Synopsis of Then We Fly

The Sequel to First We Drown. We revisit Cora in this urban fantasy filled with mythical sea people and magical powers. From the back of the book: Cora has been living in her new world and learning to use the abilities she’s discovered over the past year, but her nightmares have been plaguing her with increasing frequency. And what is worse they may not be nightmares at all. While she wishes the dreams would just go away and is struggling to suppress that side of herself, she discovers that some secrets should not be left alone. Surrounded by mer, selkies, and sirens who all want her, either on their side or dead, she struggles to know who her real friends are. Prince Oran dotes on her and is never out of reach, but how much of that is just the spell he inadvertently put himself under? Fynn has admitted that he’s keeping secrets from her, dangerous ones. With old enemies and new ones conspiring to upend her entire world, she must learn how to use her abilities and new ones she never imagined possible to fight for the people she loves or risk losing everything.

Rating: 3/5

I struggled with how to rate this novel. While I liked the story and was drawn in by the magic of the world and the characters, I shook my head more than once– sometimes more than once per page-at the typos and mistakes in formatting. I settled on 3 stars, but could easily have gone to 2 and a half because of the disruption to my enjoyment of the imaginative creatures, interesting twists, and cool abilities possessed by the heroine, Cora, her friends and enemies, neither of which she lacked.

If you cannot overlook a manuscript with multiple proofing and formatting errors, do not attempt to read this.

However, if you can overlook them, an inviting story awaits. I did not read the first book in this series, but that didn’t affect my ability to join Cora and friends as they moved from one adventure to the next. I drooled over Fynn, alternatively laughed and cried over Oran’s infatuated antics, and held my breath as Blake was his greedy self.

The monsters were interesting, and I enjoyed visiting the underwater mer city with the purple-haired mergirl. Following Cora as she discovered new powers and found inventive ways out of dangerous situations was also fun.

The downside, besides the aforementioned issues include many really short scenes inside some extremely long chapters, lots of exposition to catch us up on what has been happening and backstory, especially at the beginning of chapters. Paragraphing issues in dialog are also a bit of a problem as are attribution of dialog. Sometimes it took a bit of investigating to discover who said what.

Recommendation

Despite all its problems, I did enjoy the story and can recommend it as a light read for mermaid, selkie, or siren fanatics who can skim over the mixed up bits and focus on the inventive world and a twisty plot.

If you’d like more book recommendations, sign up for my quarterly newsletter. Thanks for reading! Until next time, may many blessings and books come your way.

This book was originally reviewed on Reedsy Discovery. Check it out here.