ARC Review--Tempest Revealed by Tracey Deebs

Half-mermaid Tempest Maguire is trying to have it all: fulfilling her duties as second-in-line to the merQueen Hailana while periodically returning home to the California coastline to be with her family and longtime boyfriend, Mark. Living under the sea and rebuilding Coral Straits is grueling work, while being back home reminds her of everyone she loves and misses. But when her old flame Kona arrives bearing news that Hailana has died and Tempest is now officially merQueen, she returns permanently to Coral Straits--even though it devastates her family and rips her apart from Mark. Once there, she discovers that an old enemy has resurfaced, hell-bent on taking over her throne...with or without her. As Tempest prepares for her final showdown against Tiamat and anyone who stands with her, she must decide what--and who--is really important to her. Because there will be few survivors in the ultimate sea battle that is brewing--and Tempest isn't sure she will be one of them.

 

I received this e-ARC from the publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I was in no way compensated for this review.

I was totally psyched to get the approval from the publishers for Tracey Deebs' Tempest Revealed! This trilogy has been a fun one that definitely takes a fun twist to mermaids! Tempest definitely makes for one intriguing mermaid as she was born one but it's not until she turned seventeen that her mermaid powers and abilities come into existence and when they do it's just like bam! Her whole life has changed and not necessarily for the better. Since she's become a mermaid, her life has gotten more dangerous and lot more complicated. Trying to balance her mermaid life and her human life isn't easy, and she cannot always make it work.

Tempest is home for break after battling Tiamat yet again. The merQueen, Hailana, is back in the kingdom on her death bed. It's been decided that once she dies, Tempest will come back and take over. But in the mean time she's spending time with her family and Mark, her boyfriend.

But before she knows it she's Kona is there to tell her it's time for her to go back, the merQueen is dead and her kingdom needs her. Tempest doesn't really want to leave Mark and her family, but she knows she must go, and tearing herself away from Mark is harder than she thought it would be. And the swim back with Kona is more challenging than she expected because he still holds a grudge of sorts for their breakup.

When Tempest returns to her kingdom, it's to find that it's already underule by the new merKing, Sabyn, who had been working with Tiamat last time around and betrayed them all. He wants her to be his queen and Tempest wants nothing to do with him.

The battle begins after Tempest makes her escape with Mahina where they meet up with Kona and the remaining survivors of the ocean. Tiamat had been very busy in Tempest's absence in taking over the entire Pacific Ocean. Now Tempest and her friends will have to work together in order to defeat her.

This was a wild ride of a read! It's hard to say exactly all that happens without spoilers, as you know! I've been noticing my reviews have been longer lately and I am trying to hem that in with shorter reviews, but I struggle with it! I just get excited and don't want to leave anything out! But I think I did pretty good here, even though I know I am leaving lots out!

The first part of the book was a tad slow for me, this was when Tempest was still on land and trying to live a normal life for a short time, but once she gets under the ocean is when the pace starts to move a little faster. Tempest hits one problem after another and she never seems to catch a break. The girl goes through hell in this one and yet she manages to survive through it in order to get to the final battle to end Tiamat and all her enemies, which are many and are accumulating.

There was quite a bit of tension in this one in regards to Kona. He didn't handle the breakup well since he loves Tempest, and of course losing his family and more played havoc with his emotions. But the time under the ocean that Tempest spends with him is seriously ripe with tension! It's clear that while Kona acts like a jerk at times, that he's not over Tempest. Throw Mark into the picture and things get a little crazy!

It's weird, in the first book, I was sure I liked Kona. I guess because that was what Tracey wanted the reader to do, but by the second book I was totally for Mark, even before it ended. He makes my heart melt with the love and devotion he has towards Tempest. So it kind of rattled my nerves a bit when Kona tries to start things up with Tempest again, as well as rattling her nerves.

The ending was what I was expecting in the long run! The story moved pretty fast with a few moments of downtime in between, but were really more battle strategy moments. One thing that I kind of wished was touched on more was what happened with Tempest's family. Sure, Tempest says this and that, but I wanted to see for myself, you know? Just a kind of closure. Then there's another thing, that I cannot mention that just kind of popped up out of nowhere and it took me by surprise. There was one tiny hint at the end prior to this conclusion, but I guess I overlooked that hint. It's conclusion, however, I felt was just kind of random in some sense, just to push forward towards that HEA ending. And like with any series ending, you know that there will be a HEA ending for the heroine but it wasn't without its own heartache,

Tempest Revealed was everything I hoped it to be! It was fast, exciting and filled with plenty of action, romance and tension! I am sad to see this series end, but I feel that Tracey did a helluva job of ending it!!


Overall Rating 5/5 stars


Tempest Revealed releases June 4, 2013