Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for providing this eARC for my review!!

⭐️: 3.5/5

Having loved Weyward, I was so excited to dive into The Sirens. I love historical fiction books, especially when they intersect with fantasy or magical realism concepts, which is why I loved Weyward so much. I was expecting something kind of similar, and wasn’t disappointed in that regard, but I ultimately just didn’t feel like this one held up to the high standard that Weyward set.

There were several POVs and timelines, one in the far past, one in the present, and one in the more recent past. I wish that the far past chapters were dated every time, even if it was just a general year, and not day/time, because I kept forgetting how FAR in the past it was supposed to be. I just like having that continuity of thought, without having to flip backwards and forwards to reference things.

The themes that were touched upon, primarily male violence and the impact it has on women, and powerful women standing up to their oppressors, were pretty similar to Weyward as well, just with a different mythology involved. Even after finishing the book, I felt like I didn’t quite understand the underlying fantasy vibes, and I wish we had a bit more clarity there. The first half was a bit hard to get into, maybe because I just had trouble connecting to the characters as they were portrayed at the beginning. While I did ultimately end up getting invested in the characters and the plot around the halfway or 60% point, overall this read was just ok for me.

I loved Weyward by Emilia Hart. I chose that book as my very first Book of the Month pick, and it went on to become my favorite book of 2023. So, I have been eagerly awaiting The Sirens since it was first announced!

The Sirens is told from multiple points of view, telling the story of two sets of women in various timelines. Lucy and Jess live in modern-day Australia. In that storyline, we get the current-day storyline set in 2019 with some flashbacks to the 1990s. In Mary and Eliza’s chapters, we see them aboard a crowded convict ship sailing from Ireland to Australia in the early 1800s and are also given backstory from their earlier lives.

Their stories are moving and often heavy. Like Weyward, this is a book about healing, the dangers women face from men, and the resilience of women. There are also mysteries, family secrets, and exploration of some truly horrific parts of Australian history.

I loved the focus on truth throughout the story. There’s an emphasis on how not telling the truth can cause damage in personal relationships. There is also a focus on how not accepting that bad things have happened - either in the present or historically - causes harm.

And yes, sometimes, people look away from inconvenient facts […] Most people just want an easy life. It’s unsettling when someone starts pulling apart the stories we’ve stitched together, the things we tell ourselves for comfort.

Emilia Hart’s books are not in the genres I read the most, but her stories, steeped in history, always draw me in. I love her writing and her strong feminist messages and will continue to look forward to all of her future books.

As Emilia Hart said in her acknowledgements section, “… this novel is about the ability of water—and sisterhood—to heal and transform.” The stories of mermaids that we grew up on go something like this: a young and naïve girl longs for a life she does not have, a life in which she is able to shed her fins and tail and scales and live amongst the humans on the shore. It’s a dream that she’s had for a while, as she’s never felt like she fit in with the rest of her community, but it is escalated when the young mermaid sees a beautiful boy and falls in love at first sight. Suddenly, she begins to live for him, rely on him, change everything about themselves for him. She gvies her voice, her tail, her life as a mermaid permanently and is forced to feel a stabbing pain with each step. But it’s worth it to her – for love, for her dream, it is worth it.
If you’re lucky and you were told the Disney version of the Little Mermaid, then you’ll have watched that young girl marry the man of her dreams, waving to her family in the water as her father creates a rainbow in the sky. The sea witch will be gone, her mermaid life does not disappear entirely, and she gets to live her happily ever after.
If you were told the original Hans Christian Andersen story, you will find that the mermaid’s sacrifice is for naught. When the prince awakens after the little mermaid rescues him, the first woman he sees is another and, automatically assuming she is the one who saved him, he falls in love with her. Right before the mermaid’s very eyes and holding the train of his lovely bride, the young girl watches as the man she sacrificed everything for marries another woman, knowing that it will result in her death. The prince in this version of the story never loved the mermaid – at least not in the way that a man can love a woman. He loved her for what she could offer him, offer his ego and, much like Narcissus in Greek mythology, he thought so highly of himself that he never even thought to wonder if that was enough. He treated her like a dog, offering her a spot on his bedroom floor to sleep on a velvet cushion. As a reward for her devotion, he dehumanized her, and she had no choice but to take it gratefully because what other options did she have? The mermaid seems implied to be the poster child of an ideal woman, young and innocent, easily malleable, seen and not heard, and able to walk elegantly and delicately to maintain her allure even if each step feels like metal rods are being driven into her feet. She is expected to be the man’s confidant, therapist, biggest fan, play toy – and when the man has sucked her dry, she is to be tossed aside for a newer, younger, more easily malleable girl, yet she still must be grateful for the man’s interest in her in the first place.
The Sirens novel leans more towards the original story of The Little Mermaid, the one where a young girl is taken advantage of by an older man, forced to deal with pain and physical malformations in hopes that said man will fall in love with her. The mermaid is groomed into thinking that this man does actually care for her, that their maturity levels and age differences are irrelevant when their love is so vibrant and palpable. But the little mermaid never imagines that the man is aware of her age and how her immaturity leaves her vulnerable to his authority. He views her as a child, someone that he can use for her body and her kind words, stroking his ego with each lingering touch.
The story goes back and forth between the year 2019 and the year 1800, between sisters Jess and Lucy and sisters Mary and Eliza, respectively. Mary and Eliza have always been attached at the hip, willing to do any for each other, even if it means killing someone. This devotion to each other results in their conviction and banishment from their town, thrown on a ship with other female convicts to be sailed down to Australia and auctioned off to a man set on turning her into a servant, or a sex slave. These women are stuffed in a small room under the deck, barely fed and barely allowed to bathe, forced to prostitute themselves for their basic rights, forced pray for salvation, and when their prayers go unanswered, they are forced to pray for death. In 2019, 20-year-old Lucy follows her sister, Jess, to Comber Bay seeking her own form of salvation after she wakes up one morning with her hands locked around her ex-boyfriend’s neck. Her sister is seventeen years older than her, and when their age gap once seemed irrelevant, seemingly in a flash they begin to grow apart with Jess ceasing her visits to the house, moves farther away, and cuts off almost all contact with her family. When Lucy arrives in town, she finds that Jess is nowhere to be seen. By using her research skills, fellow townspeople’s testimonies, important historical events, and her sister’s journal, Lucy spends the novel piecing together the past and the present and where she and Jess fit into it all. She will learn the dark history of Comber Bay, learn of the mistreatment that women and children suffered on the convict ships, and all that she has been unaware of regarding her sister’s life.
I would like to quickly say that I admire Emilia Hart’s transparency in her novel. Before the story even begins, she addresses her lack of ownership of these stories, she has no relation to those real women who were transported on these ships, and she has no experience of being on one herself. Rather than try to pass of her book as historically accurate because she said it was and therefore it must be true, she instead encourages her readers to do some of their own field research, even providing them with a link in the last sentence of the author’s note.
I’ve written much more than intended and yet I’ve come to terms with the fact that I may never be able to put how much this book affected me into words. Surely none that people would like to hear, anyways. My thoughts come in snippets, but I believe they get the point across:
Women in history have been mistreated. They have been abused, assaulted, tortured, used as currency for bartering and leveraging, groomed, discriminated, ignored, misunderstood, and so many other adjectives. We have been stuffed into the bottom of ships, forced to sail for months on end with little food, water, hygienic items, or even light; forced to trade their bodies for these items, trading one basic human right for another. We live in a world that has never loved us. We were forcefully yanked out from our mother’s womb only to immediately be thrust under a much older grimy man who views our pre-pubescent bodies as some form of fetish, forced to succumb to his insatiable appetite, the mortar to his pestle, an immobile, silent outlet for his pleasure. Bonus points if you try to fight him off; he loves a challenge. Within seconds of being born we are expected to bear children ourselves, over and over again, until our bodies are decaying from the inside out, we have twenty-seven going on twenty-eight children, and our husbands are out at a brothel spreading disease to other defenseless girls. While we are expected to bear and raise these unwanted children, used as human incubators for our husbands whose raison d’être consists of repopulating the earth in their own twisted narcissistic twist on eugenics with the birth of each child equivalating to the conquering of another native civilization, bettering nations they deem barbaric and insolent one load at a time.
Since the dawn of civilization, women have been seen as objects, the Other, expected to smile through the pain of each punch, slap, bruise, grope, rape, leer, catcall, until they are nothing more than a shell of their younger self. It’s no coincidence that sirens have been around for just as long.
Sirens are a symbol of femineity on women’s terms. They can be covered in scales with razor sharp teeth and a voice that can lure any man to death. But to us, they are not just the killers of men, they are our liberators granting us the freedom of salvation. They are the protectors of women, the guides that will help us in our darkest times, the sisters and mothers that we may have never had but desperately wanted, who see us for who we truly are. They prove that even though we may not have grown up together, we have shared similar experiences and something that links us together, a bond that will never fade.
Mary and Eliza were girls together; Jess and Lucy not so much. But it is that sisterhood of femininity that links them all together and propels them to be the protectors of women in Comber Bay, liberating girls of
Emilia Hart has written a novel so beautiful and touching and powerful that thinking about the linked experiences and community of girlhood while reading this novel almost brought me to tears. We grow and push out babies; we are beaten down, discarded, groomed and abused. And yet, there is always at least one girl who is going to be there for you, one protector of women.
I fear that this book may have put me in a reading slump with the overwhelming amount of emotions this book has incited in me, and I fear that this novel will haunt and inspire me for the rest of my days, but I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of it.
Thank you so much to the publishing company that allowed me to have an early ARC of this incredibly moving book, but thank you even more to Emilia Hart, who has written something that has permanently and eternally altered me for the better.

First time reader of Emilia Hart and I’m happy to report that I’ll definitely be checking out more of her work.

The clues and reveals in this story had me hooked. I’m talking, I read 70% of the book in 24-hours hooked! I loved the use of the podcast and Jess’s journal entries to sprinkle history and context throughout. And I loved the historical timeline. The scenes on the Naiad were absolutely gripping, and as interested as I was in the modern day Comber Bay mystery, I could not wait to learn more about Mary and Eliza’s story. It’s rare that a work of fiction intrigues me enough to want to research events that inspired the story, but I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be going down a rabbit hole about Australia’s history in the near future.

Definitely recommend if you’re in the mood for something of a mystery, and are intrigued by themes of female friendship/empowerment and social injustices. Be sure to check out trigger warnings, if applicable.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Emilia Hart writes beautifully. A couple of plot points were very predictable, but the journey to get there was worth it because the writing and the story are so well done! I felt the same way about Weyward.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC copy.

I liked this book. The story begins as one of a younger sister, Lucy, who travels across the country to seek out her older sister, Jess, during a time of great personal stress. Instead of finding her sister, however, Lucy stumbles upon artwork and a mystery.

The artwork features characters from Lucy's dreams-- two sisters who were deported to Australia from Ireland two hundred years earlier. Lucy starts to question how she and Jess are sharing the same dreams. Who are the figures in their visions and why are they revealing themselves to the girls? The mystery is about the place that Jess has decided to make her home. Jess lives in a town where a variety of men have gone missing. No one knows what has happened to them, but it seems likely that something is lurking and watching. Are these missing men somehow related to the fact that Jess is also currently missing? In order to learn more about both of these items, Lucy begins learning more about the history of the area and the lonesome life her sister has lived to this point.

I found this book to be totally readable. Like Weyward, it was a strong feminist read, but it was still enjoyable. I will say that I didn't really think about the storyline unless I was reading the book, but it still was interesting enough to keep me going. I enjoyed it.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

After absolutely loving Weyward, I was over the moon to get an advanced reader’s copy of The Sirens!! Emilia Hart once again delivers a story centered on powerful, complex women — this time with a mesmerizing connection to the sea. 🌊

The novel follows three timelines:

In 2019, Lucy wakes from a nightmare to find her hands around her ex-lover’s throat. Fleeing to her sister Jess’s coastal home for answers, she finds Jess missing … and unsettling rumors about the town’s history of vanished men and eerie voices at sea. Desperate, Lucy turns to Jess’s old diary.

In 1999, teenage Jess, isolated by a rare water allergy, finds solace and dangerous attention from her art teacher, who sees something powerful in her.

In 1800, twin sisters Mary and Eliza, torn from their home in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship to Australia, begin to feel strange changes within them - and an undeniable pull from the sea.

Three timelines intertwine in a haunting tale of sisterhood, power, and the ocean’s mysterious call.

While Weyward remains my favorite, The Sirens still captivated me with its lyrical writing, atmospheric setting, and powerful women. I gave this one a solid ⭐⭐⭐⭐️!

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of this!

This was an interesting blend of genres; magical realism in the form of sirens, dreams of another time period pushing it towards historical fiction, and the mysteries of why Lucy woke up strangling her boyfriend and where her sister Jess has gone missing to. It was not my typical pick, but I still found it intriguing. Some parts felt like the meant to be reveals that I had figured out too early, but there were still some things I didn’t see coming. If you’re into women getting revenge on bad men plus some interesting family dynamics and secrets, this is for you.

I’m the daughter of a marine biologist who grew up by the ocean but left home at 17 and has been landlocked and longing ever since. When I tell you that this book fully encapsulates the sea, I do not say it lightly. From the very first page I was riveted and by midway through, I completely neglected my family because I couldn’t stop reading. In the tub. Because it was the closest I could get to the sea. Seriously. This is a tale of women and the complicated and sometimes scary men in their lives. Of secrets and dreams and imperfections, and of love. Most importantly of love. The thing that I cannot get over was the atmosphere of everything aquatic and salty and misty and damp and wet, swirling with blues and shades of aquamarine, with tinges of rotting wood and brine and mold and algae. I don’t know how the author mastered this sensory experience so completely, but I’m expecting my own gills to pop through any minute. This is not a book to be missed. Five completely astounded stars.

Thank you Net Galley for this Advance Reader Copy.

A 4.5 star read that was just so beautiful and impactful and emotional, I'm still thinking about it.

Author Hart came across my radar with her debut Weyward a few years ago. I have long been fascinated with mermaid and sirens, and was beyond ecstatic when an earc/arc from St. Martin's Press was sent to me. I saved this book to immerse myself in when I went on vacation, and it did not disappoint.

The story jumps between sister Lucy and Jess in the present day (2019) and sisters Mary and Eliza in the past. Lucy has done something she can't explain, so she runs to Jess, only to find her missing with clues to what may have happened. In interwoven chapters, Mary tells of her travels with Eliza and other women via a prisoner ship with less than stellar odds of actually making it to its destination.

Other than that, I don't want to give too much of this spellbinding story away. I loved the way Hart crafted the story with historical fiction, multiple timelines, multiple POVs, with themes of motherhood and sisterhood and a little bit of female rage. Most of all I loved the magical realism aspect to the story, where you have to extend your belief in just the right way I love to when I'm reading and losing myself in a book. I cannot rave about this book enough. Loved loved loved.

A beautiful story of sisters told in two timelines. I enjoyed the elements of historical fiction and magical realism interwoven into the story.

The Sirens is a story of longing, deep family secrets, and the search for self.

Lucy, who suffers from a rare skin condition, wakes one night with her hands around the neck of one of her college roommates, a man she was recently betrayed by. The vivid nightmares and the sleepwalking caused her to flee in a panic to her sister's house, hours away from the college and the awful act she'd unintentionally committed. She hadn't seen Jess in over a year and finds the beach house vacant when she arrives. Many questions stir as she takes in the house, the paintings recently finished, and the way it appears as though she left in a hurry. Lucy searches for answers among her sister's things and finds her teenage diary, which provides more insight into Lucy's life than she was prepared for.

The timeline goes back over 200 years where we learn about twin sisters on a convict ship destined for Australia. Their lives are rife with loss, and the inhumanity they're exposed to on the ship is devastating. As time progresses, they begin to notice changes in themselves and realize maybe the ocean that swallowed their mother isn't something to fear after all.

I quite enjoy the way Hart writes. She has this incredible ability to describe a scene like it's playing out in front of you. It's immersive, and it's easy to get lost in the beauty of her words. I felt drawn into the story from the start and was anxious to find out how the various timelines were linked together. I did, however, struggle when the timeline followed Jess during her teen years because the language didn't change. It didn't read like actual diary entries, which took away from their impact.

Though this book is a bit outside of what I normally read, I did enjoy it as a whole. I read about 60% of the book before things clicked into place, and I was impressed by Hart's ability to make the obvious a little harder to see initially. This one leans more to the side of fantasy than Weyward, but I still enjoyed the book overall.

4 Stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC copy of this novel!

3.5/5 ⭐️

On the whole I enjoyed this book, I liked how unexpectedly creepy it was at times, the family mystery, and the historical fantasy. I liked when a book goes between timelines as you try to figure out how they connect, and I think this did that well.

I do think it was a bit meandering at times, with stretches of not a ton happening, which is fine if you’re expecting a slower paced book.

What really hampered things for me was the epilogue, which has never happened to me before. Before that point, I was coming away thinking the theme was family both found and made and the strength of those bonds. But then the epilogue kind of turned that on its head, and left me wondering if the point was only about the sisterhood of women and that all men are inherently bad. Which don’t get me wrong, I love a healthy dose of feminine rage and vengeance and most of it in this book was very deserved. But the epilogue just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Overall though I did have a good time with this book, although it was more of a slow-paced mystery than I’d expected.

Thanks to the publisher for the early copy.

Emilia Hart did it again! Weyward is one of my favorite books so this was highly anticipated for me. I absolutely love the way she incorporates historical and magical realism elements into her stories. I have never read a book about the convict ships sent to Australia and it was heartbreaking. I loved the dual timelines and storylines of the two pairs of sisters. While, I figured out a couple of the twists in advance, it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story. If you love reading about resilience of women, I highly recommend! Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the eARC!

The Sirens is a tale of female empowerment and sisterhood throughout centuries.

Emilia Hart is a wonderful, evocative writer and I felt very drawn to this story but I found it to be very thematically similar to Weyward. I had hoped for something a little different, instead of replacing witches with mermaids. I had also hoped for a bit more of the mermaid/sirens to be featured. Maybe if the epilogue had been told by the siren it would have felt more complete.

I did enjoy reading this though and the storytelling was lovely.

Such a beautiful cover!! And anything to do with multigenerational drama and add in sirens/mermaids!?! Yes please! Such an atmospheric read as well! I would love to hear this on audio as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

I read Weyward by Emilia Hart back in 2023 and really enjoyed it! I was excited to see what she would do next.

The Sirens is a great mix of history and female frustrations coming to head. All the women in the story are bonded together to survive a world that is too often cruel to them.

I think the book will pull in readers of historical fiction and fantasy as there are elements of the fantastical mixed throughout.

Thank you to NetGalley, Emilia Hart, and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read The Sirens. The book comes out April 1st! I have written this review voluntarily and honestly.

Emilia Hart does it again! The Sirens is a beautiful story weaving together pieces of information that starts coming together at the halfway point of the book. My jaw was wide open for about 53%-75% as things started making sense, I read the back half of the book in a 24-hr period because I could not put it down.
A tale of sisterhood, motherhood, womanhood. Finding where you belong. Multiple POVs spanning from the 1700s to today.
It felt cheesy in some places but I remind myself this has some elements of lite-magic toward the end. Mostly realistic throughout the first two parts!
Now I want to go to the ocean!

This was my first book by Emilia Hart and it did not disappoint! Her writing is beautiful and really immerses you in the story! 😍

I stepped out of my typical genres with this one, and while not horror, the read definitely has some haunting elements to it! 🥰

This story focuses on the tales of sisters in dual timelines 200 years apart. I didn’t feel a connection as much to Mary and Eliza, but I did enjoy the characters of Lucy and Jess. And the twist got me! 🙌

Definitely recommend to lovers of magical realism and feminism! 👏

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Emilia Hart for the opportunity to read the eARC in exchange for my honest review! Can’t wait to finally read Weyward, which has been sitting on my TBR for a while! ❤️

Lucy is haunted by dreams of a shipwreck that lead her to Comber Bay to see her sister. When she arrives she finds paintings of her dreams come to life, but no Jess. Determined to uncover what’s going on, Lucy begins unraveling family secrets and long ago histories.