The night of the blue moon held so much promise for Keeper's friends and family. Mr. Beauchamp's night-blooming cereus will burst into color and fragrance. Dogie will sing his two-word song to Cigne-- "Marry me. Marry me." And they will all feast on Cigne's wonderful crab gumbo. Unfortunately, none of these wonderful events happened on blue moon night. The day's disasters start with ten "stupid crabs" that clack and snip and call to Keeper's mer-blood and beg to be set free. She races to do their bidding before Cigne returns from town. Then, one bad thing after another happens until Keeper has destroyed all of the beautiful things that were supposed to take place on Blue Moon Day. Not able to face the people she wronged, Keeper runs away on the high tide in search of her mermaid mother who swam away from her seven years before.
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com ( )

The story and the characters were great, but the pacing of this kept me from loving it. The writing was very repetitive (several entire chapters contained absolutely no new information) and I didn't see the point of it. Was it to make the reader feel the slow passage of time as Keeper sits out on a boat in the middle of the night? Maybe so. Either way, I think there will be other readers like me frustrated by how slowly the plot moved. ( )

Representation: N/A
Trigger warnings: Death
Score: Seven points out of ten.

Good book. ( )

FROM PUBLISHER: To 10-year-old Keeper, this moon is her chance to fix all that has gone wrong...and so much has gone wrong. But she knows who can make things right again: Meggie Marie, her mermaid mother who swam away when Keeper was just three. A blue moon calls the mermaids to gather at the sandbar, and that's exactly where she is headed - in a small boat, in the middle of the night, with only her dog, BD (Best Dog), and a seagull named Captain.

When the riptide pulls at the boat, tugging her away from the shore and deep into the rough waters of the Gulf of Mexico, panic sets in, and the fairy tales that lured her out there go tumbling into the waves. Maybe the blue moon isn't magic and maybe the sandbar won't sparkle with mermaids and maybe - Oh, no..."Maybe" is just too difficult to bear.

Well-crafted but overlong. Not sure what patron I’d recommend it to, though it unusual and that’s it’s main appeal. ( )