The Sirens

The Sirens

Blurb

Sisters separated by hundreds of years.

Voices that can't be drowned out.

Lucy is running from what she’s done: the terror of waking with her hands around her ex-lover’s throat, his face turning purple and eyes bulging. Pursued by nightmares – and with nowhere else to go – she makes for her big sister's clifftop home. But when she arrives, Jess is nowhere to be found.

The town is strange and full of rumours: a dozen men disappeared, without a trace. Women’s voices murmuring on the waves. A foundling discovered in a sea-swept cave.

As Lucy searches for Jess, her dreams seem to draw closer. She can see two sisters in a murky past. She can see a world where men always seem to get their way. And something in her body wants to fight back.

Could the answer to who she is – and what’s happening to her – lie in this quiet, sea-soaked town? Could it lie two hundred years deep in the past?


Our Review

I sang you to sleep, and I robbed you of wealth

And again I'm a maid on the shore.

I loved Weyward by Emilia Hart, so I was very excited to hear that she had written The Sirens. Having read the blurb, I was drawn to the unnusual nature of the story. I didn't realise that female convicts were transported to Austraila so I was very interested in that aspect of the story, and who doesn't love a good siren story. 

One thing I enjoy about Emilia Hart's writing is the strong narrative voice of her female characters, this was particularly true for me in Mary and Jess' timelines. 

"The words choke out of him, his voice strangled. Strangled. Her hands on his neck, the bulge of his eyes. She'd been strangling him."

The Sirens begins with Lucy waking to find herself trying to strangle her ex-lover Ben and mortified by her actions she flees to her sister Jess' cliff-top home. Jess has always held herself a little bit apart from the rest of the family but she and Lucy have shared recent moment of closeness and Lucy feels Jess will help her in this time of crisis. However, when she arrives at the house Jess is nowhere to be found. 

Lucy suffers from vivid dreams, dreams of two sisters convicted of assault and sent to Austrailia in squalid conditions. Lucy is suprised to see that Jess has painted images of the sister's from her dreams. What does it mean, and why has Jess chosen to move to a crumbling house in a town awash with rumours of women's voices murmuring on the waves, eight men disappearing between 1960 and 1997, and a baby found abandoned in a sea cave at Devil's lookout in 1982?

Prior to reading I was expecting to be more interested in the modern timelines but it was Mary and Eliza who captured my attention the most. Their closeness stood in sharp contrast to the distance between Lucy and Jess and had me wondering at the reasons behind the distance Jess enforced between herself and the rest of the family. 

Initially I felt there was a disparity between the two timelines and I couldn't see how the two would connect, but as the story progressed it became more cohesive. 

Both timelines are about women being forced into action because of a man, likewise both timelines highlight inequalities in the treatment of men and women, but also feminine resilience. 

As a mother of a son I was enraged reading the university administration's response to Lucy's troubles, and if my son ever did something like that I would be disgusted. However, I can imagine that some parents would react in that way. 

Mary and Eliza's story was my favourite of the timelines and the one I initially found myself waiting for. I enjoyed reading about the camraderie that developed between the women, and about the small ways they discovered to keep each other going. 

'A woman on a ship. Bad luck, so.'

Bad luck or not, the hold buzzed constantly with women's voices like angry wasps. Everyone sharing their stories. There was pain, but laughter, too. Relief in speaking, in hearing your own voice and recognising it."

I flew through the chapters from Jess' diary and even though I suspected the big reveal very early on in the story it didn't lessen my enjoyment. There was one element I have seen discussed a lot in other reviews, saying they didn't think it worked. However, whilst it wasn't one I can say I enjoyed, it absolutely worked in terms of the plot and it certainly evoked strong emotions. 

Emilia Hart just became an auto-buy author for me. 

Our Final Rating...

Our Rating

  • Currently 4/5

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