🐚 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 :
~ mermaid folklore
~ stories about sisterhood
~ family secrets
~ historical fantasy
~ seaside Australian setting
~ journal entries
~ The Thirteenth Year

🐚 𝐌𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 :
Her debut novel, Weyward, was a 5★ favorite of mine last year so I was really excited to dive into this new book by Emilia Hart (pun-intended🌊)

I found The Sirens to be underwhelming. I feel like it’s in the wrong category being marketed as fantasy/historical fiction. The vast majority of the story is present day & it felt more like a family drama than anything. Also, the magical realism aspect was less enchanting & more just… weird?

The mermaid lore needed more information, & there were several plot points that go completely unexplained.

I did enjoy Hart’s lyrical writing style, & the audiobook narration was very well done. It followed a similar formula as Weyward, with the characters having virtually the same motivations, but the execution was less effective.

Ultimately I was left with more questions than answers. I feel like this book just skimmed the surface instead of a giving a deep dive into what made these characters tick which made it hard to be fully invested. I think the idea behind the story had promise, but I would still recommend Weyward over this one.

Thank you to @netgalley, @stmartinspress, + @macmillanaudio for the opportunity to read this ARC ◡̈

Obviously, by its title, I knew this was going to be a mermaid story. But what I wasn’t expecting was a devastating glimpse into a piece of history I didn’t know about.

Hart begins this book with a historical note that I found extra helpful and relied on to feel and understand the gravity of situations along the story.

The Sirens is a story about two sisters, Mary and Eliza, in Ireland during 1800 forced onto a convict ship headed for Australia. The passage is gruel and suffering. The story flips back and forth from 1800 to modern-day 2019, following another set of sisters, Jess and Lucy. Lucy runs away from university to see her sister, but when she gets there, she finds that her sister is missing, in a town notoriously known for missing men.

Lucy struggles to find her sister while learning bits and pieces of her sister’s past which brings more questions about herself and their family’s secrets.

I absolutely loved this book. I enjoyed Hart’s other book, Weyward, too. Her writing pulls you into the atmosphere. You can almost taste the salt in the air as Lucy stands on a cliff of dangerous territory.

Add this to your TBR!

PUB DAY >>> April 1, 2025

Thank you @stmartinspress and @netgalley for an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved Emilia Hart's debut novel, Weyward, a story about three women from different time periods who are all perceived as "witches" because of their ties to the natural world. Her upcoming book, The Sirens, is equally enchanting and explores the legend of the merrow, the mermaid-like creature from Irish folklore.

The Sirens is a dual-narrative historical fantasy that focuses on two sets of sisters, one in the past and one in 2019. In Ireland in 1800, Mary and Eliza are sentenced to transportation to Australia, and their story is set primarily during their long voyage on the convict ship from Ireland to New South Wales. Ms. Hart does such an amazing job bringing all of the characters to life, especially the sea, which functions as an important character and enhances the mysterious tone of both narrative threads. In the modern day story, Lucy abruptly leaves her university after an upsetting relationship and drives through the night to her older sister's house. When Lucy arrives at Jess' house by the sea, there is no sign of her sister--only a beautiful painting of mermaids. While she is searching for her sister, Jess has haunting dreams about Mary and Eliza and learns many secrets about her own family.

The story is gripping and haunting, and this is a book to savor. The mysteries unfold slowly, and the beauty of Hart's poetic language elevates the journey to the satisfying conclusion of both narratives. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Barrie Kreinik's wonderful perfomance (including beautiful singing!) and highly recommend the audio version. Thank you to libro.fm and Macmillan audio for the librarian preview copy of the audiobook, and to Netgalley, St. Martin's, and author Emilia Hart for the librarian preview ebook!

It's only the second week of January, but I think I may have read one of my favorite books of 2025. This book is a mediation on the quiet strength of women, the bonds of sisterhood, and the discovery of one's identity. The two sets of sisters in this book have not only suffered at the hands of men, but they have had to endure the consequences of systemic sexism. The characters must struggle with the concept of stealing justice in a world that has taken justice away from them. While I was disgusted at the trauma these women faced, I was moved by their journey of discovering and believing in their own strength and power. The writing lends itself well to this haunting, mysterious, and eerie story. I was enthralled from the very first page (the main character strangling her ex-lover whilst sleepwalking) and my interest was held until the last page. Regarding the end, I do think that the epilogue upended some of the message the book was trying to convey. However, despite this, the book will evoke feelings of sadness, anger, and most of all, hope.

I have not read Emilia Hart's other book, but based on the strength of this, I will definitely read her previous book. Further, I also look forward to her next.

2.5 rounded up -- I loved Weyward, so I was really looking forward to Emilia's sophomore novel, but The Sirens just didn't really do it for me. Most of the novel was quite slow, not a lot was happening, just a lot of telling instead of showing. I guessed the twist before I was halfway through. The last 25% was the most enjoyable when everything started happening, but it was a bit of a slog to get to that.

I loved Weyward, so I was really excited for The Sirens. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me and I wasn’t able to force myself to finish it. I got 38% through by sheer determination, then I skimmed and jumped chapters to get the gist of the rest of the story.

This book moved so, so slowly. In the more than 1/3 that I read, barely anything happened. Some books with little happening work because we dive deeply into the characters’ thoughts and really get to know them, but this wasn’t like that. This was just extraordinarily slow. I was shocked to see that it has a similar page count as Weyward because I finished that one in just two days, whereas I’ve spent weeks trying to read the Sirens.

After skimming and jumping around through the chapters to the end, I know I made the right choice to stop reading. It didn’t become interesting again until the last few chapters. The book would have benefited from a very thorough edit with big sections taken out and sped up.

I really wanted to like this book as I devoured and loved Wayward, sadly that was not the case. The book was long and at times seemed to drag. While I did finish it, I also had no problem setting it down. This is no fault of the writer, her writing is wonderful i was just expecting something closer to her first novel.

With the same descriptive writing that I enjoyed in Weyward, The Sirens alternates between 1800s Ireland and present day coastal Australia. The storyline is a mix of fantasy, mystery, and romance. If you liked the movie The Shape of Water (2017), this plot has similar oceania mystique.

I am thankful for the opportunity to have read this book from NetGalley. Emilia Hart is establishing herself as an incredible storyteller making me feel for each and every person on the page. This book, much like Weyword, hit me in the chest with the characters that made me never want to leave them.

As in her smash debut Weyward, expect ancestry, history, myth, and a sprinkling of magic: you know the women’s lives are all tied together in some manner but it doesn’t snap into place until the very satisfying ending.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for sharing this ARC!

I really wanted to love The Sirens but something just did not connect with me. The story was too confusing to follow between the multiple perspectives and I felt that the pacing was too slow. The story is incredibly atmospheric and wholly original, so if you are considering reading this I suggest giving it a chance to see if it vibes with you.

If I had to sum up the novel in two words: sisterhood and the sea! The novel connects the story of Lucy, who has fled to the small town of Comber Bay where she hoped to find her sister, Jess, and Mary and Eliza, sisters aboard a convict ship headed for Australia.
Lucy finds Jess’ run down home, filled with paintings of the sisters Lucy has been seeing in her dreams. Puzzled, Lucy begins to unwind the mysteries of Comber Bay and of Jess’ past.
This is a rich story about sisterhood and the bonds between women that transcend time.

A 10/10 story. I was hooked from the beginning. This was one of the books that I chose based on the cover and it did not disappoint. It was a bit spooky and endearing. I was hooked from the start. I will definitely be recommending this book, give it a read!!

3.5 stars This is told in two timelines, both of which have trigger warnings aplenty from the start because too many men are terrible in the present and the past.

In 2019, Lucy wakes up to find herself strangling a guy she had a brief romantic interlude with. Terrified, she leaves her university and goes to the coast where her older sister Jess lives. But Jess is missing. While waiting for Jess to return, Lucy finds Jess’s diary, and questions about their history slowly reveal themselves.

In 1800, Mary and her sister Eliza are banished to Australia from England for protecting themselves from a predator. If they survive the long journey, when they arrive, they will become someone’s wife or many men’s sexual plaything.

What these women have in common is the sea and resilience. There are fantasy and magical realism aspects to this. Parts of this dragged.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this novel, which RELEASES FEBRUARY 13, 2025.

Wow. It was so good. I throughly enjoyed it. The touches of feminine rage and what the ugly truth of being a woman can be like truly spoke to me. I will say my one thing was that the epilogue was a little confusing to me but I reread it and understood a little bit better. I still really liked this book and think that any woman should read it. It was quite empowering.

In The Sirens, we have dual timelines: one past and one present. We have a podcast about mysterious disappearances. We have two estranged sisters. We have misogyny and the horrible history of colonizing Australia. We have many things that could all be woven into a fantastic tale, but unfortunately, this novel missed the mark for me and I gave up around 50%.

Emilia Hart is very talented and her writing is evocative and beautiful. But this is also a weakness because the descriptions of the environment, of the main character’s thoughts, etc. slow down the pacing to a level that was just too slow for this reader.

Some chapters are diary entries from one of the sisters and they didn’t ring true and took me immediately out of the novel.

Because of these aspects I felt like I was forcing myself to read and that is a sign that the book is not for me.

This was a book to be read slowly, not binged in a day. It’s dreamy and ethereal, steeped in generations of women’s trauma and their ability to endure. It was such an interesting take on weaving fantasy with modern day characters and historical fiction. Take the time to savor it. Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins Press for the ARC.

This isn't a bad book by any means, but it's not for me.

The writing style was phenomenal and the story-telling itself was well done.

However, the story didn't really keep my attention and some days it felt like a chore getting through it. The fantasy aspect doesn't really appear until 75% in. If I'm promised a fantasy book, I expect there to be fantasy elements long before the 75% mark. And even when we did get those elements, I felt like they were poorly developed and we didn't really learn much about them. They were just thrust at us with little to no explanation.

There are also a lot of themes in this book that likely went over my head. The most obvious one was sex-based oppression, but otherwise they weren't very clear to me. I'm going to go ahead and say that that's not the author's fault though. When I read, I don't dig deep to try and find covert meanings behind characters actions or other plot points.

Finally, I just didn't feel that the plot itself was very compelling. I was never quite sure what the overall goal was, and a lot of earlier plot points seemed to be dropped without any resolution.

Like I said, it's probably me, not the book. I should probably just stick to genres I know I like instead of trying to be bougie.

The Sirens by Emilia Hart is a new take on the age old legend of the siren -- half women half fish that lure men to their death with their song. In The Sirens, 18 year old Lucy wakes up with her hand around a boys neck, chocking him. She has no recollection of how she got there, only that she knows she can't stay at University. Lucy runs away to Combers Bay where her older sister, an artist, lives by the sea. Except when Lucy arrives, Jess is no where to be found. As Lucy avoids the calls from the school, her parents and the world at large she waits for Jess to return. Lucy starts having vivid dreams of two sisters, long ago, sailing across the ocean from Ireland. Lucy chalks this up to nothing more than an active imagination, until looking close at Jess' art reveals that Jess, wherever she is, was having the exact same dreams.

Overall I give The Sirens a solid 3/5 stars. I liked the premise of the book and I enjoyed the flashbacks between the sisters on the ship and Lucy in the present day. The book was very atmospheric and I could almost taste salty seawater as I was reading. This would be a great book to read on vacation.

I did think there was a bit too much exposition, especially during Lucy's POV. About partway through the book I found myself skipping whole paragraphs because they felt like they were cutting the emotional legs off the novel. There was more than one intense scene ruined by wayyyyy too much internal dialogue or expository explaining. Since I read an ARC, I'm hoping there is one more round of edits that can solve this issue. It definitely impacted the pacing and the tension in the novel for me. I also found Jess' "diary" entries to be irritating because they weren't written as a diary entry, no one writes sweeping stories of themselves in their journal, and they definitely don't include every word of dialogue that happened. I wish Jess' diary entries had either been re-written or just included as an addition POV.

Overall I think The Sirens is an entertaining and heartfelt story worth reading about the power of female love, friendship, family and justice.

I want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Both the written version of this book and the audiobook were phenomenal.
Amazing writing and great storyline. This book pulls you in and is hard to put down. A book different than what I usually read but I loved it.