I was really excited when I heard about Deep Blue. I like trying to find a good mermaid story and when I saw this one I thought, sweet this is going to be epic and take place under the sea where so many of the mermaid books I've read the past few years are mostly above land. So I dived in - and then I hit some really rocky waters. Unfortunately, Deep Blue and I didn't click at all and I DNF'd before I even got a fourth of the way in. I liked the lush descriptions of the setting, but I couldn't handle the first few chapters and the barrage of new terminology and names. Too many new names of people, countries, titles of specific people's rank and then when you couple that with the unfamiliar terminology it completely kept me from being able to enjoy or immerse myself in the story. Now I do have to say this - the opening scene with the river witches, that was good stuff - more of that and less of the "So and so from this such and such country, with this treaty, and that warring peoples, and crossing this stretch of sea, with this ceremony about...etc etc" Maybe if I'd stuck with it that would have calmed down a bit. The story still sounded so interesting but asking this particular reader to take in that much new information in a so few pages isn't going to work. If those things were more gently spread out through the course of the book I think it would have worked better, or if they were even toned down or some of what I thought to be superfluous information edited out I know I could have hung in there. I passed the book onto my friend Tina and she ended up enjoying it but did say that the trend continues throughout the book but is the heaviest on the front end. So if you can make it past the first third, and if that sort of thing doesn't bother you - you are possibly in for a good story.