The Twice Lost (The Lost Voices Trilogy) (The Lost Voices Trilogy, 3) Paperback – July 8, 2014

If anyone were to ask me, mermaids are probably one of my favorite mythological beings/creatures, and the lore surrounding them varies wildly from one story to another. After reading and enjoying the first two books in this trilogy, I eagerly picked up the third--hoping that the cliffhanger we were left on would finally be concluded. And while the ending is mostly a happy one, there's still a few unanswered questions...and perhaps the conclusion is a bit TOO happy.Picking up exactly where "Waking Storms" left off, the government is now aware of the existence of mermaids, to which soldiers are being sent out to exterminate as many of them as possible. As the only mermaid who can use her singing voice to command and control water, Luce's courage and resolve will be put to the ultimate test as she gathers together as many remaining mermaids as she can to form an army to fight back against the humans. Will Luce be able to find a way to resolve this conflict peacefully? Or is peace between humans and mermaids impossible?Despite the story being about mermaids and featuring a young protagonist, this book is NOT for a young audience. It features more than a fair share of death, and discussions about abuse, and though the writing and descriptions are vivid when setting a scene, it doesn't shy away from gore.This book is definitely the best of the three, as it has the most action, character development, and explanations of plot threads that were left unexplained or hanging in the previous two books. After going through some awkward 'growing pains' of sorts in "Waking Storms", both Luce and Dorian, the human boy she fell in love with, do their fair share of 'growing up' as the war between humans and mermaids reaches a boiling point. And thankfully, unlike other supernatural pairings in fiction, their romance doesn't take over the plot. In fact, the two don't even really interact all that much for the bulk of the story, and instead bond with one another with what they're able to see of each other via news reports---the actions they take in the conflict speak more than any of their words could. Dorian, who started off a bit more self-centered and believed that Luce decided to be a mermaid just to goof around and run away from her problems, quickly comes to realize the enormous world-altering responsibility she's placed on her shoulders, and soon throws himself into doing whatever he can to rally his fellow humans into helping the mermaid cause.As for Luce, her development was already coming along in the previous two books, but her transformation from timid outsider to wise and courageous leader, finally reaches its fruition here. In the previous two entries, it was left more of a mystery as to why or how she was the only one who could control water, and part of me was dreading it would turn out she would be some cliche' "chosen one" or something. But thankfully, this story avoids this. While an explanation for her special ability still isn't totally made clear, judging by her pacifist actions, one can theorize that she's able to do what she does because she's using her magical singing in a non-violent way that no one else ever tried before. And by the time she gathers her army together, she's able to teach her fellow mermaids this same ability; giving off the subtle message that one can achieve greatness if they dedicate themselves to doing good rather than harm. Her leadership results in a spectacular water blockade that forces the human government to have to cease their attacks on the mermaids until a permanent solution can be found.However, for all of the action and character development, the book isn't without its problems. Anais, the mermaid antagonist from the last two books, is still as selfish and cold-hearted as ever, even while being captured by the human government, and though she has a change of heart in the last third of the story, it's not enough to fully redeem her, in my eyes. But the true antagonist turns out to be Secretary Moreland---the main man responsible for the attacks on the mermaids, and though I could chalk up some of his insanity to listening to mermaid song, he comes off as the most unrealistic character. He never listens to reason, and most of the time, his dialogue sounds more like a cartoon supervillain. Every time he refers to the mermaids as "those evil tails" and calling Anais his "little tadpole", I just kept rolling my eyes.Which, speaking of realism, as much as I prefer for stories to have happy endings, this is the rare time where I found that the story ended a bit TOO happily. Two thirds into the book, it's revealed that scientists have found a way to turn the mermaids back into humans again....and we get absolutely NO explanation as to how they achieved this. Considering they only found out about the existence of mermaids recently, and are dealing with centuries old magic, it's shocking for them to have found a "cure" for the mermaids at all, much less come up with one in no less than a month or two. And though the conflict has its moments of fear and prejudice, for the most part, the humans come to accept the mermaids fairly quickly, and their shock over finding out about these mythological beings doesn't last as long as I thought it would. Likewise, the remaining mermaids are pretty quick to follow Luce's orders, and though some of them don't fully believe in her peaceful cause, none of them attempt to defy her. While I don't want to give away the ending, it comes off as wrapping up far too neatly. A world-altering event such as this is deserving of at least one more book to explain how the world reacts to finding mermaids in their midst, and if all the mermaids are fully on board with never harming humans again. It's almost as if the author had a fourth book planned in this series, but then found out they were only getting three books, so they tried to cram an entire novel's worth of development into the last ten chapters. The last third of this isn't necessarily bad, just....rushed.I would actually rate this at three and a half stars, but since Amazon can't do half stars, I'm rounding it to four, because while there's certain elements that bug me, the character development and action set pieces more than make up for the shortcomings, and it's far and away better than "Waking Storms". For my first real dip into mermaid fiction, this trilogy was an interesting and unique ride, and if you can look past some of the arguable plot holes, then you might enjoy this.

I read the first of this trilogy a couple years ago and forgot about it, unaware that sequels had come out.I'm SO GLAD the author chose the ending she did. I was worried up until the last pages that she was going to go the typical love-conquers-all YA route. I thought the ending was a bold and realistic choice.the storyline in this one was much more developed and focused. I have a feeling that when the first book was written, the author wasn't entirely sure where the story would wind up. that seems to have been remedied in this one!The prose got a little out of hand at times. The author has some really gorgeous imagery, especially surrounding the way the mermaids sing, but to a point it began to feel a bit thesaurusy. I think I saw the word lambert used at least four times in the last novel, and that's not really a word you can get away with overusing when less intrusive language will work just as well. I do think the flowery prose detracted a bit from the story, particularly the repetitive descriptions of each mermaids skin, eyes, and hair. Once or twice is sufficient; describing a character's red hair in multi-sentence soliloquies a half dozen times does start to become cumbersome to read.As a mom of a 2 year old little girl, reading about the larval mermaids was extremely difficult. It was hard to stomach these young women willingly passing by toddlers and infants, allowing them to get eaten and killed with a callousness that seemed beyond the pale. It also served little purpose in the story until the very end, and could have easily been replaced with another aspect of the mermaid culture without haphazardly disposing of all those babies.The cure discovered at the end was also pretty hard to buy. They were turned mermaids by an ancient, mystical god-like force, and I as a reader am supposed to believe that it a few short months humans figured out how to reverse it? With an injection? More information as to exactly how the cure worked would have made this seem more believable in the context of the world that was created.Still, a worthwhile read, especially if you like mermaids, YA, and magic!

i read one and two a long while ago and loved the take on the classic Serin mermaid's. but I also loved how one mermaid could make a difference in the lifes of so many mermaid's. the thired and final book in the series is heat stopping and amazing. I got this book on 7/6/13 and finished the next day. I loved very moment of her brave story. I cryed on those special moment's and screamed at the mermaid's fighting against her. in the end a cure is found, to change the mermaid's back.. and luce make's the right choice, and I cryed, but in the end it made since why she did. I will forever love tales of mermaid's due to my denish blood. where Has christain Anderson worte the little mermaid, also he to was dansih. so mermaids have always been something special to me. I hope we read more from porter! she is an amazing writer!

Third and final book of the Lost Voices Trilogy about contemporary teenage mermaids and their difficulties with humankind, which pollutes the oceans and kills mermaids. The setting moves from Alaska to San Francisco and Baltimore!Shunned by other mermaids, mermaid heroine Luce moves south and ends up in San Francisco Bay - where she finds colonies of other shunned mermaids. Luce becomes their leader and commands the resistance against human society.After much action, conflict, and adventure, all ends peaceably.

This was a really good book to end the series! It has a lot more action than the rest of the books did and answered a lot of the questions you were wondering! I'm not gonna summarize the whole book because sometimes that makes me mad because I don't want to know about the whole damn thing or I would read it! But it was a good ending, but it did leave me wanting more and I wish there was another book after because it left me with more questions!!

A bit disappointed this was an ex library book but wasn't in that bad condition and happy to have completed the trilogy.

Good book... got for great price and fast delivery

The Twice Lost is the last book in the Lost Voices trilogy. Incredibly long and beautifully written, The Twice Lost is a near-perfect ending to this stunning trilogy. Writing reviews is not my forte, so I will be brief:The writing is absolutely magical. The descriptions of the ocean, sunsets, waves, lights, cities, etc, are so wonderfully and beautifully detailed that you actually FEEL it. Catarina is back, although she is not very likeable. Luce has grown up a lot now and she no longer adores Catarina - she thinks for herself now. I was disappointed to see so much Dorian in this. Ugh, that brat is sickening. In this book he does try to atone for what he did but he is still an immature, selfish creep as far as I'm concerned. SPOILER ------ so glad that Luce chose the ocean over him --------- END SPOILER. Not only do we see a slightly better side of Anais (it'll be hard not to sympathize with her a little, even though she's a psychopath,) but Nausicaa returns and we have several new important characters to enjoy. Yuan and Imani were great additions. Moreland is insane beyond belief. He is slimy to the core - an absolutely despicable, perverted human being. I hated him more than Dorian.To people like me who didn't like Luce in Waking Storms, I don't think you will feel the same way about her in this book. She is fighting hard for what she believes in and is unwavering in her orders to never kill a human.Usually story endings are never quite what I'd hoped they would be. Aside from Harry Potter and Vampire Academy, I am always left feeling unsatisfied. But not with The Twice Lost. I think this is a very good, satisfying ending.The reason why it lost a .5 is because we never learn what became of the surviving members of Luce's tribe.

Our daughter has not read this book yet, It will be a Christmas gift. tiger 5.

Product came in time and wasn’t damaged in any way