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The Mermaid's Madness

by Jim C. Hines

Series: Princess [Hines] (2)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
5653041,883 (3.76)16
"There is an old story--you might have heard it--about a young mermaid, the daughter of a king, who saved the life of a human prince and fell in love. So innocent was her love, so pure her devotion, that she would pay any price for the chance to be with her prince. She gave up her voice, her family, and the sea, and became human. But the prince fell in love with another woman. The tales say the little mermaid sacrificed her own life so that her beloved prince could find happiness with his bride. The tales lie. If you want to know the real story, a tale not of unrequited love and noble sacrifice but one of madness, murder, and magic gone awry, Daniella, Talia, and Snow--a.k.a. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White--are the three princesses who can tell you what really happened. They were there when everything fell apart, and unthinkable tragedy struck the kingdom of Lorindar. And they were the only ones who stood a chance of setting things right, not only for Queen Bea and Lorindar, but for the merfolk as well...."--p. [4] of cover.… (more)
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Showing 1-5 of 29 (next | show all)
Not as strong as the first, but still fun enough that I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. ( )
  leahsusan | Mar 26, 2022 |
In The Mermaid’s Madness by Jim C. Hines, the author once again has taken a familiar fairy tale and twisted it into a much darker version. We all know the Walt Disney version of The Little Mermaid but in this story the mermaid Lirea sacrificed everything in order to grow legs and be human, only to have the Prince use, abuse and then reject her. Unable to be fully human or fully mermaid, she loses her mind and in her madness murders her father and one of her sisters.

She now rules the Undine and is hunting for her other sister in order to kill her as well. She suspects Queen Beatrice is hiding her sister, Lannadae, and turns her anger on the country of Lorindar. She wounds the Queen and steals her soul which causes Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty to launch a quest to recover the Queen’s soul, save Lannadae and break the control that Lirea has over the Undine.

The Mermaid’s Madness is a fast-pasted adventure fantasy that features three powerful women heroes who each have a specialty that helps them right the wrongs they encounter. Snow White is a master of magic, Cinderella has a bond with animals and know how to be diplomatic, and Sleeping Beauty dominates when it comes to fisticuffs. This was a fun read. ( )
  DeltaQueen50 | Mar 20, 2021 |
I really like the darker version of the fairy tales. I know I've already said that before, but really, this gives you the feeling that something like this could have happened in some alternate reality. How many times have you heard that everything worked out for a person, no sweat, but when you talk to them you find out...well, yeah it worked out but there was a ton of sweat involved in it. Or no, not really, it looked like it'd be fine and everyone pretty much lost touch and then...ugh.
Well, there have been those that complained that there was little depth of character. I don't think that's true. I think that you have to have some very basic knowledge of the fairy tale, but I don't think there's anyone who hasn't heard the story of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White or Cinderella (at least in the US). Maybe you don't know it by heart, but there's enough background provided that if you remember key details like:

Little Mermaid
Falls in love with shipwrecked human
Wishes for legs to be with her lover
Drama ensues due to evil spell

Cinderella
Mother dies
Father remarries
Evil step sisters and mother
Father dies
Cinderella becomes servant to step sisters and mother
Cinderella has animal friends who help her with her work
Goes to Ball due to Fairy Godmother's gifts
Gets prince after putting on glass slipper.

Those who are two of the basic profiles that Hines manipulates to make these interesting, fun and exciting books. Now I'm not hiding the review because I don't think there are any spoilers. It's a pretty vague review I know, but I don't want to give any spoilers. ( )
  Ravenwood1984 | Oct 13, 2020 |

"The Mermaid's Madness" is the second book in this series about three princesses who aren't quite the ones you know from the fairytales and the Disney movies. The first book, "The Stepsister Scheme" brought together Snow White and Sleeping Beauty as agents of Cinderella's new mother-in-law, the Queen Beatrice of Lorindar. Snow is a sorceress with a slightly ribald sense of humour, Beauty (never call her that to her face) is a trained assassin and the Cinders, who now has a young son, has a magic sword and an ability to lead.

"The Mermaid's Madness" gives us a different look at what the story of The Little Mermaid looks like if you drop the soft-focus and treat the mermaid at the centre of the story as a real person. The story starts with the Undine/merfolk, who are lead by the most senior female undine, breaking a long-standing truce with Lorindar and attacking and wounding Queen Beatrice.

As the Undine will only treat with women, the three princesses set out to try and end the war with the Undine and save Queen Beatrice's life.

The Undine, as Jim Hines imagines them, are not just humans who can swim underwater, they are an aquatic species with their own culture, gifted with significant magical abilities, especially via their voices, who are able to communicate with humans. When an undine princess falls in love with a human prince who betrays her, she goes mad with grief and everything else follows.

Like it's predecessor, this is, at least on the surface, a boisterous, trope-twisting, witty romp of a book but beneath that shiny surface is something much darker. There is a vein of sadness that runs through the book whenever we get to how the young women in the story have been treated by the powerful, especially powerful men. The book is filled with strong women but almost all of them have been damaged or at least wounded by their encounters with people who fail to see them as fully human.

I admire Jim C. Hines' ability to write a rollicking tale with mermaids and selkies and sea battles that has a fast pace and is lubricated with humour and yet still bring the reader back time and again to real sources of pain. ( )
  MikeFinnFiction | May 16, 2020 |
57 points/100 (3 stars/5)

Queen Beatrice has been injured by an insane mermaid named Lirea. Lirea is convinced that she has to kill her siblings and go to war with the humans after she was forced to kill her Prince she tried to get to marry her. Danielle, Talia and Snow set out together to try and save Queen Bea.

We've revisited Cinderella. Now we get to see The Little Mermaid's tale all over again, and her ending. This was so much more interesting, because Lirea has been driven absolutely insane.

The first half was a bit slow, as the book tried to find the direction it wanted to take. There is a lot of joking around again. Yet, the ending once again pulls it together. With 30% of the book left, it pulled all the parts it was trying to find together and made a solid end out of it all.

The Mermaid's Madness takes the story we've all seen before, and puts a less fairy tale spin on it. It adds in the fact that messing with people magically is totally going to fuck them up. By now, you'll have probably realised that in this story, no happily ever after is truly happily ever after. This is no different. By the end, I really felt sorry for Lireal. Also, it took me 55% of the book for me to notice that was Ariel all jumbled up, and I'm disappointed in myself.

With a new book we welcome a new narration style. The Stepsister's Scheme was focused only on Danielle, but in The Mermaid's Madness, it is opened up to everyone. We see a point of view from all of the mains, plus Lirea. It also shows that this isn't Danielle's book like last time. This is Lirea's story, it is Snow's Story, and it is a little bit of Danielle's story, too. Danielle keeps trying to take over, but she learns to share this time around.

In this one, Snow is working on herself and her magic. That is why this is partly her story, we spend a lot of time with her as she learns how to work her magic better. Talia is lost in her head a lot, as she feels guilty for the queen getting hurt. Danielle is still mostly useless, though. The only thing Danielle does is hold the group together. Both Snow and Talia look towards her to lead them, though I still can't quite figure out why.

Again, this is mostly a feminine cast. Every major character in both of these books is female. The boys are off to the side. In the last book, it felt really masculine. They were joking, but the yfelt like the kind of jokes young teenage boys would make. In this one, it feels more feminine. I can't point to any one change, (though I can point to a single joke that made me go "aha! feminine!" - it involved a diaper joke) but I felt like I was with a group of females this time.

Once again, this is a tale of life or death. Queen Beatrice will die if they don't find a way to save her. Yet, they play around and joke and have fun. It just doesn't fit. At one point, Snow is actively playing tricks on others for her own amusement. Yet, I will admit Jim C. Hines makes marvelous turns of phrase. "Oh, go fondle a dragon." “Kraken bugger us all!” come to mind.

I love the concept of these books. I like seeing the dark side of the story. I just wish I could figure out what I was missing to like these better.

To read more reviews in this series and others, check out keikii eats books! ( )
  keikii | Jan 23, 2020 |
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Princess Danielle Whiteshore of Lorindar clung to the rail at the front of the ship, staring out at the waves. If this wind kept up, she might become the first princess in history to welcome the undine back from their winter migration by vomiting into their waters.
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"There is an old story--you might have heard it--about a young mermaid, the daughter of a king, who saved the life of a human prince and fell in love. So innocent was her love, so pure her devotion, that she would pay any price for the chance to be with her prince. She gave up her voice, her family, and the sea, and became human. But the prince fell in love with another woman. The tales say the little mermaid sacrificed her own life so that her beloved prince could find happiness with his bride. The tales lie. If you want to know the real story, a tale not of unrequited love and noble sacrifice but one of madness, murder, and magic gone awry, Daniella, Talia, and Snow--a.k.a. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White--are the three princesses who can tell you what really happened. They were there when everything fell apart, and unthinkable tragedy struck the kingdom of Lorindar. And they were the only ones who stood a chance of setting things right, not only for Queen Bea and Lorindar, but for the merfolk as well...."--p. [4] of cover.

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