Bay of Sighs by Nora Roberts:
Series: The Guardians #2
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Mermaid Annika is from the sea, and it is there she must return after her quest to find the stars. New to this world, her purity and beauty are nothing less than breathtaking, along with her graceful athleticism, as her five new friends discovered when they retrieved the fire star.
Now, through space and time, traveler Sawyer King has brought the guardians to the island of Capri, where the water star is hidden. And as he watches Annika in her element, he finds himself drawn to her joyful spirit. But Sawyer knows that if he allows her into his heart, no compass could ever guide him back to solid ground…
And in the darkness, their enemy broods. She lost one star to the guardians, but there is still time for blood to be spilled—the mermaid’s in the water and the traveler’s on the land. For she has forged a dangerous new weapon. Something deadly and unpredictable. Something human.
Because I was on a roll, I grabbed this book immediately upon finishing Stars of Fortune.
I’m curious about how people will react to Annika, and her romance, in this book. It’s not that Annika is innocent or childlike, exactly, but she’s definitely not… Well, she’s not as jaded as most people are by the time they hit their late twenties or early thirties. She seems incredibly innocent, and almost child-like in her demeanor. Which can make it hard to buy into a romance. I think Nora Roberts does a good job here of differentiating between her innocence in this world, and the fact that she’s still an adult.
Just because she isn’t inured to the atrocities as most humans have, it doesn’t mean that she should be treated with anything other than respect. I worried about that quite a lot. That the characters would talk down to her, or treat her with kid gloves. But it, mostly, wasn’t the case. There were a few jokes when she got syntax and language incorrect. Which frustrated me a bit – but it was never mean-spirited or hurtful. Never judgmental on her, more self-deprecating on the character making the observation.
I think all of the team wanted, honestly, to be able to be as carefree, happy, and just innocent, as Annika. Because of that, she was a breath of fresh air. I did enjoy how she overcame the objections of Sawyer, who was honestly trying to be honorable, and still maintained her oaths. Annika is probably one of my favorite characters in this series, or any of Nora Roberts’ series.
I liked this book better than the second for the development of the team. I think that the team dynamic was actually developed a bit more slowly than Bran and Sasha’s relationship – or even maybe than Annika and Sawyer’s. It was much more satisfying because of that.
Which leads into the book I had been most looking forward to. Riley and Doyle.
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