REVIEW || ICE MASSACRE

Title: Ice Massacre (#1)
Author: Tiana Warner
Genre: fantasy
Summary:
A mermaid’s supernatural beauty serves one purpose: to lure a sailor to his death.
The Massacre is supposed to bring peace to Eriana Kwai. Every year, the island sends its warriors to battle these hostile sea demons. Every year, the warriors fail to return. Desperate for survival, the island must decide on a new strategy. Now, the fate of Eriana Kwai lies in the hands of twenty battle-trained girls and their resistance to a mermaid’s allure.
Eighteen-year-old Meela has already lost her brother to the Massacre, and she has lived with a secret that’s haunted her since childhood. For any hope of survival, she must overcome the demons of her past and become a ruthless mermaid killer.
For the first time, Eriana Kwai’s Massacre warriors are female, and Meela must fight for her people’s freedom on the Pacific Ocean’s deadliest battleground.

Plot:
The plot of Ice Massacre seems a straightforward one to understand. In this world that appears based off on our own, set in a place that has many similarities to Hawaii, mermaids are a known creature to exist. Not only that, but mermaids are also infamous murdering people that attack ships and drag men down to eat them. Every year, the island of Eriana Kwai sends a ship to go to the Massacre where the soldiers on the ship try to kill as many mermaids as they can.
This time, they send a ship of young women as every time men are sent out they are pulled into the mermaid's lure and killed. One of those women is Meela, our main character, who has her own history with the mermaids.
Though it is a simple story to follow and understand, it took certain turns that I didn't expect to happen. It was thrilling to read, pacing action with more quiet moments quite well. It's a premise that isn't too overcomplicated, and it works for Ice Massacre very well.

Characters:
Meela is our main character, a young woman who has - as we find out in the book - history with the mermaids. She has never been one for killing and hurting, yet she becomes one of the warriors to go along on the Massacre. Meela is quite the opposite of most of her kin, who are all more than willing to kill mermaids, and though we are given a reason for it, I feel like it was underplayed in the community. Personally, I think the reaction of the people around her should've been stronger, as it seemed to be somewhat common knowledge Meela wasn't much of a killer.

Of course, there were other characters, most importantly Lysi. Lysi is a mermaid and has been Meela's friend for a long time despite the existing hatred between their two species. She plays a vital role in the story, but I can't say much about her for fear of giving away too much.

Besides that, there are Meela's crew members, but honestly, a lot of them were generic and given a few traits but not really fleshed out much. It's an issue I get, a writer has to choose who to focus on as a character and who to leave a little less developed, but there was one girl Dani who just felt like the generic bully. So though I understand the choices that were made, I wish there would've been a little more in them.

Things I liked:

• its pacing
• strong women being sent to fight because the men can't (it was just really well thought out and made a lot of sense)
• its diversity in people of colour but also other things as well
• the story itself
• Meela and Lysi's characters

Things I didn’t like:

• the side characters
• the ending felt a little too weak and deus-ex-machina (which means that suddenly there is a solution for the conflict that wipes all else away and leaves you feeling a little anti-climatic)

Who I’d recommend it to:
anyone who loves stories with mermaids or fantasy stories or is looking for more stories with diversity and strong female characters.

Rating: