Bren fall in love with the sea.'s Reviews > The Sirens

“I called you Lucy. I wanted you to have the sea in your name.”
― Emilia Hart, The Sirens

Five stars. Bravo. Exquisite exquisite as a vibrant pink and aquamarine seashell.


How to even begin this review?


This is the story of Lucy. This is the story of Jess. This is the story of Mary. This is the story of Eliza.

Some of them are separated by decades, centuries.

But this is also the story of sirens.


Now I have to warn in advance. This is going to be long. I have not gathered my thoughts together, so it’s going to be in the moment writing stream of consciousness writing.


I wanted to read this as soon as I saw the cover. The cover called to me, and if you are someone who dreams of moonlight and underwater islands, of sea cottages and mermaids, of beautiful strangers yet familiar strangers, swimming through the waters then this is your book.


The cover is the sea, and so is the book everywhere you turn the sea waits.
For you.

As it waited for many of the characters.


I love books that use the sea as its own character, where voices fall off waves and whisper to you. This author knows the sea. I bet she wears it like a second skin.


The book starts in present day with Lucy, who has something very traumatic, happened to her at college, where she is studying to be a journalist.


Feeling alienated and alone, she decides to drive out to see her sister, Jess, who lives in a tiny beach town, haunted by the memories of the men that have gone missing over many years.


But Jess is not there, not knowing what to do Lucy – Lu- SEA decides to stay a while and wait for sister to return .

But outside she can hear the sound of the surf and the sea pounding away. And she’s having fantastical dreams about another time, another century, with two other women lived. They are haunting her so to speak well – them, and the sea caves they swim in.

What is going on?

Way way back a long time ago Mary and Eliza were sisters. They were also prisoners, and unfairly, so, taken from everything that they love , from their own beloved cottage, and thrust onto a prisoner ship.

Back in present times, both Lucy and Jess have a serious skin condition where they cannot go in water, for it can do something to their skin.

Jess is an artist and she’s painting – what is she painting? Two women looking out walking into the ocean. Being called by the very waves themselves.

The same girls that Lucy is dreaming about


There is much much much much much more to this book.


You see Lucy and her sister are at a point of alienation in their lives where they have sort of drifted apart. But why is that? What will Lucy find and discover staying in her sister’s beach cottage in this beautiful yet isolated beach town where something has taken so many of the young men there?


OK, I’m just gonna start right in. This book was made for people who see the sea in their dreams and see the sirens, each like individual stars, and who hunger to read books about the beauty of it all.

Some people are not going to like this book and I do understand that. When I was reading this and I was about 35 to 40% in I found myself getting a bit impatient with the slowness. It does move slowly, my friends, it’s a slow burn.

After a while, however, that stopped mattering . I felt a gathering, seafoam storm of my own, I had to know what would happen, so I had to finish it in one sitting.

But I will say upfront, that if you’re someone who cannot deal with multiple timelines – there are three here – or books that move slowly than this may not be for you. Likewise, if you are not mad about the sea, this will also not be for you, since the sea is hissing and whispering to you on every sea drenched page.

Another reviewer mentioned the book “Our lives under the sea” which was a masterpiece in which I gave five stars to. Yes, the atmosphere is a lot like that and if you liked that book you would like this


Likewise, I will mention the book “The wicked deep.” If you liked The wicked deep, you would love this book, and if you loved this book, you need to read The wicked deep.


This also reminded me of a book I read recently The Amalfi Curse , which was a spectacular.

So that gives you an idea of the type of book it is. I think you will know whether it’s for you based on all the reviews here, including my own.


Now something that often happens to me when reading is I may lose interest in a book as it goes along. That didn’t happen here in fact, the opposite happened. I started getting more and more interested and more and more intensely involved as the book went on.

Now , I have always had a fascination for the sea. Just look at my name on here. And I love sirens, adore mermaids, and I’m happy to say that the book completely lived up to its cover page.


This cover definitely makes it onto my top 10 list.


So in summary, the people who will Not like this book are people who don’t like slow moving books, people who are completely plot driven , and not character driven, people who don’t like hearing about the sea all over the place, and also people who don’t like abstraction and I say that because there’s a lot of symbolism here, and a lot of metaphors and aspects of it are very abstract. I happen to love all of the things I just described. But not everybody does, I know that.


It’s not perfect. As I was updating while reading, I wrote one point in the beginning to middle, this book is good, but not as good as I was hoping. Silly me! In my next update, I wrote: it’s better!


But it’s a journey, not a destination, and the journey will take you through underwater caves, and it will take you through long, luxurious waves, and through sightings of vivid, pink fish, blue fish , underwater rainbow friends , coral reefs, so blindingly pink you’ll think of underwater fields of pink sugar.

And through it all will be the sirens.


Now it’s important to understand that the sirens are not omnipotent through the book in the physical form in the beginning and middle, but illusions to them are. And these start at the very beginning.


You will read about their presence . You will hear about the beguiling songs that they sing. You will perhaps hear them singing to you, just like one can often hear the pull of the sea when putting a seashell to the ear.

Now I have to put up spoilers to discuss the ending, so please if you are interested in reading this, do not read my review any further, because I am going to sing out the ending.

SPOILERS

I was surprised to see many people say that the story of Lucy and Eliza was not wrapped up. I could not disagree more. That’s what I meant about the story being abstract. There is not a whole heck of a lot of discussion at the end of the book about why the dreams have stopped, but you can miss it because it’s just a quick throwaway sentence almost. But Lucy and Jess do say maybe the dreams have stopped because the sirens know they don’t need them for help Anymore. Because now they have each other, and they the sea. I mean honestly I thought it was a lovely ending, and haunting.


I really wish Mary and Eliza would have decided to look for DA though. I liked him.


And I’m glad very glad that they forgave their parents or who Lucy always believed to be her parents.


I’m not sure how I felt about Jesse’s father cheating with the siren. But here’s how I interpreted that.


Remember, when Mary made the promise to take care of the women of the village? Well, that also included Jesse‘s mother, or who she believed to be her mother because she couldn’t have kids of her own.

Also Throughout the book we are told how much Mary wants children.

I interpreted that whole thing that Mary deliberately took him as a lover, to give him and his wife a child. Perhaps she even cast a siren spell over him you know sirens! Most people would be helpless against their charms.


Because Mary is inherently good not bad and inherently protects good people not bad people that is how I interpreted the ending completely and honestly I thought the whole thing was beautiful


I am going to end this review very shortly and step out of the colorful wonderland of sirens for now


But might I say how pleased I am that Lucy and Jess discovered the truth about themselves ?

And how sad it was that they didn’t know this crown jewel of truth from the very beginning?


That glowing crown jewel of truth is that you girls are the most beautiful of them all! Inside and out. Because you are the sirens.