Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Sea Kissed: A Contemporary MM Little Mermaid Retelling
SERIES: MM Fairy Tale Romance
AUTHOR: Spencer Spears
PUBLISHER: self-published
LENGTH: 393 pages
RELEASE DATE: November 17, 2020
BLURB:
The last thing I expected to get for Christmas was kidnapped…
Ari: I also didn’t expect to escape, get amnesia, and wash up on a reclusive millionaire’s private beach.
I didn’t expect that millionaire to turn out to be insanely-hot, ex-actor Holden Amundsen, who fled Hollywood years ago after a scandal.
And I definitely didn’t expect famously straight Holden Amundsen to not be quite so straight after all—at least not when he’s in bed with me.
Talk about holy nights…
But when pictures of us kissing end up online, more than Holden’s reputation is at stake. Holden promises he’ll protect me when my kidnappers come calling, but I’m more worried about my heart.
Holden says what we have can’t last, but I know love when I feel it. So how do I convince him that we’re a Christmas miracle worth fighting for?
Sea Kissed is part of the MM Fairy Tale Romance series. All books are completely standalone and are modern retellings of classic fairy tales with a gay romance twist.
REVIEW:
As the title indicates, this book is a M/M romance take on The Little Mermaid fairy tale, with a twist: Here, Ariel (Ari) is the one thrown overboard in a storm and washes up onshore where he’s rescued by Hollywood “royalty” Eric/Holden (rather than vice-versa), although true to TLM, Ari loses his voice at least temporarily. The story also has some underlying Beauty and the Beast vibes to it: the reclusive millionaire living alone in his remote mansion because he views himself as tainted and hideous – on the inside at least (on the outside, he’s gorgeous). There is a definite Ursula/villain, but here, the villain has kidnapped Ari for ransom from his uber-rich family. Overall, like the fairy tale, there’s action, drama, romance with a decent helping of angst, and a HEA. I love The Little Mermaid (well, the Disney one at least 😃), and Sea Kissed had a lot of potential. I wanted to like it. I really really did. But, alas, Sea Kissed just didn’t work for me.
Not too long into the book, Ari and Holden develop almost schizophrenic personalities. They act in different, inconsistent ways in quick succession, practically giving you whiplash with the abrupt shifts. For example, one minute Holden is the doting, compassionate caretaker to Ari, and then within a matter of sentences on the page, he turns into a snarling a**hole. Ari, for his part, also widely vacillates from sassy, snarky and independent to an emotional basket case. To be fair, this is somewhat more credible because he’s suffered a head injury and emotional trauma, but the on page transitions between his moods were rough. Additionally, the payoff from some great hurt/comfort scenarios was squandered, and a major plot point was left unresolved. When you’ve just read a 400 page book, both of those things are very frustrating to the reader.
To be fully transparent, when I read a book, I go in with an open mind and no one individual thing diminishes my overall view of a book unless it’s fundamental (like the underlying premise). So much of writing is personal style and preference so I’m fine with the author’s choices so long as they are consistent and achieve their intended purpose. But when there’s inconsistency or things that just don’t make sense … those things start to accumulate as I read and at some point, it becomes too much and my enjoyment of the story suffers. That is what happened for me with Sea Kissed. This may not be the case for many readers, and may not be for you. I’ve seen many positive reviews for this book, so maybe I am the outlier. But if you experience books the way I do, you may want to take a pass on this one.
RATING: 
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