The Goddess of Annoyance.

The Goddess of the Sea

Author: PC Cast

Publisher: Berkley (2003)

Number of Pages: 368

Review: “I will wait for you for an eternity.” How long will you wait? “For an eternity.” Wait, how long again? “A @&*%!$^ ETERNITY!!!”  I love romance novels. They’re what I pick up for a quick read, or if I feel lonely, or bored or just want something entertaining for a few hours. Romantic novels usually put me in a good mood and I feel happy or excited, or gushy, however this was not the case with PC Cast’s Goddess of the Sea.

Christina Canady aka CC is alone and drunk on her 25^th birthday so she decides to celebrate by casting a circle and summoning the powers of ancient goddesses to ignite some magic into her life. What she doesn’t expect to happen is for her Airplane to crash while being transported to the Middle East for duty, and she certainly didn’t expect to be turned into a mermaid which is exactly what happened. After finding out that she’s switched bodies with a mermaid and that the mermaid, whose body now belonged to her, has an evil step brother out to conquer her and marry her, she seeks the help of the goddess Gaea. Gaea then gives her the ability to stay human for 3 days and every third day she must return to water so that she can transform into her mermaid self.  Once the sun rises she’ll be given another three days to stay human. Her task is to find a human to fall in love with her and then she’ll be able to remain human forever. The only problem is, the goddess has taken a modern woman and dumped her in the middle ages. Not only will finding a man be difficult for her and her modern ideals but there’s a mistrusting priest out to sabotage her every move, a daft and sexist knight who lacks potential as a permanent mate, and a mysterious young merman lurking in the shadows who promises to love her and wait for her for an eternity. Torn between her need to be human and her love for the sea (and its creatures) CC must risk everything to save herself and those she loves from her evil step brother, the sneaky priest and ultimate doom.

I really wanted to like this novel. I actually enjoyed the beginning of it a lot. CC came off as an independent strong likable character. She knew who she was and wasn’t one to be pushed around. Even with such strong attributes she wasn’t able to stay likable in my mind. What came off as strengths soon turned into annoyance, many times the dialogue between her and her Goddess Mother was strained, predictable and annoying.

I also didn’t like the way men were portrayed in this novel. Sure sometimes man can be barbaric but when every male character in the novel (be they men from the past or present) are no more evolved than chimpanzees that becomes a problem for me relating to the story. I am a feminist but in no way do I like to read material that makes men out to be boorish buffoons.

The plot was also redundant and forgettable as well as the horrible writing. Of course this is a PC Cast novel and she isn’t exactly known for quality writing, however before trying to read the House of Night series, I wanted to dip my tresses into the pool that is PC Cast and came out thoroughly cold and disturbed. If the House of Night series is anything like this novel I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it. So if any of you are avid fans of PC Cast please let me know if her writing is actually worth the effort and that perhaps this one novel might have been the anomaly in the collection. Thanks in advance.

Happy Reading!!!