reynoldsreads 's review for:

Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon

4.0

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

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A romantic retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale.

Lenia, the youngest daughter of the sea queen, is infatuated with the human world above the water. She longs especially for the one thing that grants humans eternal life: a soul. On her eighteenth birthday, when she is allowed one day at the surface, she witnesses a ship being destroyed in a violent storm and rescues one of the sailors, delivering him to shore near a convent. Princess Margrethe, sent into hiding at the convent for protection, is the one who finds him. When the sailor is discovered to be the enemy prince of the Southern Kingdom, the fragile peace between the two kingdoms is broken and Margrethe’s father prepares for war. Margrethe seeks peace, Lenia immortality, and both desire the love of the handsome prince who captured their hearts.