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A review by offservicebookrecs
The Sirens by Emilia Hart
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, Macmillan Audio, and Emilia Hart for an Advanced Listener's Copy of this title!
The tides of time ebb and flow, and return us, the reader, to a secluded cave once more. In 2019, college student Lucy awakes with her hands around the throat of an ex-lover, and flees for the coast and the safety of her sister in rural New South Wales. Armed with a podcast and her own budding sleuthing skills, the absence of her sister and presence of alarming clues lead Lucy on a wild goose chase into the past, and the murky circumstances behind her sister's behavior, the town's dark history, and the bizarre dreams and ailments they seem to share. In 1800, Irish sisters Mary and Eliza are forced aboard a convict ship headed for a brittle new world across the sea. Their harrowing journey is one of heartache, regret, and mysterious changes to their bodies the closer they come to shore. Through these two timelines a stunning tale of female resistance, patriarchy, and change is washed ashore, where only the water knows if sisterhood and the magic of the sea can ever make things right again.
I absolutely love a well-crafted contemporary fantasy, and "The Sirens" was right up my alley. Told through multiple first-person perspectives and following an ambling journey through past and present, this overarching tale of feminine rage and power was spellbinding. I sometimes think it's hard to bounce between multiple narrators, let alone timelines that are hundreds of years apart, but the way in which the author moved from Lucy, to Mary, to Jess, really kept a pulse on the tension that built as each respective set of girls moved towards their denouements, and set up for an absolute pummeling of twists towards the end. I also like the parallels each timeline was able to draw regarding female treatment in regards to assault - through we should expect that Mary and Eliza's time was particularly harsh to women and have record of that, Lucy and Jess in some ways hardly fared better than their 1800s counterparts. I also loved the author's notes in the beginning about the colonization of Australia (including the decimation of First Nations peoples), and while I had a vague idea of Australia as a country of prisoners, I feel like I learned a lot and am motivated to go do more research on the subject in my own time. I think this was a fantastic, tense, and delicate book all at once, and will certainly be seeking out more books by Emilia Hart in the future!
I highly recommend giving the audiobook version of this title a listen - the narrator did a stellar job of moving between accents across each voice shift and I really had a hard time putting the book down to attend to rea life matters!
The tides of time ebb and flow, and return us, the reader, to a secluded cave once more. In 2019, college student Lucy awakes with her hands around the throat of an ex-lover, and flees for the coast and the safety of her sister in rural New South Wales. Armed with a podcast and her own budding sleuthing skills, the absence of her sister and presence of alarming clues lead Lucy on a wild goose chase into the past, and the murky circumstances behind her sister's behavior, the town's dark history, and the bizarre dreams and ailments they seem to share. In 1800, Irish sisters Mary and Eliza are forced aboard a convict ship headed for a brittle new world across the sea. Their harrowing journey is one of heartache, regret, and mysterious changes to their bodies the closer they come to shore. Through these two timelines a stunning tale of female resistance, patriarchy, and change is washed ashore, where only the water knows if sisterhood and the magic of the sea can ever make things right again.
I absolutely love a well-crafted contemporary fantasy, and "The Sirens" was right up my alley. Told through multiple first-person perspectives and following an ambling journey through past and present, this overarching tale of feminine rage and power was spellbinding. I sometimes think it's hard to bounce between multiple narrators, let alone timelines that are hundreds of years apart, but the way in which the author moved from Lucy, to Mary, to Jess, really kept a pulse on the tension that built as each respective set of girls moved towards their denouements, and set up for an absolute pummeling of twists towards the end. I also like the parallels each timeline was able to draw regarding female treatment in regards to assault - through we should expect that Mary and Eliza's time was particularly harsh to women and have record of that, Lucy and Jess in some ways hardly fared better than their 1800s counterparts. I also loved the author's notes in the beginning about the colonization of Australia (including the decimation of First Nations peoples), and while I had a vague idea of Australia as a country of prisoners, I feel like I learned a lot and am motivated to go do more research on the subject in my own time. I think this was a fantastic, tense, and delicate book all at once, and will certainly be seeking out more books by Emilia Hart in the future!
I highly recommend giving the audiobook version of this title a listen - the narrator did a stellar job of moving between accents across each voice shift and I really had a hard time putting the book down to attend to rea life matters!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Violence