Fathomless by Jackson Pearce

Fathomless is the third book in Pearce's Fairytale Retelling series, and probably my favorite thus far.  In this novel we meet Celia and Lo.  Celia is one part of a set of triplets with unique qualities, they have special powers.  Celia's power is that she can see someone's past, something she doesn't find as exciting as her sisters' powers of seeing the present and future.  Lo is a mermaid, or ocean girl, trying to remember who see previously was and why she wants to become human.  The two cross paths when together they rescue a boy who had fallen into the ocean.  When Celia touches Lo, she sees a past full of screaming.  Lo continues to come to see Celia after learning her true name and the two work together to discover more about Lo's mysterious past.  But soon the two girls are competing for the affection of the boy they saved: Jude.  According to the ocean girls, Lo could get her life as a human back if she can get a human to love her and then she must kill him and steal his soul.  Lo quickly discovers the things she hears about her future are not what they appear to be, and that there is someone who has more sinister plans for the girls of the ocean.

Fathomless seemed to have a little more action and build up to it as Celia tries to help Lo, and hold a relationship with Jude, and become someone separate from her sisters.  Much like Sweetly, Fathomless plays on elements from the previous two novels.  Things we learn about in Sweetly play a major role in this novel, and there is a hint at a connection to Sisters Red.  The continuation of the story in this manner is very interesting and keeps me intrigued at where Pearce is going to take the series, will they all somehow come to a close together in a final book?  I love his descriptions of the ocean girls as having skin tinted blue or green showing they are something different from humans.

This one isn't as slow to develop as the previous two were.  It takes us through the eyes of Celia and Lo which makes for double the action until their story lines become one. It is definitely not the sweet little mermaid tale we remember for Disney as Lo kills a young boy within the first few moments of the story, and then another ocean girls tries to kill Jude.  The character I think developed the most was Lo as she develops back into Naidia and fits for her humanity.  The end is completely surprising and not what I was expecting.  Pearce has developed a way of connecting with her readers and keeps them wanting more from her work.  I know I do!

I give Fathomless a 4.5 out of 5 stars.  The pace of the story is still a little slow going but it doesn't take away from the overall feeling of the story.  It still progresses nicely and keeps the readers wanting more, I look forward to picking up Cold Spell next.