Trigger warning: rape, trans misogyny.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a retelling of The Little Mermaid where Ursula is trying to outsmart Loki to return to the human she loves. The idea is very original and it was just a great book. I love the ties to Norse mythology, and I particularly liked that Julia made Loki trans and genderfluid. Ersel and Ragna were both well-developed characters with a lot of growth and personality. I shipped them almost immediately and for the most part I thought they were a cute, passionate couple. I also liked the ongoing message that love and goodness aren't necessarily equated to beauty.

However, it wasn't a perfect book. I was able to guess one of the twists, though it did end up taking a turn I didn't expect later on, and the final 20 pages ultimately felt a bit anticlimactic. I think another couple of chapters and a longer epilogue would've fixed this.

There are also problematic aspects to this book that were brought to my attention via another review. You can read it here: http://daxmurray.com/blog/review-the-seafarers-kiss/?aal=dp-KBhtG2RzEuOWOsDVyPpEa1oP_chreiaqXKAZpDLCXKMx6. This post is also where I got the trigger warnings from.

To put it plainly, there's harmful trans and genderfluid rep, rape, and a violent scene between a couple that isn't righted and is followed by sex. There are more details in the above post, but it contains spoilers for the story. I wanted to include this so people could be aware and not have the story (outside the problematic parts) spoiled.

All in all, this was a quick read and enjoyable story, but it has problems that need to be addressed.