I don't always look super close at the details of a book when I go to request it. Usually I am like cover (check), synopsis (check)...and usually from there I just choose yes or no. Which is why I was surprised to find that it was a novella prose poem type format.

I love horror so this story was really fun to experience in the format that it was written in. With books that are more poetry I usually find that there are areas that I feel could be expanded on a bit more, which was the case here but I really think that has more to do with me and how I read things than how the format actually works for itself.

The story was intriguing and I really enjoyed my time with the narrative. I would like to see more horror books written in this way. Though I might have felt some areas were lacking, others really benefited from it. Its haunting and captivating and pulls you in like a siren to the sea.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Strangely enough, I liked this little horror novella poem about this Siren's revenge against sailors and precisely the captain of King Srang that she never stop hunting.
It was really captivating and you just can't stop reading until the end. It was peculiar but good, really I enjoyed reading it. A good summer read.

It's hard to get horror poetry right, but the author did it. I really enjoyed this. Hopefully everything by her in the future is just as entertaining.

3 stars. Thank you Netgalley for the arc. This poem was striking and violent and intriguing. It was a short and captivating read.

This was a dark mermaid novella told in verse. It was eerie and atmospheric. It is a tale of revenge and is pretty immersive. This was short but I enjoyed it.

Well...I don't know that this is a poem book about the revenge of a siren. It's definitely different from any other mermaid story out there. This book is dark and a tale of revenge.

I received an ARC of Beneath a Violent Sea by Stephanie Dunham from NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours in exchange of an honest review.

Synopsis:

In the black waters of the deep, a siren lies in wait. The Captain of King Srang is retired, but his ship still sails, and she is bent on finding him. Disfigured and vengeful, she stalks the ship until it leads her inland and with a deathly beautiful song, she lures them to sea. For weeks, she ravages the lakeside villages, until she finds him. The one who left the scars in her skin.

‘Once she was a small, little beast, cold and hungry, dependent on them. They raked their tools across her flesh, leaving it raw, leaving her tired, alone. They dumped her back in, - corrupted waters. They were tired of her screams.
She writhed in agony, wanting nothing more than oblivion — finding nothing more than life. Beneath the violent sea, she scraped together a life from the scraps of death. She shed her skin, yet the wounds still lingered. They were battle scars, proof of her kinship with the sea. She breathed.’

The poetry was a little hard to follow but I did enjoy reading about the siren and her revenge. I will most likely read the next book in this poetry series.

‘Beneath the violent sea, a monster was rising.’

3.5/5 Stars!

I read an eARC of this title thanks to Netgalley. It is a novella told in verse. This is NOT a story like Disney's The Little Mermaid, but rather a revenge tale of a siren seeking to destroy a ship full of sailors. It was a quick, fun read that did a good job personifying sea and sky as spectators to the siren's hunt. I am not an avid poetry fan yet I enjoyed the author's dark and vengeful take on the mythical creature. #NetGalley #BeneathTheViolentSea #eARCs #ReadMore2021 #WomenWriters

Book Review for Beneath the Violent Sea

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This book was, to my surprise, a mid-length prose poem. I got this book as an ARC from the publisher and I did not realize it was a poem until I open the book up. I haven't read poetry since college, but this was a very easy and fun read. It was not intimidating at all. It was dark, mythical, and vengeful. I enjoyed this story, but I definitely felt like the story could have been expanded on while still keeping the general tone of the poem. This was a story of a siren who is seeking revenge; she has a deep and unyielding urge to reign terror on the sailors who hurt her. I'm not sure that I will be shouting praises from the mountain tops, but I enjoyed this quick read and am interested to see what this author does next!

Beneath the Violent Sea is a mid-length prose poem that’s surprisingly quite fun to read even for those of us who haven’t read poetry in decades. Dark, brooding, mythical, but a mythic poem about a siren’s seductive call, an Odyssey for the modern age.