Song of the deep by Brian Hastings

This is another book where an author wanted an example of a "strong girl" for their daughter. However, I feel a little more happy with this one - for one thing, there's not the "there were no books so I wrote one" thing which I find annoying, for another it's actually a tie-in for a video game which does sound super cool.

Merryn lives a lonely but peaceful life with her father on the edge of the sea. When he disappears one day, she sets out in a golden submarine to find him and discovers a whole mysterious world beneath the ocean. There she finds both danger and wonder as she follows clues and finds the truth behind the stories her father used to tell her.

The writing is more descriptive than anything else and although there are moments of peril and wonder, the story is generally slow-paced and feels more like a script than a story. There are illustrations, but I couldn't get a good sense of them from the drafts in the arc.

Verdict: I didn't think this was particularly well-written for a novel, but it definitely intrigued me and I think the game sounds wonderful. I probably won't purchase the book, but I'm looking forward to purchasing the game for the library.

ISBN: 9781454920960; Published 2016 by Insomniac Games/Sterling; ARC provided by publisher at BEA