Of Poseidon (Syrena Legacy, #1)

by Anna Banks

Galen, prince of the Syrena, is sent to land to find a girl he's heard can communicate with fish. He finds Emma and after several encounters, including a deadly one with a shark, Galen becomes convinced Emma holds the key to his kingdom.

Galen, the prince of Syrena, is sent to land to find a girl who communicates with fish. He finds Emma and after several encounters, including a deadly one with a shark, Galen becomes convinced Emma holds the key to his kingdom. Book #1

• ISBN10: 1250003326
• ISBN13: 9781250003324
• Publish Date: 22 May 2012 (first published 1 May 2012)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 2 July 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 326
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

I had this book on my kindle for quite a while and decided to finally read it after attending the Fierce Reads tour at BookCon last week. Anna Banks was so funny and witty and she did not disappoint me with this book.

I am a huge fan of snappy dialog and there was plenty in Of Poseidon. I liked how Banks intertwined sea specific terms into the conversations, and made the Syrenas awkwardly attempt human slang. The story moved along at a good pace and I thought the way we were fed the bits and pieces of the bigger story was quite appropriate. The ending was a great way to make me get that next book. We find out something really pivotal, which effects so many characters, but that's it!!!

Our heroine,Emma, is sassy with a temper that apparently goes with the territory. As with many romances, Galen, our hero, gives us many swoony moments. He over-protective mode and alpha tendencies made me grin. Love him! I also developed a fondness for the secondary characters (Rayna, Rachel, Toraf). They were quirky and I liked the way they interacted with the hero and heroine.

Overall impression - lot of fun, cool lore, not too heavy, great read. Can't wait to find out what happens next.

[Chelsea]

Quick Thoughts

1. The characters were all amazing. The author created them all perfectly.
2. The relationships between the characters were always changing and becoming better. I loved that.
3. One of the more realistic mermaid books. Not a typical Disney mermaid.
4. The plot was full of surprises and action. I was never bored.
5. Galen 3

Check out my full review here

[Amanda]

Audiobook specific: Of Poseidon is definitely one of the better audiobooks I've listened to, narrator-wise. Each character had its own distinct voice. Normally I'm not a fan of cross-gender voices (because they just sound odd), but Rebecca Gibel was fantastic. I honestly think that, had I not listened to this, I would have given up on the book long before I finished.

I was a little hesitant about Of Poseidon at first: ALL THE TINGLES and third person present tense narration both set me a little on edge. Seriously, the tingles. They happened a lot in the first few chapters and thank goodness they stopped because the tingling was concerning. The third person present tense didn't necessary get better, but I did eventually settle into it.

Beyond chapter 5, I think it was, when ALL THE TINGLING stopped and things started picking up, I began to fall into the story a bit better. Kind of. As intrigued and curious I was about the story, I found Emma to be rather annoying--full of "typical YA heroine" traits and frustratingly dense at times. Galen, I think, suffered from some of the same issues.

Of Poseidon is peppered with humor, but it skipped back and forth between feeling like it was trying too hard and making me snicker in amusement. As much as I rolled my eyes at the characters, though, I couldn't stop listening. And toward the end, I was forcing myself to go for walks every day (this is my only audiobook-listening activity) just so that I could finish it.

The world was addictive. And the ending pissed me off because how could you end there? So now I want the next book. But I'm perturbed by the wanting. *makes crazy eyes at everyone*

This story is far from over. The answers we got in Of Poseidon were slow in coming, and the ending practically blew up with revelations. And yeah, I want to know what happens next.

[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

-----------------------------

Actual rating: 2.5 stars.

Of Poseidon was my first “mermaid book” – I’d wanted to read one for a long time, but somehow just never got around to it. But pair that with my recent craving for light, fluffy contemporaries, and you might understand why I would want to pick up Of Poseidon. It just sounded like a fun mix of the two. Mermaids! Cute romance! Yes, please!

However, I’m a little torn about this book.

First, I did find it to be extremely entertaining. The story was fast-paced and mostly really fun. Emma meets Galen (mermaid merman Syrena royalty), and Galen realizes that she might be Syrena – and necessary to the survival of the Syrena people. Galen eventually tells her about her Syrena gifts, and she spends a lot of time with him learning about her new-found abilities. This part was fun. I liked the scenes where Galen and Emma spent time exploring the ocean – but I’m just a sucker for all things sea-related in general. The atmosphere (or… water…) is always gorgeous, so that always draws me in.

I also (for the most part) liked Emma’s POV and narration. She’s entertaining, and I did laugh at a few of her funnier lines. However… here’s where things started going downhill for me.

As entertaining as she was, Emma was also super annoying a lot of the time. She acts much younger than her 18 years – for example, she grossly overuses the phrase “ohmysweetgoodness” – italics and no-spaces included. The first couple times… maybe, fine, I can live with it, but honestly she said this every… oh, 10-20 pages or so. It was this, along with a lot of her actions, that made her seem really immature at times.

Additionally, the book switches back and forth from Emma’s and Galen’s POV’s. I would have liked this – if only to get a break from Emma every once in a while – but Emma’s POV was written in first person. One would think that Galen’s POV would also be written in first person…? Yeah? No. It was in third person. I’m usually not one to complain about stuff like this, but it really bothered me in this book for some reason, and I never got used to switching between Emma’s and Galen’s POV’s. It was awkward.

So then we have Galen. Which is really where most of my problems lie. Galen is the quintessential “perfect YA guy” – by which I mean, he’s extremely hot (girls almost literally throw themselves at him in the hallways at school when they think he’s single) and Super Special (Syrena royalty, and he can swim faster than any other Syrena ever!). He’s also extremely controlling and thinks he knows what’s best for not only Emma but pretty much all his other friends – including his sister Rayna, whom he just wants to marry off so she’ll stop being so stubborn about not wanting to get married. Lovely! (Don’t even get me started on how Rayna’s situation was handled.)

Not only that, but Galen is supposed to be So Totally In Love with Emma, right? But his entire attitude toward her was really upsetting to me. He’s always talking about how he shouldn’t be falling for Emma, mainly because of her independence and stubbornness when it comes to not doing what she’s told (by him). He never makes those things into strengths – her desire to control her own life and make her own decisions. He likes her in spite of “knowing that he SHOULD go for a more docile Syrena who’d be honored to marry him” (not an exact quote, but pretty dang close). What?! No.

I feel like maybe the author was trying to go for the “very protective guy falls for strong and independent girl” type of relationship drama – but it just did not work with these characters, at least for me. Galen is protective to the point of being controlling, and Emma is “independent” to the point of making stupid decisions (she deliberately does the opposite of what Galen tells her, even when she knows it’s dangerous).


In conclusion…

Most of what I said above is negative, it’s true. But Of Poseidon definitely held my attention and I was entertained through the whole thing. The plot was fine, and I never found myself wanting to abandon it for boredom or non-interest. And I would normally give a book like that 3-3.5 stars just for entertainment value. But many things about it were also upsetting to me, and made me want to throw the book across the room (I got it from the library though, so I didn’t). So that’s why I have to lower my rating to the exact middle of 5 stars – 2.5. I don’t think I’d recommend this book to many people unless you can easily overlook my issues above. I think if I could have, I would have enjoyed it.

--

There were books involved...

[tellemonstar]

Okay, so I liked Of Poseidon. I read it in a few hours and it was an easy read. There were a few issues, which is why it didn’t get a higher rating, but it wasn’t bad either. The mermaid or rather, Syrena mythology was interesting, and so was discovering how Emma was different to a human. The story itself flowed well, although I wish there had been more details in some parts and less details in other parts.

The premise of this book is fantastic. Poseidon and Triton actually being the rulers of two separate kingdoms of mermaids, one more human-loving than the other, and how they each passed on a gift to their bloodlines after a war between the Syrena and the humans. Every third-generation the first-born male heir of one kingdom is expected to marry the first-born female of the other kingdom, to ensure the gifts are shared properly. In this case the first-born heir is Galen’s brother, Grom and he was set to marry the beautiful Nalia – the first time in a very long time that the two Royal heirs being mated actually want to be mated to each other – but there was an explosion involving sea mines just prior to the ceremony and Nalia was lost forever. Apparently.

I would have loved more information about the Syrena and about their history. The things we did learn were great, and an interesting spin on the existing mermaid mythology. The fact the full-blooded Syrena become wholly into their powers by age 9, and because Emma was a half-blood it took her twice that time was interesting. I liked the Archives and the fact that they had Atlantis and an interesting explanation for it’s existence and eventual destruction. The way Syrena bodies work in comparison to those of a human – how their tails split in human form, etc. Hopefully there will be more of this in the second book.

One thing I did like (and my sister, who read this before I did, hated) was the cliffhanger ending. I’m hoping book 2 will be more Syrena history and an actual explanation of why Emma and Galen have the whole insta-love thing would be nice. I also really liked that fact that when Emma fought with Rayna, it wasn’t the typical hair-pulling, scratching girl-fight – it was a proper brawl, so Emma definitely gets points for that.

In all I would recommend this to anyone who likes mermaids and reads enough YA to get past the insta-love, and can get past some of the very old-fashioned attitudes of the Syrena men.

See full review here.

[ladygrey]

At first [b:Of Poseidon|12425532|Of Poseidon (Of Poseidon, #1)|Anna Banks|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327879889s/12425532.jpg|17375535] was all funny and exciting and really fun to read. Full of YA tropes, sure, but YA tropes I like and characters I enjoyed. Plus it has a quirky and amusing sense of humor. And then 2/3 of the way through it had all the fun sucked out of it and I was just waiting for it to get to the part where everything changed. And it totally got there too late.

Also, the chapters from Galen's point of view were written in third person-present which was just really awkward.

I'm embarrassed how long it took me to figure out that the things that made Emma different were because she's half human. I mean, I knew she was half human but I hadn't made the connection between that and her ability to shift..

Galen and Emma really were the fun of this story; they're fighting and almost being together and accidentally tormenting each other was really the only conflict in the book and it was enough to keep me interested. So when they "broke up" it lost its spark of fun and when they were together there was no conflict. But you know why this book really started so much better than it ended?

I knew she was Nalia from like chapter 3 or wherever the story of Grom and Nalia was first told. It was so obvious that it made the whole last third of the book slow just waiting page after page for them to figure it out. And it's a really bad cliffhanger when I've known the entire book.

Of course I'll read the next one even though I secretly hate that this is a trilogy (I don't know but they're all trilogies these days, aren't they?). So much more of the story could have been told in this book and made it much more interesting, especially since its such a fast read. But instead of being excited for the next one I'm kind of rolling my eyes because I'm frustrated with the ending.

ETA: I've read a lot of reviews that were bothered by the horrible patriarchal nature of the mermaid society. And it is. It probably would have bothered me more if Emma didn't spend the whole book railing against it. Also, patriarchal societies in fictional novels don't inherently bother me because they exist. It's how characters react within them that determines how troublesome it is for me. And in this novel, so much else about the characters is one dimensional, I didn't cry foul when that aspect was also so narrow. There were huge flaws with the characters being stupid, and there are flat notes in the story. But they didn't get in the way of me enjoying the flirting and bickering in the beginning while Emma explores the newness of her revelation.

[journalingirl]

So good. Can't wait for the next one.

[Rowena]

I’ve never read a book about mermaids before. I’ve never really felt compelled to either but I’m glad that I decided to read this one. Even though this book threw me for a loop and made me want to smack someone from time to time, I enjoyed it. It was a good story with an ending that kicked me in the rear but overall, I enjoyed it.

This story follows the protagonist, Emma as she learns for the first time about being Syrena. Syrena are what humans call mermaids and Emma has a special bond with sea animals. When she stumbles into Galen (Prince Galen of Triton to the Syrena), she makes it onto his radar because he senses her abilities and is curious about her. He’s also attracted as all get out to her too. Not knowing enough about her after their first interaction, Galen gives up his fins for a bit until he can find out more about this Syrena girl who didn’t turn into a Syrena to save her friend from a shark.

The sparks fly between Galen and Emma all throughout this book. Galen’s attraction to Emma is complicated because if she’s who he thinks she is then he might have to stand back while his brother, Gromm takes Emma as his mate because of traditions and customs (and what not). Galen is pretty torn up about it since he’s pretty possessive over Emma and really wants her for himself and because of this, he keeps a part of him from Emma and it plays with her emotions. This is where I thought Galen would have been better off being honest with Emma right from the start (of their budding romance). It drove me a little crazy that he kept letting himself get caught up in moments that built one on top of the other, forging bonds with Emma that he couldn’t really act on because of his loyalty to his family and kingdom. But really, alls well that ends well and I was glad with the way that things worked out for them.

Emma’s personality was hard to take at times. She’s very stubborn and hardheaded and while it was cute to Galen…for me, all it did was make me want to punch her in the nose. He’s worried about her safety so he tells her not to go in the water while he’s away and what does she do? She goes in the water because she’s a tough girl and she can do what she wants. And then she senses an unfamiliar pulse in the water and gets scared and thinks, “So maybe Galen was right and I shouldn’t be in the water while he’s not here to protect me.”

Ugh, every time she disobeyed Galen, I wanted to smack her upside her head.

I will say that this book has a whole lot of things going on to keep it interesting. I wasn’t ever bored while reading this book but there were times when I had to put the book down because Emma was getting on my nerves or Rayna was getting on my nerves. Hell, even Galen got on my nerves but the one person that didn’t ride my nerves was Toraf. I adored him. I adored his love for Rayna, his persistence in chasing Rayna and his dogged determination to win her over. I totally adored him.

One thing that was a bit of a downer with this book was how easy it was for me to decipher who was who and what was going on and all that. I mean, I knew what was going to happen long before it actually comes to light in the story and while it wasn’t a big deal, what made it disappointing was the abrupt way the book ends. You’ll have to read it to understand what I mean but the way that this book ends made me narrow my eyes and think, “WTF kind of ending is that?” but aside from that, this book was a good read and I’m definitely interested in continuing with this story.

[rakesandrogues]

The first thing that struck me from the very first page of OF POSEIDON by Anna Banks is the author's voice. It was so fresh and authentic and my inner publishing intern wanted to do a happy dance.OF POSEIDON by Anna Banks is written in alternating third person limited perspectives. Honestly, it is a bit confusing to differentiate the perspectives because it is written in third person, but I am so in love with Anna Banks's voice that it is easy for me to look over.

The mythology in OF POSEIDON by Anna Banks easily captivated me. I don't know if I've ever read a mermaid book before (not one easily comes to mind), but I love what Anna Banks has done. Pulling in figures from Greek mythology, Banks creates the fascinating world of the Syrena deep underwater. I loved the descriptions of the Syrena underwater world in OF POSEIDON by Anna Banks.

I can't remember the last time I enjoyed this much banter between two characters. Emma and Galen have chemistry. There is no denying that they were fated to meet. In addition, the subplot involving Rayna and Toraf was such a delight. Rayna and Toraf were basically betrothed to each other without the consent of Rayna. Much fun and banter ensues between the couple, but their feelings for each other are quite obvious. It was so much fun to read how Rayna eventually switches tides.

I feel like there is such a big emphasis on the fact that the book takes place on the Jersey Shore, but nothing in the writing really gives you the feel that it takes place in New Jersey. Truthfully, I was dreading the fact that it was set on the Jersey Shore, but I was more disappointed in the fact that the setting was just lacking in OF POSEIDON by Anna Banks. I felt like OF POSEIDON by Anna Banks could have taken place in just about any other beach in the United States.

OF POSEIDON by Anna Banks could have been a four-star book if it weren't for its predictability. Okay, it is a little ridiculous when I solve the biggest mystery of them all - that was literally revealed on the last page!!! - quite at the beginning of the book. OF POSEIDON ends on a crummy note for me because the ending was so anti-climactic. It had the potential to be a jaw-dropping shocker if I hadn't seen it all along.

Despite its few flaws, I enjoyed ​OF POSEIDON​ by Anna Banks. It was the perfect summer read and I can definitely see myself continuing with the series.

[Ashley]

As posted on booknook - book reviews and hot chocolate!

Of Poseidon is my first mermaid book and I’m glad I started with this one because I absolutely loved it!

The story starts off with Emma at the beach with her friend. She lives a normal teenage life.. and then she meets Galen. Galen is a Syrena prince.. that’s a mermaid for you (but don’t call them that!). When Galen meets Emma he knows there’s something different about her. He’s pretty sure she’s also a Syrena but 1) she doesn’t know it, and 2) she has a few traits that make him doubt. For one thing, she has blonde hair. It’s completely unheard of for Syrena to have blonde hair! But she does have the unique eye colour found only in Syrena and she can talk to fish… so surely she must be one of them?

From there, Emma starts to learn about the lives of Syrena — the good and the bad. For example, if a female Syrena hasn’t chosen a mate by a certain time, she can just be “handed over” to a male! Eeek! That one certainly made Emma scream in protest.

This book made me laugh out loud so many times! Emma and Galen had some great dialogue, Emma’s temper took her to crazy places, and her overbearing mother was absolutely hilarious! Also, I absolutely loved Rachel and Toraf. These were two of the side characters. Rachel is Galen’s human assistant and is absolutely awesome. She’s sort of a “do everything” kind of girl and she’s super nice. Toraf is one of Galen’s best friends and he’s a hilarious character. He seems like a really friendly, funny, and secretly sensitive “big brother” kind of guy.

This story comes down to Emma settling into her “Gifts” and Galen struggling between his feelings for Emma and his duty to his race. It’s an incredibly beautiful story about mermaids, but also just about teenage life and falling in love for the first time. Galen and Emma’s relationship is very slow-brewing. No insta-love! From early on they do have to pretend that they’re dating, but their true feelings slowly develop over the entire course of the book. They have a very unique, fresh, and beautiful relationship.

When I got to the last page of Of Poseidon I screamed. Literally. I couldn’t believe it was over! If I’m not enjoying a book I’m always aware of how close I am to the end. But if I’m loving the book, I’m so in the zone that I often have no idea when I’m getting close to the end. I’m happy to just let it continue forever. That’s why the ending of the book caught me off guard. And man… there is a crazy cliff hanger that makes me DYING to read book #2 (which is called Of Triton).

Thank you Anna for this amazing read! You made my first mermaid book experience an awesome one!!