The Sirens by Emilia Hart
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: April 1, 2025
Pages: 352
Genre: Fantasy
Review: ARC from NetGalley and Publisher
2019: Lucy awakens from a dream to find her hands around her ex-lover’s throat. Horrified, she flees to her older sister’s house on the Australian coast, hoping she can help explain the strangely vivid nightmare that preceded the attack―but Jess is nowhere to be found.
As Lucy awaits her return, the rumors surrounding Jess’s strange small town start to emerge. Numerous men have gone missing at sea, spread over decades. A tiny baby was found hidden in a cave. And sailors tell of hearing women’s voices on the waves. Desperate for answers, Lucy finds and begins to read her sister’s adolescent diary.
1999: Jess is a lonely sixteen-year-old in a rural town in the middle of the continent. Diagnosed with a rare allergy to water, she has always felt different, until her young, charming art teacher takes an interest in her drawings, seeing a power and maturity in them―and in her―that no one else has.
1800: Twin sisters Mary and Eliza have been torn from their loving father in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship bound for Australia. For their entire lives, they’ve feared the ocean, as their mother tragically drowned when they were just girls. Yet as the boat bears them further and further from all they know, they begin to notice changes in their bodies that they can’t explain, and they feel the sea beginning to call to them…
As Lucy awaits her return, the rumors surrounding Jess’s strange small town start to emerge. Numerous men have gone missing at sea, spread over decades. A tiny baby was found hidden in a cave. And sailors tell of hearing women’s voices on the waves. Desperate for answers, Lucy finds and begins to read her sister’s adolescent diary.
1999: Jess is a lonely sixteen-year-old in a rural town in the middle of the continent. Diagnosed with a rare allergy to water, she has always felt different, until her young, charming art teacher takes an interest in her drawings, seeing a power and maturity in them―and in her―that no one else has.
1800: Twin sisters Mary and Eliza have been torn from their loving father in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship bound for Australia. For their entire lives, they’ve feared the ocean, as their mother tragically drowned when they were just girls. Yet as the boat bears them further and further from all they know, they begin to notice changes in their bodies that they can’t explain, and they feel the sea beginning to call to them…
This was an interesting take on sirens. I kept wondering what happened to combine the two past and the present together and it all came together in the end.
I literally did not know that people had a disorder that would affect their skin if they got wet. So that was fun going down that rabbit hole.
I thought the way the characters became intertwined was great. At first, I couldn't understand what the past had to do with the present and why no one in her family was really talking about sleepwalking and what was going on. Though as the story unfolded it all came together. I normally don't do anything with mermaids as it is not my normal, but I will say I was highly amused by the storyline and wanted to know more.
I do wonder why this all happens now with the sleepwalking and dreams and not when our main character was younger. Is it a coming-of-age thing?
Emilia Hart is a British-Australian writer. She was born in Sydney and studied English Literature and Law at the University of New South Wales before working as a lawyer in Sydney and London.
Emilia is a graduate of Curtis Brown Creative’s Three Month Online Novel Writing Course and was Highly Commended in the 2021 Caledonia Novel Award. Her short fiction has been published in Australia and the UK. "Weyward" is her debut novel. She lives in London, England.
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