The plot of the “The Sirens” follows different females and sisters over multiple generations with alternating POV. I enjoyed the change in timelines and seeing the different sides to the hardships and challenges that women were facing among different time periods.

I have to say that Lucy in present day (2019) was definitely the character that captivated me the most. Potentially because she was the most relatable to me being a modern day girly, but I also found her situation of waking up from sleep walking and her distant and strained relationship with her mysterious sister to interest me the most.

I received an audio version from Macmillan Audio for this book.
The narrator was so good. She made the different voices sound very realistic. She also had a pretty good singing voice.
I read and loved this author's book Weyward. I didn't know exactly what to expect from this one but I did enjoy it also. It kept me turning the pages until the very ending which I did not see coming. Not that this is a thriller but still... I did not see that part coming.

Four women from two different timelines. Two sets of sisters. Connected in a way that is almost unbelievable. Until you open your heart and "believe." Also between the chapters are some diary entries from one young woman in 1999.

In October of the year 1800 two sisters from Cove of Cork, Ireland are found guilty of a crime. While it was self-defense they were still convicted and sent to New South Wales, Australia. They were put on a boat along with many other women who were convicted and exiled to Australia. Mary and Eliza are these two young ladies. Their path already paved. Their destination mapped out for them.

In February of 2019 Lucy wakes to a scream. She has no idea how she is there doing what she is doing. She has a young man by the throat. She's strangling him. She has no memory of how she got there or how it happened. She runs. She leaves and goes to her sister Jess. Jess is not home and has no idea that Lucy is on the way. Jess is on a mission of her own. What lies ahead for these two young women is life altering.

What happens in these two sets of sister's lives is a story that you will not believe. It's a tragedy and an awakening. Lives changed forever. I knew that convicts were sent to Australia many years ago. I did not know that boats filled with women were sent and the men there allowed to take them and claim them. To do horrible things. In this story there is a little bit of justice. Just a bit though and not graphic.

This book was a fun read yet also intense in places. A story that made me believe in Mermaids again. While losing a tiny bit of faith in humans who destroyed the Aborigines like the white man did the Indians in the US to make a country a place for convicted criminals that society no longer wanted to deal with. At least in Australia that was the case back then. While this book touches on sexual abuse from a teacher it's not graphic and did not cause any problems while reading.

Thank you #NetGalley, #StMartinsPress, and #Macmillanaudio for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

Five stars

A magical , beautiful book full of wonder..and a bit of family mystery. There were some predictable parts but for the most part it was unique.
Thankful to have read this and also to have had the audio version. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

4.5 rounded up.

This was an engaging story with some historical fiction, some mystery, some fantasy. This is my first read by this author and I'll definitely read more from her. A quick read overall. I loved the dark moody tone of the story.

The duel timelines and multiple POVs confused me at first. This is of course is something that would be easier to follow with a physical copy of the book. The narrator has a lovely voice, but for me there wasn't enough variety in her voice to distinguish the different characters. I did listen at 2x speed (like I always do) so that may have exacerbated the issue.

I will say that the skin condition thing was super obvious and I think kind of overdone. It was mentioned A LOT. We get it.

I received the audio arc for this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Of course, this is just my opinion and you are welcome to your own.

I am such a big fan of Emilia's writing. Her way of bringing history and weave it with generations is wonderful. I loved Weyward so when I seen The Sirens I knew I had to get my hands on it! Again we are set in three different time periods with three different POVs. I was gripped from the very first chapter. The little twist had me gasping in the end. A beautiful story of sisterhood and love. I was also fortunate to get an audio arc for this too and the narration was done beautifully.

Thank you to Macmillan audio for the gifted audio arc and St. Martin for the ebook arc.

Hart did a great job of dual timelines — one historical, one more modern — in Weyward, and I felt it was really well executed here as well. It was interesting to get a glimpse into a fascinating and dark bit of history, in Australia being used as a place of exile for criminals, despite the land already being occupied. Hart once again does a great job integrating patriarchy and empowerment in her narratives. The audiobook narrator was great, and definitely elevated the book, especially the podcast segments in the modern timeline.

I loved this book deeply and I loved it in audio as well, the voices really bring it to life and gives another depth to it.

4 stars

This book is a dash of historical fiction, a dash of fantasy, a solid dose of feminism, and overall a fun read (or listen - audiobook recommended when and where accessible).

Because the narrative happens over the course of three distinct timelines, readers need to pay attention to make sure they're keeping up with the events of each moment and the connections between them. While this structure could become overly complicated quickly, it doesn't. I'll admit that I found myself least interested in the earliest timeline (which is the opposite of how these things tend to fall out for me), but even that dip in interest was slight and periodic.

The main activity of the novel begins in 2019 with Lucy, who is attempting to process a horrible event she has experienced (and readers in any kind of know about how these situations CAN be handled on university campuses will want to run right over and punch an admin or two of Lucy's. Yuck). Lucy scoots away from these troubles to go visit her sister, who is suspiciously and inexplicably absent. From here, readers jump between timelines, learn about a peculiar skin condition, and ultimately discover how all of these characters and events connect.

My vagueness is intentional. This is not a thriller, and the connections are not particularly surprising, but part of the joy of this particular narrative is in watching those ties come to light.

This is my second book by this author, and so far, it's my favorite. I recommend this to folks looking for an intriguing approach to an unfortunately age-old situation.

The Sirens by Emilia Hart is though provoking historical fiction and fantasy mashup that will grab your attention from page one and refuse to let go. I loved Weyward so I was thinking incredibly excited for this one. And it did not disappoint. From the beginning the story is full of eerie and dark undertones that left me feeling unnerved. That atmospheric vibe continued throughout the story. I really loved the use of multiple povs and timelines to tell the stories. The folklore and history that surrounded the mermaids made them feel so realistic. This was a truly wonderful work of fiction that makes you think and feel so much. I highly recommend if you're looking for an eerie story full of magical realism and secrets.

The audiobook was excellent. The narrator did a wonderful job at being expressive while still keeping the atmosphere dark and eerie.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Sirens intertwines POVs of two sets of sisters in present day, 20 years prior, and 1800. I was entranced from the beginning and cared about all POVs equally. This novel is the perfect blend of magical realism, mystery, and historical fiction. I deeply hated part of the epilogue, but that is my personal opinion.

Narration performed by Barrie Kreinik was outstanding as always.

I received an ARC and ALC from St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A lot of the time it can feel that women are fighting the world. Historically they have been more venerable, more easily disposed, are critical of our bodies and have them criticized. Men have their own challenges and are boxed into judgement and standards. But they have also been given more credit and power. This book centers about the echoes of this struggle through time through the lens of someone fleeing ridicule and assumptions in our modern era and those back to the early days of colonial Australia.

Let me start with the positive. There are some very lovely environmental descriptions. For those of us in the US it might also introduce people to a part of world history that is less known. I enjoyed the narration of the audiobook quite a lot. And I like that it folded in different types of relationships. The strongest of these for me were in the historical sections.

What was lacking in my reading experience is simply that nothing really stood out. There are many stories about social benefit of the doubt when it comes to masculine or somehow more advantageous persons. There are many family stories. Split time narratives are a common format that, in the author's defense, are very difficult to really knit in. Avenging beings are certainly not common--the cause of the pattern being revealed relatively early had me hoping for a great twist or other later. That never came. With that block in place a lot of this became sadly rather predictable.

Being able to see where a story is going isn't always a dead end for a read. But if you're going to play your hand, you need to at least tie us emotionally to the story. To give us some thread to still follow. Yes, I couldn't see exactly how it would unfold and it did legitimately near the end trick me by almost making a twist that would have left me actually as a rather mad reader as I thought it would have undermined what points were to be had.

What was so frustrating about this experience is that I never bought into the reason it had to have a split timeline or a fantastical element. There was very little mystery as to why this condition existed in the present day. And without fleshing out the original myths and making the majority of the emotion of those in the past be fear and worry rather than an awakening to the injustice of it all, it seemed to just be there because the author wanted to play with this myth. Yet so many questions on that side were still left open that it was more of an 'okay, and?'

That's not to say that I would tell someone not to read this. It's just not a standout, which is a shame. I can absolutely see Hart's potential in her prose. I certainly am interested in seeing where she goes with their next book. I admit that part of my disappointment is that I had great hopes for this novel. As it stands, it is an ambitious first attempt that just didn't work for me as it was structured.

Lucy's life is thrown for a loop when a guy decides to violate her and her dreams are suddenly overwhelmed with the experiences of women centuries ago to the point of sleep walking revenge on the guy. Panicked, Lucy flees from her college to visit her older sister, Jessica, but when she gets there her sister is no where to be found and the dreams continue.

In the dreams she sees two sisters, Eliza and Mary as they are convicted for fighting back when a man tries to hurt one of them and shipped off from Ireland to Australia as punishment. Along the journey their bodies begin to change in strange ways that they learn is tied to their mother who disappeared into the sea when they were young children.

We also get a peek into Jessica's early life through the diary Lucy finds and learns family secrets and at least on mystery still unsolved.

Overall the story is about women womening. Overcoming, protecting, persevering.

There's a lot going on in the central family to the point of improbability. I liked the way the stories intertwined and connected. It was a good read for me!

A lyrical fairy tale infused with a true crime investigation. The mystery of a sister who has gone missing in the days leading up to a gallery exhibition for her new series of paintings depicting images that came to her in dreams. Her younger sister leaves her university journalistic writing program, after a sleepwalking attack of a male student who exposed photos of her on social media. But when she escapes to her sister’s seaside cottage in New South Wales, she finds her sister absent, but secrets to help determine her whereabouts are revealed through her diary.

There is a dual-timeline of another set of sisters being exiled from Ireland to New South Wales aboard a ship that capsizes before reaching its destination, rumored to have lost a hundred female prisoners whose voices still haunt the inhabitants of the coastal town. These sisters haunt the dreams of the two in the modern-day plot.

I enjoyed this novel because it was well written and had elements of various genres. It focuses on family dynamics and generational ties and features females getting revenge on men who have wronged them. If you appreciated Emilia Hart’s other fantastic work of fiction, Weyward, I think The Sirens will also suit your fancy.

As in her debut novel, Weyward, Emilia Hart beautifully takes on a story of female power and resilience. In this story, we follow sisters in 1800 and 2019, each working to overcome their own trials. The present day events are shrouded in mystery and secrets, but both stories are unified by the magic of the sea.

Thank you Emilia Hart, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this audiobook! The sound quality was great, and the narrator, Barrie Kreinik, did an excellent job bringing the characters and storylines to life.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, St. Martin’s Press and the author for this audiobook ARC.

I was really looking forward to reading The Sirens and was thrilled when my ARC request was approved. That being said, I was a bit disappointed by this book. I think my main issue was that it read more like YA/new adult than true adult fiction. I also felt that the “twists” were pretty predictable if you paid close attention to the characters and their actions. My hopes were high because, on paper, anything mermaid-y is right up my alley, but I felt that this story and the author’s writing didn’t really live up to their potential. I enjoyed the narrator but found her Australian accent much stronger than her Irish one, so the narration between sections was uneven for me.

“Humans were born to storytelling.”

And so was Emilia Hart.

Weyward is one of those books I’ve thought about daily since I read it. I love a book that centers around strong women supporting each other. I’ve quoted an old library patron of mine many times, and I will whenever I feel like it’s necessary:

“Women draw strength from other women.”

The Sirens is exactly that type of book. It is empowering. Heart wrenching. Inspiring. Desolate. Emilia Hart makes you feel every emotion. Proud, strong, defeated, weak, scared. The epitome of womanhood.

The storytelling in The Sirens was velvet. It was so beautiful and it was all I thought about when I wasn’t sitting with it. I appreciated the acknowledgement of the indigenous peoples that were pushed off of their land to imprison women for petty crimes by the British. I appreciated the history lesson. I appreciated the empathy given to these persecuted people. I appreciated this beautiful book. I cannot wait to continue to soak up everything Hart writes.

Wow what a book! Told in two timelines of two sets of sisters, The Sirens tells a story of resilience, determination, and the strength of women. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was BRILLIANT.

Following a convict ship from Ireland we learn the story of Mary and Eliza and their journey to Australia. But their story gets entangled with two other sisters from the modern day, Lucy and Jess who both dream of Mary and Eliza’s journey. All four of them share a skin condition that makes them allergic to water.

We mainly follow Lucy’s journey to find and learn more about her sister, Jess, and figure out how they’re all connected.

This book was really thought provoking and addictive. There are some heavy themes which I think would make anyone uncomfortable with a teacher and student relationship.

Also the epilogue/prologue I think helped answer questions and gave Mary what she always wanted too, but also a betrayal? So I’m conflicted because is anyone else going to know???

The Sirens by Emilia Hart is a lovely blend of mythology, mystery, and emotion that swept me away from the very first page. The story weaves the haunting allure of siren mythology into a contemporary narrative, creating an atmosphere that is both enchanting and unsettling. 4 out of 5 stars 🌟

This book was truly haunting and magical, narrated from dual perspectives across three timelines involving two sisters. I admire how Emilia intricately weaves the story together. I was lucky enough to receive the audiobook, which deeply immerses you in the narrative. In the historical timeline, I loved the connection between the women and the strength they all possessed. The other two timelines continue to explore the themes of sisterly bonds, resilience, secrets, and, of course, the sea.

I absolutely loved this book and could not put it down! Emilia Hart does a wonderful job of threading three different stories and three different time periods into a wonderfully captivating story of female resilience when faced with hardship.

I usually am not a huge fan of time hoping in book but the author didn't make it feel like three different books put together haphazardly like I usually read. The stories of sisters in the 1800s, a girl in 1999, and a girl in 2019 were woven so well together that I was wanting more of all their stories by the end.

I felt like this book definitely blurs the line between selkies and sirens myths more than any other story I have read. I definitely was captivated by the idea of selkies and sirens being one in the same and being protectors of women everywhere since there is not much mythology on either of these two creatures. I really enjoyed in this book the concept of selkie sisters from Ireland coming to Australia as convicts and becoming the protectors of women after the shipwreck in a cove in New South Wales and taking on aspects of sirens by luring evil men to their deaths by their songs.

I really appreciated how the character of Lucy learning about the disappearances of men in this cove by listening to a true crime podcast in 2019 and how that leads her to her sister, Jessica, dairy from 1999. I felt like Lucy's story line was so relatable since most of us listen to true crime podcasts then end up in rabbit holes of what really happened. By the end of the book I still was a little unsure of how Jessica and Lucy were connected to the sisters in 1800 but the epilogue kind of hints at it. I just wish there was a clearer link.

I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed the performance by Barrie Kreinik.