First, let me thank both Edelweiss and especially St. Martin's Griffin for allowing me to read an e-galley of this book. Now, can I start telling you how much I loved this book?! I have to say what an awesome way to end a series! There was action, there was still romance, there were twists and turns, there was more details about the background of the sirens, and I even found the re-telling of the story of Persephone to be very unique. As I've said in the reviews for both Lullaby and Tidal, this series, just got better,and better, and the end didn't disappoint! Now, before I go on with my summary of the story, realize again that there will be spoilers if you haven't read the books before yet. I try to keep them to a minimum, but will have to have some.
Okay, so as the cover kind of gave away in the last book, Penn has developed a bit of an obsession with Daniel, Harper's boyfriend, and has convinced him that the only way to keep Harper and Gemma and the rest of his friends and family safe is to sleep with her, and give in to what she wants. So he has agreed, and even though he wanted to talk to Harper about it, and came really close, he decided he would not tell her. But when Harper makes plans to come home and surprise Daniel on his birthday, the same day Penn has planned to get what she wants from Daniel, it all comes to a head. And now Harper is unsure if she can trust Daniel, even though she does understand what he's done. They've made Liv the new siren to replace Lexi, but she is psychotic, killing just because she can, and not being worried about getting caught. Both Thea and Gemma keep bugging Penn to do something about Liv, but she doesn't. In the mean time they are still trying to work on figuring out the scroll with the curse that Thea gave them. Even involving one of Harper's professors. And Marcy's friend Lydia also thinks she may have a way to find Diana, who may actually be Demeter, and who may be able to help with the curse. Gemma gets to the point where she is just done with it all. Liv kills the mayor's son Aiden, who had attacked Gemma in the last book, but had his life saved when Alex pulled him off of Gemma. So Gemma decides to go after Penn. She soon learns that there is no way she will ever be able to take Penn on by herself, because she doesn't feed regularly like Penn does, not to mention the difference in age. Penn again gets more angry, and now tells Daniel that she wants him to become a siren and be with her forever, or in Penn's mind until she gets tired of him. Of course she must kill one of the other sirens to do that, and while she wants to get rid of Thea because of how she'd become a downer, she knows it can't be Gemma, because that is who Daniel is trying to protect, so Daniel asks her to get rid of Liv, and she agrees. When Diana/Demeter is found, she isn't quite as helpful as is hoped. While she gives some clues in her very unhelpful comments, she is too intent on letting Penn continue to suffer forever, even as Gemma and Harper try to convince her that Penn isn't really suffering and is only making other innocent families suffer.
The ending, perfect, well, where all the action comes to a head and the real problem is solved. There is probably one main issue that I had with the book though, which is why on Goodreads I only gave it a 4, (4.5 if I could have). I feel like there were some parts that were a little bit long. Like the very end after the problem is solved. We do get to know a lot about what happens after things come to a head. And I know that often we do want to know those things. But in this case, it went on for so long, that I only kept reading because I thought it must be something else important happening. But it didn't. It wasn't that bad or boring, it just made me think there must be some other big happening, that there wasn't. So that's my only complaint. If you had trouble with the first book, as I've seen some people say, but you still were interested in the idea, you might go ahead and pick up the 2nd book. Because, really, this ended up so good, almost in my opinion, a perfect story.