Basements are good for a lot of things: Teenage smoke-outs. Banishing the boys. Storing dead bodies.

But mermaids?

Though we never caught on to the title of Michael Lee West’s latest novel, Mermaids in the Basement, we ate it up like Grandma’s biscuits and gravy. A light, fun read in which the Deep South setting is as much a character as the characters themselves, it’s got a bold Southern voice and all the charm of a debutante.

When Renata DeChavannes’s mother and stepfather die and her big-time screenwriter boyfriend appears in a tabloid macking on a foreign starlet, she seeks solace at her paternal grandmother’s house in Point Clear, Alabama. Amidst Spanish moss, warm ocean breezes, and sassy Southern ladies, she sets about reconnecting with her estranged father and unearthing the secrets to her troubled childhood.

It feels good to get it all above ground.

Available online at amazon.com or at your local bookstore.