As her family is drowning around her, Kahlen is offered a choice by the Ocean: she may drown with them, or she may transform into a siren. Desperate to live, Kahlen agrees to join three other gorgeous girls in a life of silence, solitude, and murder for a century-long sentence. When the text jumps forward eighty years, it is obvious that Kahlen has not adapted well and continues to suffer in her new, mythical life. She constantly struggles with her guilt for the role she plays in taking the lives of thousands of people to feed the Ocean. When Kahlen meets a boy named Akinli, she regains her will to live by focusing on the happiness she feels when with him. Unfortunately, when she begins breaking siren laws to be with him, both Akinli's and Kahlen's lives suffer the consequences.This is a decently constructed, romance-filled fantasy that will appeal to teenage readers who are fans of the genre. This is recommended for middle and high schools.Chelley Vukmanic.

Gr 8 Up-Vanessa and Justine Sands have spent their summers in Maine hanging out with the neighboring Carmichael brothers for almost as long as they can remember. But this year, after a terrible fight with their parents about her future plans, Justine jumps off a cliff to her death. Vanessa doesn't believe that her sister killed herself so she starts digging for answers. It turns out that Justine's death isn't the only one that summer. Dead men are washing ashore all along the coast, and the weather is going crazy. As she searches for clues, Vanessa begins to suspect that there might be a connection between the many deaths. This novel starts out well, but quickly drags. Rayburn's writing has an almost cinematic quality, but that causes problems when things aren't explained clearly and readers are left to infer too much in the action. While the premise of sirens in modern-day North America is fascinating, the idea is not fully explored. Far too much of the book is spent with Vanessa chasing after her sister's boyfriend for answers. Also, the science behind the climactic scene makes absolutely no sense and isn't plausible. Necia Blundy, Marlborough Public Library, MA