So, when you go look at Sacrificed to the Sea on the mighty Amazon, you will see that it has a big orange banner for bestseller in number theory. That’s because, for some odd reason, the PTB at Zon have decided to put the book in Math. There is a warning on the blurb that guarantees this isn’t a math book, that it’s a romance. I think that’s a trip. This is a very Cari book. When I finished reading it, I just sat and stared at my kindle for quite a while. The whole book was a total WTF moment, and I totally WTFed over it.
We start with Rafaella. She is on a ship sometime hundreds of years ago, whoring herself out to the sailors in exchange for passage. Right up until there is a hurricane, then she’s bad luck, and she’s tied up and sacrificed to try to appease the sea. Instead of dying, she ends up becoming a mermaid. On top of that, Rafaella periodically has to go kill and devour a man.
Many years after her transformation, Rafaella takes Wolfgang’s lover and fucks and eats him. Of all the men she’s ever devoured, he may be the one that she actually regrets.
So, Wolfgang is a marine scientist who thinks he’s figured out the secret behind Rafaella. He comes and sits on the beach each night talking to her. Then he manages to catch her. Then, being a Cari Silverwood book, he decides to do horrible, terrible, sexy, dirty, wonderful things to her.
I don’t know whether I love to hate Wolfie or hate to love him. I do know that I’m fascinated by him. There’s just something about him that’s both hard and vulnerable. That’s a really tough line to have to walk, I think. I mean, he knows what he wants, he wants his revenge on Rafaella, and he’s very angry, rightfully so, but when he gets her, he’s pulled in and there are times that he gets really wrapped up in what he’s doing, and it seems like he loses his way and desire for revenge sometimes. He thinks of himself as a monster, and with some of the things that he does to Rafaella, yeah, I can see how he could think that.
With Rafaella, it’s different. I both like her and maybe kinda hate her. I understand why she is the way that she is. Frankly, I would probably be the same if I went through what she did. Especially since she really spent a lot of time completely alone in the sea. It’s easy to lose yourself, and she did. The reason that I kinda hate her is that she has completely lost herself too. I know, that doesn’t make any sense to anyone, but it makes sense to me. I think that she has some really hidden depths and there are things about her that she doesn’t know, and she doesn’t figure them out on her own.
I feel like this book really just scratched the surface of these characters, and I love that. It gives me a lot of room to decide how I feel about everything, and gave me room to imagine what comes next. While I wouldn’t mind another book with these characters, I am perfectly happy without one. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t line up to read one if Cari wrote it.
OK, no spoilers on this one, because, well, you really don’t want any. Go check it out! Happy reading!
In Between the Pages 