Diary of a Radical Mermaid

Waterlilies #2

by Deborah Smith

Glamour, mystery, romance, humor and webbed toes are all back in full fin as rambunctious mer-socialite Juna Lee Poinfax invades the dignified coastal world of the Bonavendier clan. Determined to chronicle Mer life for her on-line journal, Juna Lee instead dives into Lilith Bonavendier's latest scheme to awaken the "inner mermaid" in an unsuspecting distant relative. World-famous author M.M. (Molly) Revere--who writes the mega-successful Water Hyacinth series, about a group of children who are secretly mermaids--is a shy, plain-footed young woman with nothing but vague clues to her extraordinary family link to the mer world. After Juna Lee--working for Lilith--lures the likable Molly to the Georgia coast, both Molly and Juna Lee find themselves in the middle of trouble. Mer-hunk Rhymer McEvers has come to Sainte's Point Island to hide his three remarkable nieces from their mysterious and possibly murderous mer-father--a man who may be more myth than reality, but dangerous either way. Molly has to face the reality of her heritage while falling in love with the enigmatic Rhymer and helping him protect his nieces from a danger so amazing even the Water People can barely believe it.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Romance, Mermaids, Chick Lit, Paranormal Romance, Contemporary

272 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2004

About the author

aka Jackie Leigh
aka Della Stone
aka Leigh Bridger

Bestselling Author
Co-founder, co-publisher
Vice-president, Editor in Chief
BelleBooks, Memphis, TN

Deborah Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of A Place to Call Home, and the No. 1 Kindle Bestseller The Crossroads Cafe, A Gentle Rain and other acclaimed romantic novels portraying life and love in the modern Appalachian South. A native Georgian, Deborah is a former newspaper editor who turned to novel-writing with great success.

With more than 35 romance, women's fiction and fantasy novels to her credit, Deborah's books have sold over 3 million copies worldwide. Among her honors is a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times Magazine and a nomination for the prestigious Townsend Literary Award. In 2003 Disney optioned Sweet Hush for film. In 2008 A Gentle Rain was a finalist in Romance Writers of America's RITA awards.

For the past fifteen years Deborah has partnered with Debra Dixon to run BelleBooks, a small press originally known for southern fiction, including the Mossy Creek Hometown Series and the Sweet Tea story collections. As editor, she has worked on projects as diverse as the nonfiction Bra Talk book by three-time Oprah Winfrey guest Susan Nethero, and the In My Dreams novella by New York Times bestselling author Sarah Addison Allen.

In 2008 BelleBooks launched Bell Bridge Books, an imprint with a focus on fantasy novels and now expanded to include multi-genre fiction--mystery, suspense, thrillers, women's fiction, nonfiction and other. In 2013 BelleBooks acquired the late Linda Kichline's paranormal romance press, ImaJinn Books, and hired legendary editor Brenda Chin, formerly of Harlequin Books, as editorial director. Chin will expand the imprint to cover a diverse mix of all romance types.

Deborah's newest books are the Crossroads Cafe novellas: THE BISCUIT WITCH, THE PICKLE QUEEN, THE YARN SPINNER, and THE KITCHEN CHARMER (2014). She released a mini-short story, SAVING JONQUILS, in March 2014. A sexy romantic novella, A HARD MAN TO FIND, is scheduled for later in the month.

Reviews

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

With all the negative news in the world, how refreshing it is to read a science-fiction, fantasy by Deborah Smith.
Hilariously funny, edge-of-your-seat suspense, tender romances, an amazing world and unforgettable characters combine to make Diary of a Radical Mermaid a must read. The author has outdone herself. Juna Lee is one of the most self-absorbed characters I've ever read about but I completely fell in love with her. How could you not fall in love with someone who speaks her mind, is completely shallow, full of heart and loves her family dearly? Molly's journey into acceptance was heart-warming as was her relationship with Rhymer. The world of the WaterLilies series is complex, multi-layered and set up for many more books to come. I know, that I will be eagerly awaiting the third book, The Radical Mermaid Gets Rude. Don't miss! A fun option for your book review club!

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[Lafcadio · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll start by saying the story itself was good. Adventure, murder, conspiracy, kidnapping, mythology, true love... however, I found several things about this book distracting:

While the "voice" of Juna Lee (the radical mermaid in question) was impeccable, and fit her character well, the plethora of pop culture references disappointed me. The references also fit her character, but there were so many of them it seemed as though the author was stretching to fit as many in as possible. This series had the potential to continue to have worth on into the future, but with so many references to current cultural phenomena (most of which lack the class to become timeless), it will rapidly lose its relevance in coming years. Juna Lee would have come off just as young, hip, and flaky without permanently relegating her to 2004. Mermaids should live longer than that.

Juna Lee's voice was discernible instantaneously in each chapter section, but the other characters required a paragraph or more of text before I realized whose head I was in. Sometimes, the only thing that distinguished Rhymer was the occasional glottal stop to let me know he had a Scottish accent. This device would have been far less annoying had it been consistent. Apparently, Rhymer has no accent at all unless he's saying the word "not." Same goes for his cousin, Undiline, in Alice at Heart.

In this tome, as well as in book one of the series, there are far too many uses of the term "gilding the lily," or its southern-mer-permutations (gilding the water lily, gilding the magnolia). The first time it was used was apt. The second could be attributed to repetition as a literary device. Beyond that, it was just bothersome.

Throughout the series, it is explained that mer-folk dislike flying, and goes briefly into the physiological reasons why. And yet, in a list of famous mers of whom you may have heard, you'll find the name Amelia Earhart...??

And possibly the most distracting of all: the editing. There were countless extra spaces between words where there shouldn't be, and some extra spaces in the middle of words. Occasionally there were spaces left out. A celebrity's name was misspelled. All this makes me wary of reading any other book from this publishing company.

[received via GoodReads First Reads giveaway]

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

69: Diary of a Radical Mermaid by Deborah Smith

I won this book through GoodReads giveaways. So… THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, GOODREADS!

In the sequel to Alice at Heart, we return to Sainte’s Pointe, to the Bonavendier sisters and their entourage… A distant relative is in trouble, and needs to keep his very special nieces out of sight, before their father, a beast straight out of legends, finds them. He and the girls will be safe on the island. And they will soon have a little company…

When Molly Revere, a cane-toting, cat-loving, ex-librarian turned famous author, is confronted by some absolutely self-centered, yet glamorous lunatic who seems able to read her mind and claims they are both mermaids, she figures she’ll humor the woman and slowly back out of the room. But it doesn’t take long for Molly to get herself kidnapped and forced to live in this… well… this beautiful cottage on the beach… There she learns of her past and her present, of who she is and where she comes from. And when a hunky Scottish merman gets in her head, well this is one she doesn’t mind sharing her deepest thoughts with.

A very enjoyable book about merpeople, definitely a pleasure to read. A quick, sweet read of magical love, and lovely magic (although it almost falls in the chicklit category as well). I do recommend you read the prequel first, I think you’ll enjoy this one more.

[Jodi · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading "Alice at Heart" which I won through goodreads I was excited to read the next book in the series. What a disappointment! I loved "Alice at Heart" because it was a tale about mermaids living among us and it had an air of mystery and a little romance too. I am not a fantasy reader, but that book really pulled me in with its clever and unique tale. I found "Diary of a Radical Mermaid" a poorly written, bawdy book. I am not a prude, but the "sex" was overdone in this book - in the first book there were inuendos but it was tastefully done. In this book, it was just rude. The language was also distasteful - things I would never say in polite company. Also, I hated all of the sea references that the author used to be "witty" but just made me roll my eyes each time I read them. Here are a few of many horrible examples: "Having webbed toes is just the icing on the fish cake" - p. 105; "I forgive you for being a pain in the fin" - p. 116; "Pound him into crab snot" p.133. Don't waste your time reading this book. Enjoy the first in the series, but stop there!

[Erin Tierney-Butler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected much more than I got from this book. The first book transported me into the sea, eager for the warm sand and ocean waves to bring out my inner mermaid. Unfortunately this novel seemed to cut through the chase. Character descriptions were adequate but the storyline just fell short for me. There was so much potential for developing the relationships between characters. I also did not like the references to current day well known personalities.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read the first book in the Water Lilies Series, but this one was cute. I'm a huge mermaid fan (I know as much lore as I possibly can), and Deborah Smith conceives of mermaids in a new way. On the whole, I enjoyed the book. However, sometimes I found the witty remarks and snarkiness of Juna Lee and other characters to be just a bit too forced. But perhaps that's just Juna Lee for you...

[SBC · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first book in the Waterlilies series but this one just had such a different tone with the narration from the radical mermaid, Juna Lee. I really didn't like this character. I think we were meant to think of her as the female version of a lovable rogue but she was horrible to people, prejudiced in multiple ways, and edged the story into the kooky. Embedded inside her framing narrative was the story of Molly and Rhymer and his 3 nieces and that I enjoyed (mostly). I felt the plot taking a turn from the mysterious and slightly mystical to spelling everything out about the mer world made it feel a little two-dimensional, and the world building just lost most of its sparkle and coherency for me. I guess the first book felt more like a magical realist novel with closer ties to Smith's other non-fantastic family sagas, while this felt more like a cartoonish fantasy edging into sci-fi and heading towards some kind of thriller/world-saving finale. I wonder what happened to the promised sequel, 'The Radical Mermaid Gets Rude'? This second book certainly ends with the story set up for the next romance and a lot more development.

[Citlalli · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hoped this would be better than the first book. I was wrong.

First of all, the editing is atrocious. There are multiple spelling mistakes throughout the book. Worse than that, the feeble attempts at Spanish are so bad they're downright offensive.

The plot is predictable. The characters are poorly fleshed out, except physically, of course, because we need to know about every boner. Overall, it was a very disappointing book.

[A'Llyn Ettien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mermaid high life and romance...I really wasn't able to get very into this.

[Wrighty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book that I won recently at Goodreads (thank you Goodreads!). It's the second book in the Water Lilies series by Deborah Smith. I prefer to start a series from the beginning but after reading reviews of the first book, Alice at Heart, I knew the books were connected but told different stories with different main characters. As with the first book this is about the Bonavendier clan and their extended family, a society of mer-people living off the coast of Georgia on Sainte's Point Island. Although the mer-people don't have the tails often associated with mermaids they do have beautiful webbed feet, extremely fast growing hair, can hold their breath for unusually long periods of time, have physic abilities that include some mind control over "Landers" (those of us who are not mer-people) among other abilities.

Juna Lee Poinfax is the Radical Mermaid aptly named as she is very impulsive and tends to put her webbed foot in her mouth. After another social blunder Juna is sent to the coast to serve some mer-person community service. While there she decides to tell her story in diary format. An online mermaid blog. Her great-aunt Lilith decides to use her services to gently convince a distant relative that she too is a mermaid. Being the radical she is, she kidnaps her relative Molly Revere and takes her to Sainte Point's.

What started as a simple task is soon complicated. Mer-man Rhymer McEvers is also on the island where he has brought his nieces who he is convinced are in danger from their father. Upon meeting Molly an instant attraction is formed.
As this magical story develops there is adventure, romance, mystery and murder all served up with a dose of humor.

I enjoyed this mermaid version of chick lit and it was exactly what I needed at a very busy time. In the back of the book is a whole section of facts and fable, history and science by, Juna Lee Poinfax, webmistress. I appreciated the help and I'm looking forward to reading more from this series.

[Sandra Jackson - Alawine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quirky and fun, the perfect pickme up.

Juna Lee is under orders to convince Molly she is a Mermaid (Floater variety) and hook her up with Rhymer McEvers (a Mer Peacekeeper). Unfortunately Molly is harder to convince than Juna Lee anticipates, so she winds up kidnapping her. Which actually works out pretty well as Rhymer hears her calls for help and it's love at first sight when he rescues her.

But Rhymers life is complicated he is trying to protect his three nieces from their Swimmer Father, Orion, who is supposedly trying to kill them. Their Mother Tara McEvers died attacking UniWorld. Orion was unable to save her but took her body before the UniWorld Scientist could dissect it. When Rhymer went to claim her body the goons at UniWorld tried to capture him, but he escaped. Now he is hiding out at Sainte's Point Island with his nieces. His best friend Jordan is helping him guard the girls. To keep Juna Lee safe, Jordan kidnapped Juna Lee and left Aphrodite to guard her at one of the Araiza's fancy resorts. Juna Lee is equally determined to protect Jordan so she expends lots of energy trying to escape, so when Charley the Tuna shows up she is more than happy to get on the boat with him, except it's not Charley. Held hostage by Orion Juna Lee is used as bait to capture Jordan and Tula. Orion promises to release them if Rhymer will meet him alone at Echo Marsh.

Rhymer arrives at Echo Marsh for what he believes will be a fight to the death. But when Orion has the opportunity to kill Rhymer he doesn't and reveals he was just testing him to make sure that Rhymer will protect Orion's daughters from UniWorld. Molly and the girls show up but before Rhymer and Orion can reveal their understanding Juna Lee, Jordan, Tula and Aphrodite show up and Juna Lee shoots Orion. Orion is dying but his daughters who are healers manage to save his life. Rhymer, Molly and the girls go on the run from Uniworld.

Can't wait for the next book in this series.

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a strange, odd book. To start with, I did like it better than the first one of the series. It started out irreverent and sassy, which made the characters much more likeable and interesting. The strangest thing about it however, was that practically every character had the chance to do a POV, often within the same chapter. It was hard to know for sure who was telling the story, and harder still to figure out who was the main character(s). With the title and the book starting with "The Radical Mermaid" herself, Juna Lee, telling the story, it was my assumption that the book would mainly deal with her, but no. Soon the action shifted to Molly and Rhymer, and I would have enjoyed a book about only them because they pulled me heart and soul into their relationship, but instead the story veered off again into Juna Lee territory. Weird. And the characters we'd met in the first book had only the briefest cameo appearances.

I'm not sorry I read these books because I still feel that this modern take on mermaids was a great concept, and I can tell by all of the author's notes that she certainly had a whole world created to base the series on. Unfortunately it all just didn't jell into a novel that left you feeling satisfied.

[Debbie is on Storygraph · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this as a goodreads giveaway AGES ago but I didn't want to read it until I read the first one in the series. So this languished on the shelf until recently, when I picked up a copy of Alice at Heart. In hindsight, I wonder if that was the best idea. Where Alice was quiet and introspective, Diary was loud, crass, and vulgar. I thought the writing style - punny, breezy, and irreverent - to be very forced and stiff. I was constantly comparing the two books, and in the comparisons Diary always ended up the loser.

Review copy courtesy of the publisher via Goodread's First Reads program.

[Cupcakencorset · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, with a lot of head-hopping, so those who prefer only one or two point-of-view characters might find this novel disorienting. The mythology is an entertaining and original spin on mermaid lore, set in modern times, with characters who are largely sympathetic and engaging. Published in 2004, the book is the second in a series that has no other volumes, which is sad, as the author sets up rather a large story arc in the final chapters, one that has hints quite strongly that the author planned to continue the tale. Alas, she has not, so we are left floundering (pun intended) and hoping that she eventually revisits the mer-world and shares it with us.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this on goodreads.com giveaways (thank you goodreads!) and thoroughly enjoyed this light read about Southern Mer folk living off the coast of Georgia. Smith spins a tender romantic "tail" while also incorporating mermaid science fiction/fantasy and entertaining her reader with true Southern charm throughout the entire book. After only reading a chapter or two the first couple of nights, I couldn't put the book down this afternoon. A very enjoyable and intelligent, refreshing romantic read that lets you escape from "Lander" life.

[Shauna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible book, tons of swearing and a lot of sexuality, more so than even a pg-13 movie. The plot's idea was great however I felt the author got off track. The story starts giving you the impression that its about a radical mermaid who's very full of herself and decides to blog. It ends up making another woman the main character. It just seemed very piecey and didn't feel like the story was taken all the way through. It just felt all she wanted to write about was nudity and sex. Too bad, I love a great mermaid story.

[Camille · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won this book from Goodreads. Even though I usually don't pick up fantasy books, I thought I'd give it a try. Well, the very first line in the book was a red flag for me - Paris Hilton? Give me a break. Next line, Donald Trump. Next paragraph, profanity. Yikes. I stopped reading there and flipped through it thinking that maybe it was just a terrible first chapter.

Nope. Pop culture and sex and rude/profane language. Don't waste your time on this.

[Jen Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the amazing first book in this series wowed me into reading this second effort I really felt letdown. This novel was not as engaging or well written as the first one. I'm willing to give a third book a chance to mimic the firsy book's success, but I will be skeptical after reading Diary of a Radical Mermaid. The third book should not include any Juna Lee as I found her character very annoying.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second in the WaterLiliees Series by Deborah Smith. The first book, Alice at Heart, was lyrical, calming and fascinating. I thought this second one would follow the pattern. Instead, I would describe it as mermaid chicklit. As I started it, I didn't think I would like it. But I did. It's different from the first, but, as such, it stands on its own.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this from goodreads and was so excited to read it. The book moves along quickly and sweeps you into the storyline even if you (like me) you haven't read the first book. I am thrilled to have had a chance to read this and would recommend to those who like funny heroines (think stephanie plum-esque), love stories and/or fantasy.

[Patricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I won this book through GoodReads giveaways - so thank you, goodreads!

Fantasy isn't my favorite genre, although I enjoyed the premise of the story. The idea of mermaids living among people was fascinating enough, and could have been developed further. I didn't care much for the voice of Juna Lee, as well as the endless pop-culture references, innuendos, and supposed witticisms.

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book from Goodreads! I'm so excited, will start reading straight away! :D

--

It was funny & a quick read, but I do agree with other reviewers that there was a lot of pop culture references.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read about the world of mer people and their interactions with landers. Nice romance develops between a writer to discovers her mer blood, and a mer man. The Juna Lee character is a bit over the top, but she's meant to be. It's a nice light hearted read.

[Shani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved Alice at Heart, this book was a little different, I loved Molly's story, I hate to say but I could have done without Juna Lee, I like a sassy character but she was way to much, she was so annoying, I give the book 4 stars for everything else in the book

[Carolyn F.]

I got about halfway through and could not finish this book. It was just so yo-yo with the relationships and way too madcap for me. I kept looking over at my TBR stack longingly. So, I won't be rating or finishing this book.

[Tracey]

Mom won this on goodreads.com giveaways.

[Charlotte]

I won it on goodreads.com giveaways.

[Kristin]

I won this in First Reads contest. Started it, not sure am going to finish, may not be in the mood for this book right now.

[Jamie Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a silly, fun read. It could have used better cover art but I liked this book and would recommend it for a summer beach read.

[Karen Desmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

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