Book Review: The Sirens By Emilia Hart -Sisterhood, Secrets & Mermaids

If You’re A Fan Of Fantasy Realism and Mermaids, Then The Sirens By Emilia Hart Is For You!

Ultimately, it is a story of sisterhood, family secrets, revenge, and mermaids. It also touches on darker themes such as sexual harassment of minors, discrimination, and infertility. The Sirens is a beautiful and sensitively written novel that weaves in the old with the new, brutality with gentleness, and revenge with grace. It follows the stories of women over three timelines, connected by events spanning hundreds of years.

I’m a big fan of historical fiction, which The Sirens does very well. As a new Aussie, it was both fascinating and heartbreaking to read about the horrors women went through on their forced, often months-long, voyages by convict ships from Ireland to Australia. The unimaginable conditions these women and children were forced to live in during that time. Stripped of their former lives forever, of their families, their dignity. I was in that berth with these women, and I could feel their torment and pain and fear.

But, women are fierce, and desperate women who unite together for one common goal, survival, is a force to be reckoned with. We’ve seen this throughout history, and Emilia captures this powerful sense of sisterhood and feminism beautifully. In a sense, women are unique beings and fierce defenders of those we love, so I think The Sirens is a perfect metaphor for that superhuman strength. We are all just mermaids trapped in mortal bodies.

The Setting Was Pretty Special To Me

The novel is mainly set along the South Coast of New South Wales, in the (fictionalised) town of Comber Bay - not far from the real-life Batemans Bay. Myself, Lesley, and the kids actually stayed overnight in Batemans Bay last year, on our road trip to Sydney. It was pouring with rain that night, and we were back on the road early the next morning, so we didn’t get to explore. But after reading The Sirens, I’m inspired to return and spend more time discovering the South Coast.

Author's Recommendation

“I consulted my copy of The Fatal Shore by the late, great Robert Hughes so much while researching this novel that it is now literally falling apart. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to read more about Australia’s history of convict transportation: it is meticulously researched and written with stunning beauty. Thank you, Robert, for your work.”