To be fair, the "Once Upon a Time" series have never pretended to be anything other than simple, frivolous, easy-to-read stories based around various fairytales. Though I've read and reviewed a few of them now, I doubt any will get more than a three-star rating from me - though some are certainly more rewarding than others, and no doubt please their target audience.
"Midnight Pearl", based on the story of the Little Mermaid (or more accurately, "The Little Sea-Maid" by Hans Christian Anderson) concerns Pearl, a young woman who was caught in a net by an old fisherman during a storm and taken home to be raised by him and his wife as their own daughter. She has pale skin, silver hair, and abnormally long legs, as well as a large midnight-blue pearl clutched in her tiny fist. Thirteen years later, and now a young woman, Pearl is painfully self-conscious of her unique appearance, but enjoys a secret friendship with Prince James of Aster.
Meanwhile, two latecomers to the story are the mer-siblings Kale and Faye, who come across Pearl and James rowing a boat in the ocean, rescue them from drowning...and instantaneously fall in love with them. Kale recognizes Pearl as Adriana, his betrothed, who went missing when she was just a child. Soon the two siblings have made a deal with the Sea Witch in order to gain legs. With Kale blinded, and Faye rendered mute, the mer-people take to the shore in order to win the love of Pearl and James...for if they can't do this within the week, their lives are forfeit.
It gets more complicated. There's also a plot against the King of Aster to contend with, as well as a love triangle that grows into a love hexagon (including Pearl, James, his cousin Robert, and the two mer-people). As many other reviewers have already mentioned, the resolution to the love story is unsatisfactory. James and Pearl are introduced as life-long friends who are just beginning to feel the first signs of romantic attachment to one another...until two perfect strangers come along who make overtures of love and drag our hero and heroine into two completely unconvincing examples of "love at first sight."
I like unpredictable love stories (one that comes to mind is the Sunfire classic
Jessica (Sunfire, No 6) which involves two star-crossed lovers eventually deciding to part ways in order to find more suitable partners), but here is just isn't pulled off. If you're going to have James and Pearl "better as just friends", then at least give us more convincing secondary love-interests. For an example of just how convoluted this gets, here's a typical dream experienced by Pearl:
"She watched as James kissed Faye. A hand touched her shoulder, and she turned around to see Robert staring at her. He bent down to kiss her, and over his shoulder she saw Kale staring at her. She closed her eyes so she would not have to see him and kissed Robert."
There are other things that are also annoying. The plot is often advanced by the characters acting like complete idiots, doing things that are not only stupid, but nonsensical - such as the two mermaids selling their souls away in order to be with the human beings that they've known for all of two seconds. Sure, Arial from
The Little Mermaid (Two-Disc Platinum Edition) did a similar thing, but at least the Sea Witch had a *very* convincing persuasion-song that successfully coerced her into it.
As the main character, Pearl is as wet as a leaky tap (no pun intended) who bursts into tears regularly, and in the book's most bizarre moment, ends up accepting a marriage proposal from a perfect stranger who turns up at her house and announces that he's going to marry her. Actually "accepts" is a misnomer, as she doesn't react one way or the other to this event. She doesn't question it. She doesn't fight it. She just gets up on the guy's horse and is whisked away to the palace to prepare for the wedding taking place a week later. Even in a book about magic and mermaids, there needs to be some semblance of realistic human behaviour.
A minor, but rather baffling detail is the mention that the Sea Witch is a "dryad", described as a mermaid with a long serpent's tail. Dryads are Grecian tree spirits...why would they be at the bottom of the ocean?
The "Once Upon a Time" books are guilty pleasures; beautifully designed and quick and easy to read. But "Midnight Pearls" stretches credibility too far, and therefore saps away the enjoyment I might have had as a result. There's no "magic", only McGuffins that push the plot along; no characters, only cardboard cutouts and a wet protagonist; no real resemblance to any telling of the Little Mermaid story, save that...well, there's a mermaid.
