half mere (mermaid) - this is unusual: usually either dragon or shark genes are dominant when mating with mere - getting an actual hybrid is very rare. Raider is the pirate crew's favourite whipping boy when they don't have anyone better to pick on such as Sophia.

The pirates decide to hold Sophia for ransom. Even so a couple of the sharks decide to rape her. Raider saves her by pretending to do the deed himself which instead gets them both rather hot under the collar. Kai arrives to the rescue at this point and Sophia sees his relationship with Alara and realises she has no chance to make him change his mind.

She comes up with a daring plan. She begs Raider to kidnap her and offers him full use of her body until another single dragon comes along and rescues her who will want to mate with her. Raider agrees, but soon finds himself in love with his dragon princess and unwilling to give her up.

The sub plot revolves around Dendric research - the humans who have been kidnapping mere and sharks for scientific research. They are VERY interested in Raider and a dragon in heat just adds to the excitement. As well as our protagonists there's a hunky merman called Nereus in captivity who falls in love with the new research scientist David Webber. Their romance is hindered by the fact that David refuses to give up his research.

The characters are really strong in this one. Loved both the heroes - Raider the hybrid were-shark was both hunky and vulnerable and I liked Nereus too. Sophia with her innate honesty was a decent enough heroine. I particularly liked the mythology/creatures used - I mean off the top of your head can you name me another were-shark hero?  I love Daisy Harris' universe peopled with mermaids, gay mermen, piratical were-sharks and aristocratic were sea dragons its unusual and exciting.

The story was also pretty decent. What I did find odd was the mix of m/f and m/m romance in the same book - in her previous books the two spheres are separate: urban mermen = m/m, ocean shifters = m/f - this might put some readers off. Events happened much slower in this book and there was time for the romance to build which was great.

Criticisms: The writing - lots of mistakes (some really obvious like using mermaid instead of merman and mixing up tenses) also felt all the modernism - email addresses, tweets etc were a bit self indulgent - its fine to use them but we don't need all the addresses and gobbledygook..

Sex scenes weren't as hot as in previous books, but because I really liked the characters I didn't really care that much about that aspect. It was rather refreshing to get more emotional depth. Mer fan wise there's nothing out of the ordinary - our characters all shift to human. Indeed there's very little of the shark side of Raider to be seen.

To conclude, Shark Bait doesn't disappoint. Its a pretty decent erotic romance featuring were-sharks, although there isn't much shark or shifting action going on. A nice lite read that falls perfectly into the realm of guilty pleasure.

6.5/10

Review: Mere Passion

Book Review: Mere Passion by Daisy Harris
(Ocean Shifters book 2)

Mermaid Princess Alara is furious that her father has accepted help from the dragon council until she sets eyes on handsome were-sea dragon General Kai Nasu. She seduces the straight-laced virginal general but promises herself that her heart will stay out of the equation: She is in charge of the Islands armed forces and no dragon, no matter how hot is going to challenge her for control. The pair must overcome both race prejudice and their own personal issues of dominance in order to track down the mad scientist who is kidnapping helpless mermaid children to experiment on. To add an extra spanner in the works, it looks increasingly likely that the dragon council is in on the plot and may be sanctioning the research....

Really liked the plot of this - I love the mermaid/dragon dynamic - The mere were once the slaves of the arrogant dragons, and while they are now independent, there is still resentment on both sides. I also like the evil scientist idea - the ship kidnapping paranormals for research.

Characters are so-so - I did like the hunky hero General Kai Nasu and could picture him looking like a proud African warrior. It was a tad unconvincing that he was a virgin, but he was certainly hot, noble and competent - you could easily see why Alara fell for him.

I wasn't as keen on Alara - There wasn't much particularly wrong with her, I just didn't find her that interesting. Still I liked the idea that she was captain of the guard, and stood up for herself.

More interesting was the subplot characters - Graicie the succubus with a conscience and vampire John Karon, Captain of the research ship - What's great about these characters is their flaws. Graicie has to leave John before he feels guilty enough to do the right thing.

There's plenty of mermaid content - our mere have seal like tails that manifest when they hit salt water - And dragons turn into full scale scaled beasts. Really like the image of the mermaid riding on the back of a sea dragon. Sex scenes are fairly hot, but sadly all in human form.

I really enjoyed Mere Passion - a strong story, and the world created here is original and draws in the reader. Decent enough characters, throw in some hot sex and a happily ever after. Everything you could want in an erotic mermaid novel, though not amazing.

verdict 7/10

Review: Hiro's Merman by Daisy Harris

Book Review: Hiro's Merman by Daisy Harris
Urban Merman 2

Following directly on from "Jamie's Merman" this one gives us the romance of one of Jamie's other three flatmates Hiro.

Timid selkie (merman) Deniz is the runt of his pod. He's a rua, the equivalent of a human albino, which means he has red hair and a tail like a Koi carp. Because of his freakish looks and natural submissive tendencies he is the prey of pod alpha Gai who rapes him on a regular basis. Deniz flees to the human world through a portal and instantly falls for half Hawaiian half Japanese, Hiro.

Hiro is a natural top and once he realises Deniz issues with penetrative sex wonders if he can make things work between them. Things finally start to work out when Gai turns up in the mortal world to get Deniz back...

My initial reaction is that this story is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than its predecessor. Thank you! Thank you!

Most of my criticisms of Jamie's merman still hold true here: Misuse of the word selkie, overuse of Christian names, things happening too fast and weird unexplained tail mechanism, Jamie being annoying...

However, the main characters are great. I loved the unusual look of Deniz with his beautiful red hair and fish tail. I liked the dynamic of a natural wanton who suffered trauma after being abused. Hiro wasn't quite so well developed, but sexy dominant Asian workaholic seemed enough to go on.

The plot is enjoyable too, rather simple but works for a novella. Things do move frustratingly fast - I think the whole story takes place within 24 hours and in that time our lovers have overcome all difficulties (such as rape trauma) and fallen madly in love. Plausible this isn't - I know that this is a story about gay mermen so realism isn't its strong point, but even so things happen way to fast.

Again I raise an eyebrow at the cover - Deniz is such a unique looking character with his long red hair that I'd love to see him done justice on the cover - which if it didn't have the word merman written on it I would take to be a contemporary city based gay romance. Still they do say never judge a book by its cover.

The sex is hot and we do get some sex toy play as Hiro takes his lover to a private bathhouse that caters to gay clientele. From a mer point of view the sex is not that interesting - tail splits and our merman gets legs. The tail remains attached at the waist and seems to act as I would imagine a monkey's tail might - which is confusing when in some scenes its described as a sari and has to be bunched at the waist.

Our couple seem perfectly suited to their roles and I did rather like the scene where Hiro loves Deniz so much he lets the merman top him but being naturally submissive, Deniz turns things round so that he can be dominated. The scene isn't given much emotional depth, but its still enjoyable.

In Hiro's merman we have a sexy merman erotic novel. The sex is hot, the merman has a tail, the story works and the two leads are pretty yummy. You could do much worse.

Verdict: 4/10

Review: Jamie's Merman by Daisy Harris

Book Review: Jamie's Merman by Daisy Harris (2012)
Urban Mermen book 1

After Daisy Harris' rather good mermaid/were-seadragon romance  "Mere Temptation" I had high hopes for her urban mermen series - erotic merman slash. Hunky mermen, red hot slash, where's the bad? Sadly I was rather disappointed with Jamie's Merman.

Marin is the only gay merman (selkie) in his pod. He's mated to mermaid Sally, but can't perform so he travels to the human realm to find a lover more to his taste. As soon as he meets slutty young barman Jamie he knows he's lucked out. He takes Jamie home, but Sally thinks it's for a threesome. Jamie leaves and goes back home. Marin talks to Sally and realises that she doesn't particularly want him either so they both travel to the human world. Marin convinces Jamie that he wants a one on one exclusive relationship and Sally hooks up with Dave, Jamie's only straight flatmate.

Talk about moving fast! Dave and Sally are in bed within minutes of making eye contact. I know this is only a 73 page novella, but really! Our main lovers aren't much better, making love on first meeting and they declare their love for each other after what? a day? two? not long anyway. When Marin first boards Jamie's boat, Jamie thinks he's in costume, and by the next chapter he's fully accepted the existence of mermen. It's all too fast. Real people don't react like that.

Other niggles: The misuse of the term selkie. Marin is a merman complete with fish tail. Selkie - seal shapeshifter. OK we do get the tail becoming a kind of skin, and our merfok do live in pods, but I felt that merman would have been perfectly adequate - they aren't selkies as they are in folklore.

The writing itself isn't great. Very heavy on the use of christian names. I know it's hard in the m/m genre to differentiate between lovers. In a straight romance you can use he and she, but in the m/m genre he and he can become confusing, however using three christian names in one sentence is excessive. Here's a sentence I've just spotted flicking through at random:  "Jamie tried to clench around him, every fibre of Jamie fought the way Marin held him open."  - very name heavy which is clumsy and  sadly detracts from the eroticism of the scene.

The mechanics of the tail are a bit weird, inconsistent or not developed enough. It splits to reveal legs, but stays connected at the waist to look a bit like a sari in some scenes and a thong in others - I think it can also move I'm presuming a bit like a monkey's prehensile tail - never quite clear how that works. Also in one scene we get a split for the penis - great for underwater sex scenes - though never used as we then move into the tail splitting to become cloth like leading to human form sex.

Characters are so so. Marin is a perfectly respectable hero for this type of story. I like how he's totally clueless to Sally thinking he was going to find a lover for them both to share. He's hunky and I like the chameleon change hair and skin. I wasn't so keen on Jamie. He's a bossy little thing, bit too dominant for a bottom. As he describes himself in the next volume he's "complicated" and they switch roles - which is fine but if that's the route its going much more character development is needed. This is a weird one - for the story as it stands it would work better if Jamie was less complicated, yet I think he's rather interesting and would suit a longer story.

Things I did like. It's a novel about gay mermen, with proper fish tails. Check. It's reasonably erotic to boot, although there does seem to be a far too high percentage of sex to story - things move way to fast. I like the fact that the selkies can only stay out of water for a very short time and get landsick. It's a nice lite romance with a happy ending, even if that ending is a bit too convenient.

To conclude, I love the fact that Jamie's Merman exists, hurrah for merman slash! It's also fairly hot, but let down by the characters, writing style and plot. The cover is a bit of an eyebrow raiser too, talk about blatant and certainly didn't fit my picture of the characters.

Available in hard-copy with its sequel "Hiro's Merman" published under the title "Urban Mermen"

Verdict: 3/10

Review: The Mighty Hunter

Review: The Mighty Hunter (Lord of the Abyss 1) by Michelle M. Pillow.

Simple enough erotic novella - Bridget Dutton is a female scientist on a research ship that gets attacked by a sea monster known as a Scylla. She is rescued by hunky merman warrior Caderyn who was out hunting the monster. Bridget and the other female crew member are taken to Atlas, capital city of an undersea empire known as Ataran - yup it's Atlantis. How... original.

Bridget cannot return to the landworld as the merfolk cannot break the surface at all and cannot breathe air. She must stay under the protection of Caderyn until she chooses a husband - and king Lucius has taken a shine to her, but of course her heart... and body belong to the hunky Caderyn.

Towards the end of the book there is a tiny bit of action - where Bridget, now a mermaid, gets kidnapped by the Olympians, a group of evil amazonian like mermaids who keep male sex slaves and like nothing more than massacring humans. She escapes, meets up with Caderyn who was on his way to rescue her and gets taken to his country estate (under water) and they live happily ever after.

As you can tell from my synopsis, plot isn't this book's strong point. It's fairly unoriginal, though to be fair it hums along merrily enough and does nothing badly. The two major selling points are sex and mer content.

There's plenty of sex in such a short volume, and although it's not very varied, its pretty damn hot. It's taken the very easy option of all in human form, a little disappointing when we have fishtails and arm fins galore.

Lots and lots of proper mer content. Caderyn is a merman with a tail which manifests when he is outside the dome of the city. All humans get tails & gills if they survive the descent into this underwater world - That simplifies things nicely. I also like the fact that almost the whole book is set underwater and these merfolk cannot surface. The evil, demon eyed mermaids with their sex slaves and hedonistic ways are brilliant, I love the fact that these can surface, and our noble Atlanteans don't know why.

The romance element isn't badly handled either. It happens quickly, but I thought that it was reasonably convincing and Bridget did give token resistance and question everything like any sane person would.

The Mighty Hunter is a nice, light read. It's a decent enough erotic romance with a good level of mer content, plenty of sex and a hunky merman hero. It's not the best in it's field, but certainly not the worst. It is also only the first volume of a trilogy, and I'm quite looking forward to the other two volumes. I hope the evil mermaids show up - they were cool!

6/10

Review: Maid for Him

Review: Maid for him... by Tori Carrington. Novella in Blazing Bedtime Stories, volume VI 

Mills & Boon 'Blaze' series (their sexier stories) is currently releasing a series of fairy-tale based anthologies called 'Blazing Bedtime Stories' - In volume VI of the US releases (the UK editions seem to be numbered a bit differently) we have 2 stories: Maid for Him... by Tori Carrington, a sexy reworking of The Little Mermaid and Off the Beaten Path by Kate Hoffmann which reworks Hansel and Gretel.

Since it is the mermaid connection I'm interested in, I'm going to ignore the other story, other than to say that for romance fans it's well worth checking out.

Maid For Him tells the story of Daphne Moore, a red-headed mermaid who is about to give up her land legs for good and dedicate herself to the service of the sea in a final ceremony, when she falls in love with human sail enthusiast Kieran Morrison. After saving him from a storm and indulging in one night of wild passion, Daphne begins to rethink her decision of giving up the human world completely. She goes to a sea-witch who tells her that if she can make Kieran marry her within 10 days then she can revoke her decision. There's one problem, Kieran has only just finalised a messy divorce and he has no interest in remarriage, no matter how tempting his mysterious siren may be.

Thoroughly enjoyed this one although it is sadly short so the emotional build-up of the romance is a bit lacking - you just have to take it on faith that our hero and heroine fall madly in love, pretty much on sight and are soul mates.

Big thumbs up from me on the mer content - I love the bit where Daphne falls asleep after saving Kieran and he wakes up on deck, draped with a fully tailed mermaid. I also enjoyed the scene where Kieran's parents arrive (he's not told them he's divorced) and his mother finds Daphne complete with tail in the bathtub. Reminded me a bit of the bathtub scene in 'Splash' but still really fun.    

The sex scenes are nothing extraordinary, but perfectly adequate, more romantic than erotic. The one really nice surprise was the full tail sex scene showing Kieran accepting Daphne for who she was. I also liked the rather sweet way that Kieran wanted to become a merman, rather than getting her to change, though of course, as she tells him, that's impossible since mermaids are born, not created.

The ending itself is a little too neat, but unlike the fairytale does have a happy ending for which I was very glad, since I did find myself caring for these characters.

Maid for Him then is a nice, sexy retelling of the little mermaid and didn't disappoint on that score - it did everything I wanted it to - a romance with a fishtailed mermaid. Hurrah. It is a little short and lacks the depth of a full length novel, but it's a fun whimsical read that should delight mermaid and romance enthusiasts.

6/10

Review - Mere Temptation

Review: Mere Temptation (Ocean Shifters 1) by Daisy Harris

After 20 years of living amongst humans, mer-hunters have finally caught up with independent mermaid Ismaelda Freya. She does the only thing she can, returns home to Key Sirena to enlist the help of the ruling sea dragons.

She runs into to her high-school crush Sidon, a were-sea dragon who has never forgotten her, despite becoming the town's playboy billionaire. Sidon wants to pick up their relationship and mark Isa - (have full sex with her) which will force her to become fully mer and stay in the key forever.
Up until this point, by remaining a virgin, Isa has managed to keep her options open - now she must choose whether to give in to Sidon or find a random human to mate with and become fully human.

To make matters worse the mer-hunters aren't just after Isa and have been kidnapping mer children to experiment on. It seems that the ruling dragons may just be in on the racket, having little love for the socially inferior mere....

The story and characters in this novella are really good. Love the spirited heroine and the hunky were dragon whom she's never been able to forget. Other things I give a big thumbs up to: Love the class divide between mermaids and dragons - think that works really well. I also love the mechanics of the shape shifters - Mermaids are the only paranormal species that have a choice - once they have sex they can become fully human or fully mer.

There's also a really interesting sub-plot following the relationship between a succubus and the captain on the mer-hunting ship - this isn't tied up in this volume so I hope we get more on them in the sequels.

The sex scenes, while not the hottest I've come across aren't terrible and made erotic by the fact that we like the characters and are rooting for them to get together.

What lets this down a bit is the writing - lots and lots of grammar mistakes and colloquialisms which I felt detracted from the tone - It's very slangy and our characters use Americanisms that don't seem to fit somehow. Not sure I was too keen on the term mere either. I know its a sort of pun on mer, but for me It didn't sound quite right.

I also wanted more on the genetics - the world created here is unique and really inventive. When Isa finally makes her choice and transforms (and I wont spoiler and say what her final decision is) - it made my head spin a bit and I had to thumb back and go is that possible? - It is, but still comes as a bit of a shock and I guess I just wanted more in this world.

Along with the slang I did find the character archetypes a bit cliched - This does feel like a mills and boon billionaire playboy/headstrong ex story with mermaid myth tacked on - still saying that there's enough mer content to leave me more than satisfied. We have full tails - though they are more seal skin than fish tail. well our mere are mammals so that works.

Over all a pretty good attempt at an erotic mer-romance. I'll definitely hunt down Daisy Harris' other mermaid stories. There's at least two more novellas in this series and two merman slash novellas that look great <evil grin>. Roll on pay day!

Verdict: 7/10

Review: Daughters of Terra

Review: Daughters of Terra (Book One of the Ta'E'Sha Chronicles by Theolyn Boese

Theodora Conner is kidnapped by alien mermen who are collecting human females to breed with. Lovers Kyrin and Daeshen have decided they like the look of Theodora and wish to add her to their family unit - The Ta'E'Sha can have up to six lovers in one family unit. Theo finds she likes having two male lovers and by the end of the book finds herself attracted to a female warrior and decides to add her to their menage as well!

- So that's all the bad stuff out of the way. I'm not too keen on erotic menage tales to begin with, preferring the emotional depth and romance of one on one relationships. I don't like complacent heroines - nothing wrong with being submissive, but I think that characters have to be believable and frankly if I was abducted by two alien mermen intent on breeding with me I wouldn't just go with the flow from the outset - I'd make them work for it! The use of multiple apostrophes in sci-fi names is another annoyance. Sorry, really not necessary. It is somewhat insulting to readers, and there are far better ways of creating an alien feel than strings on unpronounceable words. OK, rant over.

Now on to the positives, because despite all that's stacking up against this novel, I did find it surprisingly readable. The main plot (other than Theo's inclusion in this bizarre foursome) tells of a serial rapist Barik, who objects to the Ta'E'Sha mixing human DNA into their bloodline. He rapes several of the kidnapped human women and attacks Theo causing her to miscarry her baby. This darker aspect to the story I found quite exciting. I liked the racial tensions going on, and liked the motivations of the villain. The supporting characters were also well developed, likable and interesting.

I also have to give a big thumbs up to the "mer" content. Our two heroes can shift into proper fish tails (hurrah!) There has also been an attempt to create some interesting merman anatomy - the merman have muscular hair both on their heads and pubic hair, a bit like sea anemones. The fish tail has a slit at the groin to expose genitalia when aroused - the penis itself has frills and tiny barbed spines. We get one underwater sex scene between Daeshen and Theo in which our hero has his fishtail, which I thought was pretty good.  All the sex scenes in the novel are reasonably erotic and varied, although we only get one full merman offering. 

Also worth mentioning is the mythology - Our alien mermen worship a pantheon of ten gods and goddesses who are working behind the scenes. They haven't spoken to their people in thousands of years, causing some to stop believing. Theo has been chosen as their emissary and she can channel the gods. Thought this bit was fantastic. We've got a whole mythology building up here that I'd like to see more of in subsequent novels.

I found myself enjoying Daughters of Terra far more than I thought I would. It's one of those guilty pleasure type of books that did exactly what I hoped it would from the cover - It's an erotic novel with proper merman content. I would have liked a splash more romance and a feistier heroine, and less apostrophes, but you could do a lot worse. The sex is hot, there's proper mer content and it has a decent enough story.

Verdict: 5/10