Title: Sirensong
Author: Jenna Black
Release Date: July 5th, 2011
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
*If you have not read Glimmerglass or Shadowspell this might contain spoilers*
When Dana is invited to Faerie to be officially presented at the Seelie Court, it’s no easy decision. After all, everyone knows Titania, the Seelie Queen, wants her dead. But Titania claims not to be the one behind the death threats; and her son, Prince Henry, makes the decision a whole lot easier when he suggests Dana might be arrested for (supposedly) conspiring with her aunt Grace to usurp the Seelie throne. So she and her father better do as they’re told…
The journey through Faerie is long – and treacherous. Dana thought it would be a good idea to have friends along, but her sort-of-boyfriend Ethan and her bodyguard’s son, Keane, just can’t seem to get along, and Kimber’s crush on Keane isn’t making things any easier. When a violent attack separates Dana from their caravan, the sexy Erlking saves her just in the nick of time… and makes it clear that he hasn’t given up on making her his own.
Arriving at Titania’s beautiful palace should be a relief. But Dana is soon implicated in an assassination attempt against Titania’s niece, and is suddenly a fugitive, forced to leave her father behind as she and her friends flee for her lives. Will she be able to prove her innocence before the forces of the Seelie Court catch up with her? Or, worse, the Erlking? And will she save her father before he pays the ultimate price in her stead?
Summary from Goodreads.com
My Review: I fell in love with this world in Glimmerglass (review here) and my interest was piqued even more with the second book Shadowspell (review here) so I was really excited to get my hands on the final installment to this series. After reading the book though, I am a little let down. It was still a good book and I still really enjoy this series, but Sirensong was not my favorite book out of the three.
I will start off the review on a good note. I was very excited when seeing the summary for this book because I knew it meant we would finally get a peek into the world of Faerie. We have seen brief glimpses of it in past books and heard many descriptions, but Dana had not seen it herself and therefore we did not experience it either. Once we do get there it was a land full of many legends that have filled faerie lore before and others that I had not heard of, but loved seeing the new stories explored. Dana’s journey to the Seelie court is full of bumps and surprises along the road and Jenna did a fantastic job of filling the reader with a sense of wonder about what awaited Dana next.
The plot kept me interested and there were quite a few twists in there that I did not see coming. Some of the events happened just as I thought they would, but it was nice to see that Jenna still had a couple of tricks up her sleeve to keep me and Dana on our toes. Dana carries such a heavy burden and she always puts herself last, which lands her in quite a few sticky situations in Sirensong. I was not sure how she was going to wiggle her way out of them, but luckily her friends were always by her side to help her through.
One of the aspects of this book that fell short for me were the relationships with Dana. In previous books Jenna has done an amazing job of building these rich relationships with Dana and the surrounding characters and I did not feel the bond with all of them as much in this book. Maybe it was because Dana was on the run constantly and therefore there she did not much downtime, but even when there was a lull in the action I did not feel the connections. The tender moments that I was looking forward to, such as Dana and Ethan’s first official date, were cut short and left me wanting more. I am especially saddened since this is the last book in this series and we will not be visiting Dana in Avalon again. The only relationship that did still feel strong and I could connect with was Dana and her father. He showed us that under that Fae exterior he does have many layers and cares deeply for his daughter.
The other part of this book that I found lacking was the ending. I am someone who likes to have happy endings, but know that it is not always possible when dealing with fantasy worlds and the paranormal. However, the ending of this series was tied up into a neat little bow and it did not sit right with me. Everything fell into place just a little too easily during the resolution when I was expecting a little more conflict. Having said that though, I understand why everything played out the way it did, I am just not sure how believable it all is in the world of the Fae.
Even though there were things about Sirensong I did not like, overall I have still really enjoyed this series and I am glad I got know Dana. While we won’t be revisiting the world of Avalon again I know we will see more from Jenna in the future and I will be sure to check out the worlds she will bring us.
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