Reviewed by Dan
TITLE: Beneath the Surface
AUTHOR: M. A. Church
PUBLISHER: OmniLit / All Romance eBooks, LLC
LENGTH: 122 Pages
RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2016
BLURB:
A whole different world exists beneath the surface.
The last thing Nisha expects while patrolling his territory is to find his mate, but his instincts tell him the handsome human diving into the surf is the one meant for him. Two bites and Kannon will be joined to him forever. But when Kannon’s father disrupts the mating process, Nisha releases his claim, hoping beyond hope his mate will one day return.
While free diving with his father, Kannon is bitten by a seductive merman. Although he swore to never go near the ocean again, the pull to return to the water and his mystery man remains strong. Finally, after fifteen years away, an impromptu wedding brings Kannon back to the Seychelles, and his destiny.
Kannon only plans to stay on the island for a week, but this time Nisha won’t let his mate go without a fight. Merfolk and human culture collide as the embers of Nisha and Kannon’s mate bond ignite, and Nisha must complete the mating before it’s too late.
REVIEW:
Beneath the Surface, is a too short, but cutesy story of a man and a Mer on a collision course. When eighteen year old Kannon is snorkeling in the Seychelles with his dad, he isn’t paying attention to how far from his dad and the boat that he has gotten until he runs into an impossible being…a Merman who Kannon feels instantly drawn to. Before he knows it, the Mer has grabbed him and bitten his neck…but just in time, his dad calls him and breaks the spell, and Kannon escapes.
Quite predictably, Kannon has to return to the same island fifteen years later. We learn he is afraid of the water now and has been since the “incident”, which he has never spoken of. What will happen when he meets a man named Nisha…who he soon learns is the Mer who bit him fifteen years before?
I wasn’t kidding with the “quite predictably” above. This story flowed along in a very steady, but very predictable path. Having read and enjoyed other works by this author, I was so hoping to love this one. Unfortunately, it felt very flat to me. It was well enough written and the story was interesting enough, but it lacked a lot of details. I would have liked the book much more if it had been around 200 pages, with more details of Nisha’s life and the events that would follow directly after this story. It was set in the Seychelles, which I know little about. I would have liked to see more descriptors of the island and Nisha’s home on the pages. Also what happened with the bad guy who showed up mid story, but then disappeared thereafter? Is he giving up just like that? And why mention that the one spank turned Kannon on, if the story then never goes in that direction again. A lot of possibilities on this one, but not enough follow through on almost anything.
In summary, if I’m being honest, there were way too many loose ends for me. I would have to rate this one as Good/Average on our scale.
DAN’S RATING: 
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