Siren by Tricia Rayburn

Penguin, 2011. ISBN 9780143204497
(Age: 12+) Vanessa Sands is on a holiday with her family in Winter Harbour when her sister tragically leaps to her death off some local cliffs. Everyone claims it is either suicide or a horrible accident, but Vanessa thinks otherwise, and begins searching for the real reason to her beloved sister's passing. But she also has another problem. Since her sister's death in the ocean, more bodies have been washing up on the shore, all of them men, grinning from ear to ear . . .
Can Vanessa face who she truly is?
This book appears interesting, original, and exciting at a first glance, but once the first-chapter threshold is passed, the true nature is revealed.
This book does manage to be original in some ways, mainly because the idea of a modern day 'siren' is not really that common in novels, yet. It's an interesting concept, and this book could have been really interesting, but unfortunately the engaging storyline is let down by poor character structure and development, frustrating dialogue, and bland description, each of which I will now talk about in turn.
The characters are two-dimensional, and they're hard to imagine as real people, because they don't talk like it seems they should. This is also a part of the dialogue problem. Overall, it's not half-bad, but there is very little sustained conflict throughout the novel, and every twist or problem is explained (conveniently) by a character. The description is a fair problem also, as not much time is taken to describe scenes and characters, and this lets down the plot a little. Overall, this makes the book quite boring to read.
This is a very mild romance/mystery novel. Resist the siren's call for this one, and spend your money on something better.
Rebecca Adams (Student)