This was a bit all over the place. I was never sure what were the motivations of Gia nor did I really care by the end of the story. There was a lot of potential in terms of the idea of the colony and the businesses she ran. Instead, the novel kept trying to encourage any semblance of empathy within her character. It did not work for me.

Whewww where do I start with this one.

Firstly thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to be an eARC reader.
Also let's take a minute to appreciate the cover. It's so pretty and simple.

4⭐️/5

This short novel follows Gia Acquaviva who is a beautiful, wealthy Venetian women who’s actually a mermaid. Even though she’s a mythical creature which basically forces her to lead a private life, she’s one who lives on the edge by killing her lovers whenever they start to want more, something that comes to be after a particular traumatic incident that happened in her childhood. But the thing with aging slowly, being alone can get real lonely real quickly.

Even though Gia resigns herself to the fact that she’ll never have a normal love life, she falls for him… Cameron. And she wants a relationship with him and the whole happily ever after. But life is never that easy, is it?

Lemme just say, I think Gia is a girlboss. I don't care what anyone says, she's THAT women, getting her bag and running her empire. I respect that she gets what she wants, and she doesn't take crap, but sometimes I just wish that she treated people who were trying to help her (La Nonna) better. What I will also say is that she is so warped, what happened to the good old breakup when you no longer wanted commitment? She's really taking the more permanent route.

The book starts out fast paced, just throws us into the story and then slows down with glimpses into the past, and then picks back up. It fluctuates a but until half way through and then it stabilizes following the fall-out of the perfect world Gia spent so long building.

Truth be told I didn't feel the chemistry between our MC and the LI. The romance felt rushed and fast paced and I wasn’t seeing how or why Gia was ‘falling for him’. In fact I didn’t feel even the relationship Cam had with his sister either. It felt strained at times it felt like they were just acquaintances rather than siblings. Truth be told the everyone in Cam's family is a bit unhinged, but at least to some degree they know. But nearing the end when Cam started baring his true feelings to her, I smiled at that.

I was more drawn to the thriller aspect than the romance truth be told, I loved the whole idea of a female serial killer, just not who were the victims, they deserved better #RIPNico.

All in all, it was a good read.

Can't wait for book 2.
Mermaid of Sicily, here I come!

Side note: I have a strong dislike for Kostas.

A murderous mermaid who murders her lover and keeps them in her underwater graveyard falls in love and struggles to resist her murderous urges.

While this is certainly for someone, that someone is not me. I found the concept fascinating but the characters not compelling enough to support it, and it was much too lurid and explicit for my personal tastes.

The premise sounded great but I was very disappointed by the main character. She is a rich, powerful supernatural creature yet she does not do much with her powers. Also her love interest is very boring yet she finds him so special. I wish that the main character displayed the ruthlessness and intelligence the description promised by comparing her to the female killer in Killing Eve.

This was a fun book with an interesting twist. I’m not gonna lie the mermaid aspect is what initially drew me end, but it ended up being a pretty good, quick, easy read that I enjoyed.

Gia Aquaviva is a mermaid who goes to great lengths to protect her secrets. The ocean floor is a graveyard of her former lovers. She dreams of finding true love and believes she has finally found it when she meets Cameron Langley. Will she be able to let go of her past and the dangerous urges that surge within her to embrace true love?

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Gia Acquaviva is a beautiful and rich Venetian woman with a portfolio of clubs and casinos around the globe. She also harbors dark secrets - she's a mermaid and an keeps an underwater graveyard filled with the bones of her former lovers. Her family’s roots descend from the mythological sirens of ancient Greece, but she’s taken every precaution to protect her anonymity and the existence of other mermaids. Gia lures in men with her beauty and wealth, but inside lurks a deeply troubled soul. She's still haunted by witnessing the murder of her mother at the hands of an obsessed man, and this trauma manifests itself as a thirst for killing her lovers when they become too needy or attached. But when her latest kill floats free from his final resting place, all her secrets begin to unravel, risking her carefully crafted life, her family, and the first real healthy relationship she's over had with someone. This mermaid is less The Little Mermaid, more femme fatale.

I'm so glad I took a chance on this book - I don't read a lot of fantasy, but I was too intrigued by the comparison to Killing Eve to pass it up. Mermaid of Venice is the first book in the Mermaid of Venice series, and each book is a novella or short novel that serves as a chapter for our main character in whichever city the action is taking currently set. I really liked how easy these books are easy to pick up and read in just one evening without interruption. They are very fast-paced, so there isn't a lot of words spent building up the action or scenery, but I didn't really mind the lack of excessive page space spent on pretty words. The characters still felt well-developed and the scene set. I also got a bit of an underlying current (no pun intended!) of earth conservation and climate change.

I had high hopes for this book based on the synopsis but they quickly fell through. 16% in and I have to DNF. The extremely short chapters jumping back and forth through big and small time jumps is confusing, as well as the focus on sex, 36 pages in and there's been atleast 5 sexual encounters all of them with no tension and all quick fade-to-black. along with dialogue such as "It is mine, The club, I own it." "Ohhhhh..." and ' she tried on several sets of lingerie. He liked this game, so he kept inventing excuses as to why she should try on a different set, such as "Eh... too fuckable. Hmm... maybe something more see-through?" ' ???? I cringed too hard.

I appreciate the opportunity to review this book, even though I didn't like it and it wasn't the right book for me to read. Thank you Netgalley and the Publishers

Gia Acquaviva has a high-powered business and a secret - she is a siren that has frequent urges to lure in and kill unsuspecting men. Despite being a killer, she wants love and thinks she may have found it with banker Cameron Langley. But when secrets start getting exposed, will Gia be able to stifle her murderous urges and get a happily ever after?

I liked this book (on my rating scale, 3 means liked). This is not your childhood Little Mermaid. Overall, the story was fast-paced and kept me interested. I liked the setup premise that mermaids live among us and thought the siren angle was particularly fascinating. Gia is one of those anti-heroines that you wonder if you should be rooting for. Her moral ambiguity in certain instances is intriguing - do you root for her, or not? The inclusion of a Rupert Murdoch type news family added another interesting facet to the story.

I would charicterize it as a mild thriller with good pacing that leaves you wanting more. Since it ends with a cliffhanger, I definitely want to read on to know more.

Mermaid of Venice is a unique story about a modern day mermaid and her glamorous and sometimes deadly antics as a socialite in Venice.

If you think of Why Women Kill meets Splash, then you will have a pretty good idea of what this book is about. I wasn't sure what to think about it once I finished reading it, because as campy as it was, it kind of worked. The storyline was interesting, a modern day mermaid with a killer instinct with a crazy backstory. There were some fantasy elements that were very creative and the writing was well paced. This story doesn't take itself too seriously and I think if it had, it would have the potential to be a good dark fantasy.

Overall I thought it was okay. I didn't like it enough to continue on with the series, but I didn't dislike it enough to give it a low rating. It's weird, outrageous, and suspenseful.

I really wanted to love this book but the beginning was very confusing. I felt like I had no idea what was going on for over half the book. It had good potential but just didn’t follow through.