The caption to this picture is pretty much how I felt after reading this book. After enduring the 2nd book I somehow talked myself immediately into reading the third one. I was hooked…not because it was good mind you, but because Love, Lattes and Angel promised me voodoo priestesses, reincarnation and the Bermuda Triangle (and delivered on all three I think). Let me make one thing very clear before I tell you EVERYTHING about this book. It is pure garbage. Many times I caught myself saying this very thing:
But you knew that already. You just want to hear about this travesty. So here goes.
When we last left off with these books, Joel (dolph teen boy) had just announced to Piper (dolph teen girl) that they had a test tube dolph baby that he conveniently named Angel.
C’mon Sandra…you have been talking about ocean stuff for like two books now. Angel and her parents all share dolphin DNA. Would it have killed you to give her a marine name?? Instead I picture a stripper every time I have to talk about her (apologies if any of you are named Angel. I’m sorry). Remember in my last review when I said that the dolph baby was amazeballs?? Well it turns out she’s wayyyyy more amazeballs than I thought. At 6 weeks old she can talk, she can swim faster than her parents and she’s also has telepathy! She swims so fast that they believe she probably has a little sailfish in her. And hey? Who isn’t a little sailfish sometimes? (hey-oo). That fact was just randomly tossed out there never to be thought of again even though it mentions that sailfish have a very short lifespan (and implying that maybe Angel did too…but yeah, no, never talked about again).
At the end of the last book Joel was bitten by a shark (which I think I totally neglected to tell you all about because I guess a shark bite didn’t even register on the cuckoo meter), they use this opportunity to get his tracking chip from Dr. Stranger removed while they’re staying at Gramp’s beach cottage in the Bahamas. Well, that’s two more beach front properties than I’ll ever have…nice work Gramps. Well the dumb doctors just flushed the tracking device down the toilet instead of breaking it or recycling it and so Craven and Dr. Stranger were able to trace them to the Bahamas. Let’s real talk for a second, what doctor is just tossing biomedical waste down the toilet? Knowing that Stranger and Craven are coming they split up. Joel, Piper and Angel begin travelling to Gramp’s private island (seriously Gramps, what did you do for a living???) but they were thrown off course and into an amazing storm. Of course though, Piper knows what’s up–“Joel, we’re in the Bermuda Triangle”. I don’t know how she knew that, but she was right. Some really strange shit happens in the Bermuda Triangle as I’m sure you’re well aware. However, what you didn’t know was that it makes 6 week old dolph babies age like crazy! It also makes Joel say ridiculous understatements:
“We’ve survived a very strange occurrence in the Devil’s Triangle”
Thanks for the update, don’t know what we’d do without that insight. Stay golden.
So now Piper, Joel and their now six year old daughter who incidentally has no clothes and Sandra Cox has to talk about it all creepily (I guess for continuity’s sake?) have beached safely onto an island. They come to learn that it is Molita’s island and that she’s a vodou high priestess (Sandra Cox being cool is using the “original” (after vodoun) spelling of vodou so that it’s clear that we know that she’s an expert in vodou. She’s not. But it’s still better than her knowledge of Biology). Molita gets all excited because right before her mother died (the old high priestess) she told Molita that she’d fall in love with a blond haired, blue eyed warrior. She’s disappointed when she realizes that Joel has turquoise eyes (uh, turquoise is a shade of blue, right?) so she turns her attention on Angel who she knows after two minutes is the reincarnation of her mother. Instantly she takes her under her wing and starts training her to become a junior high priestess and Joel and Piper are basically like, “COOL!” you know, like most parents would do if a random stranger with “exotic tanned skin” (that’s Sandy’s cute shout out to diversity) showed up and starting teaching their kids vodou. But at least she teaches her good vodou. Our big bad guy of the book practices bad vodou, and quite frankly, his name did not live up to the expectations set by Craven and Dr. Stranger. He’s just Jon Jo and he has a really big pet snake.
This snake is key, because Angel with her deep connection to animals (she can talk to ALL of them due to Bermuda Triangle magic stuff) doesn’t allow Molita to sacrifice a chicken when she works on a protection spell. Instead she keeps the chicken as a pet and names her Clara. When Angel doesn’t allow Jon Jo to let his snake eat her chicken he comes at the family…hard. Let that sink in. They’re going to have a big old vodou war over a chicken. To be fair, Joel does some posturing and says that if Jon Jo doesn’t leave that they were going to have “snake steaks for dinner”, but neither Jon Jo nor I really believed that. These dolphkids are all about their seafood meals (which get recounted in great detail which is how I know). Jon Jo doesn’t know what he’s up against (a bunch of dolph kids on land). And so Joel and Molita go on a hunt to Jon Jo’s house to find skin, fingernails and hair to make a gris gris bag against him. Of course, Joel wouldn’t be Joel if he didn’t end up stabbing himself with his own knife as he attempted to protect himself from Jon Jo’s snake. He gets some of the snake’s “evil blood” in his wound but nothing ever comes of it…he just gets stitched up and he’s fine. But Jon Jo continues to attack…he sends a tarantula and a vampire bat (that looks like a vampire bat from Scooby Doo [fangs, pulsing red eyes] not like an actual vampire bat. But they’re just close calls because Molita says her vodou is saving them all. Joel says it’s all him. Tomato/Tomahto.
In an amazing plot wrinkle we find out that Tyler is going to propose to Piper on the beach. I almost forgot that they were together! She’s been making out with Joel–he even put his hand in her bikini! You know that it’s NOT true love anymore between Tyler and Piper because she has a panic attack when he proposes and he optimistically states, “Hey! Think about it!” and goes back to having a beach picnic like a good little puppy. Tyler deserves better…and guess what? He’s blond haired and blued eyed (not to be confused with turquoise!!)! Don’t think Molita didn’t notice that. She’s just biding her time until Piper gives him up to her. Later, when Piper does accept his proposal (for dumb reasons that we don’t have time to get into), Molita’s not even miffed, instead she preps for the future and gets Joel to buy Piper a really dumb dolphin ring for when they finally get together like Molita (and every reader in the world) knows they will.
Ok…let’s do the fun stuff
Let’s talk about the Sandra Cox batshit crazy plot points:
Piper and Joel get captured by Stranger and Craven. The HOW is interesting. Apparently, Dr. Stranger placed cameras at the bottom of the ocean and also floating on the surface presumably everywhere in the Bahamas (whaaa???) and caught Piper on camera. Their descriptions of the cameras is worth noting because it’s like they’ve never seen a camera before. They literally describe what cameras/recorders do. (Why do they assume that Dr. Stranger is responsible for random cameras floating in the water?):
“I found a camera, or it found me, while I was out swimming.”
“A camera? What kind of camera?”
“It’s like nothing like I’ve seen before.” I describe it. “I’m guessing it videos everything in its path. Of course I could be mistaken. It could have been someone’s discarded camera that was just thrown away.” I’m grasping at straws and I know it.
“Could have been.”
“I could hear it clicking, Joel.”
“Like a bomb?”
“No, it was more like a whirring noise. I’m sure it was recording.”
“Did you see any more?” Joel pushes his wet hair back from his forehead then swipes at the rivulets running down his chest.
I think Sandra Cox doesn’t even know how to program her VCR. Just a hunch.
(Realized that joke’s only really funny if you’re from Philly…here’s the joke)
So they’re captured and Dr. Stranger wouldn’t be Dr. Stranger if he wasn’t throwing around some dolphin DNA; so he decides to inject Piper with dolphin blood in the attempt to get them to reveal where Angel is. The dolphin blood and her blood aren’t mixing well and her heart keeps almost stopping and she’s really weak but she knows that she’ll be ok if she just gets to the water. Sorry Sandra, if I inject you with monkey blood you’re going to get blood poisoning…even if I handed you a banana. But lo and behold, me and science are WRONG. Angel comes to save the day and the convenient vodou priestess sends a 90 foot wave at the boat (why didn’t she do that before they were trapped on the boat?). Craven and Stranger die, while Piper, Joel, and Angel come home unscathed because the salt water saved her from “all the extra dolphin DNA”.
Literally seconds after they return back to the island, Tyler’s like, “Hey! You didn’t die! Ya wanna marry me?” And Piper says yes. WTF? We’re informed that planning a wedding, even on a secluded island is time consuming and takes months. So for months she’s presumably shacking up with/or at the very least kissing Tyler when she really wants to be with Joel (remember, she let him touch her on her bathing suit area parts. I don’t remember the last time she let Tyler do that!). And the wedding takes place! Right up until the point when the minister asks if anyone objects and then guys…oh guys…
[record scratch]
BOTH TYLER AND JOEL OBJECT!!!
And everyone laughs and Tyler and Joel switch places and the minister is pretty smooth and makes a “new groom, who dis? joke but still lets them get married even though it seems pretty damn clear that no one understands what sanctity of marriage means. Joel pretty much just chucks Tyler’s ring off Piper’s finger and tosses his very dumb dolphin ring on and Gramps is laughing and saying that they can use his cottage in Jamaica for their honeymoon (SERIOUSLY GRAMPS! How many beach houses can one man possibly have?). Joel ,of course, has to be creepy and ask his daughter if she can turn off her telepathy at night (so that he can finally bang Piper on the honeymoon) and Angel giggles because she understands that her dad is creepily referencing banging her mom and this shit is finally over.
Fun fact. If you’re a cat lover. You’d really love Sandra Cox’s blog. I’ve recently become obsessed with her as I try to figure out how she could’ve written these books. So far, I’ve learned nothing. Such is life.