The Mermaid’s Bubble Lounge
Seana Kelly
284 pages/8 hrs 51mins
NYLA/Audible
Published October 28, 2025
🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️🧜♀️
Amazon | GoodReads
The Mermaid’s Bubble Lounge is the eighth book in the Sam Quinn urban fantasy series about a San Francisco based werewolf and her vampire husband. It is one of the few remaining series that I buy new, or nearly new, along with its spin-off, the Sea Wicche series – a bit of fun urban fantasy when I need a break from crime, mystery and thrillers. I think this is one of those series that’s better read in order, because there’s now a big cast of interlinked characters and ongoing subplots, although you do get a fair bit of recap. This came out last year, and I wanted to read it before Wicked Wicche, which just came out. With so many ebooks on my pile already, it was hard to justify buying another right now, so I bought the audiobook, which happened to be on special. I mostly read it while running and enjoyed it overall with some reservations.
Sam and Clive are preparing to meet the remaining members of the vampire guild, when the body of a human jogger shows up outside one of the city’s supernatural bars, drained of blood and with obvious fang marks on her neck. Sam is suspicious when there’s no scent of a predator, so together with their uninvited houseguests Vlad and Cadmael, they set out to discover who or what is behind it.
What I like most about this series is Sam’s array of friends from different supernatural natures, and that the romance angle is a steady backdrop – her relationship with Clive is rock solid, with no manufactured drama, doubt, jealousy or misunderstandings between them. I could do without the boring love scenes which feel repetitive and add nothing to the plot. The nature of the villain here was an interesting twist, I don’t want to spoil it by saying too much. The vampire politics dragged a bit, it feels like the guild storyline has been going on too long. I liked that minor characters from previous books reappear and some mysteries get resolved, including crossovers from the Arwen books, yay for Uncle Bracken!
I was disappointed that considering the title refer’s to the Mermaid’s Bubble Lounge, we spend hardly any time inside it, and don’t meet any mermaids. Oh and I still have no clue what a bubble lounge is! The narrator, Samantha Desz, was good, given the large number of character voices she has to convey, apart from that she often has a teasing lilt that doesn’t sit right for certain scenes – especially when investigating a murder or discussing violence. The thing I don’t like, and I’ve noticed this with one of the previous books, is the cover image, which always depicts Sam and Clive looking moody. That’s ok, my issue is that Sam is a tough werewolf who loves eating sweet treats, so why does she look emaciated with super-skinny elongated arms. She should be lean and muscled and in proportion. I also don’t like that Clive looks like Spike from the Buffy series but I suppose some people are into that… Anyway, these are only minor criticisms of an otherwise enjoyable instalment in this reliably entertaining series. I’m looking forward to reading Wicked Wicche soon, and book 9 comes out later this year.
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