Gia is a mogul who runs a string of international clubs and casinos by day, then kills her lovers by night. She has one other big secret: any time her feet touch water, she turns into a mermaid. It seems like she’s created the perfect life for herself, until the body of her most recent boyfriend is found and Gia finds herself turning to the mafia for help. Plus, she must dodge suspicion from her new beau’s sister—who just so happens to be the lead news reporter on the murder case—while dealing with her embezzling, blackmailing merman cousin. To complicate matters even more, Gia begins to develop real feelings for Cameron, the cocky yet sensitive new man in her life…enough to actually reconsider adding him to the collection of bodies in her underwater graveyard.

MERMAID OF VENICE benefits from short, snappy chapters that keep the story swimming along. Alternating chapters also explore Gia’s past, starting with the summer her parents met and building up to the traumatic moment that drives her. The earnest, sun-soaked chapters from her father’s summer sailing around the Mediterranean also provide a refreshing counterpoint to Gia’s darker chapters, where moments of casual violence are tossed in amidst a luxury lifestyle of top-shelf scotch and private plane trips around the world. The premise, pacing, and tone of the novel may especially appeal to fans of the TV show Killing Eve.

Author Jincey Lumpkin creates a memorable cast of characters, many of whom are sociopathic but somehow endearing. There is a charm to Gia’s calculating assertiveness, and a depth to her femme fatale persona. She is drawn to Cameron as a fellow “Shark” (someone who has money to burn and “plenty of confidence to bite when they saw a dish tasty enough”), but he catches her off-balance with his underlying sweetness. His sister Harper has none of that though, and her intense determination to uncover Gia’s secrets drives much of the plot.

In an otherwise stellar novel, the only minor drawback is the introduction of an entire underwater merperson city and culture in the final act. Lumpkin clearly spent time building this world, as the few pages readers spend in the underwater city are lushly described and detailed. However, the last-minute exposition for an entire merperson culture interrupts the momentum of the story in the moments where it had been building to an intense finale. Lumpkin regains her footing in the final pages though, leaving Gia at a crossroads that will leave readers itching for the sequel. Overall, the novel is a sexy, empowering, ultramodern take on the sirens of Greek myths.

MERMAID OF VENICE is an electrifying series starter that immerses readers in a world filled with glamor, sex, murder, and mermaids.

~Cameron Gillespie for IndieReader