Hi guys,

Aside from cover hoe-ism, the promise of adventure drew me to this book.  A genderfluid pirate, a lesbian Lady and spies all aboard a ship called the Dove. Hmm What could possibly go wrong? Lets find out.

I was given this book in exchange for a review by Candlewick press via Netgalley.  All opinions are my own.

Tittle: The Mermaid, the witch and the sea

Author: Maggie Tokuda-hall

Genre: Lgbtqia+, fantasy

Rating: 3 stars

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Date published: 5/05/20

 

The review:

*Please note i use she/ he for Flora/Florian *

The plot:

Flora/Florian is a pirate aboard the Dove, it masquerades as a passenger ship when it is in fact a slaver ship. She is trying to fit in on the Dove as a man and in order to do that she commits an atrocious task that will forever hunt her. Once this task is complete she dons on the name Florian and he is her and she is he ( listen when i wrote this part it sounded nice in my head). Now all she/he wants to do is escape this hell called the dove.

Lady Evelyn Hasegawa grew up in a cold, unloving household and is eventually sold off as a ”wife” to the highest bidders in order to pay off her parents debt. She boards the dove that would take her to the Floating islands to meet her husband. When Florian is assigned as her guard, something special and dangerous blooms between them…..

 And then the adventure begins.

What i liked:

The book starts off slow, introducing characters and setting the pace for the story. Its divided into three parts and it has interludes in which the seas point of view is shared. In this book, the sea is given the identity of a mother and her daughters; the Mermaids are her memories. I thought this was interesting and i liked the idea of the sea as a mother who is both fearsome and gentle but cannot be tamed.

The world Maggie created was one that had imperial rule and colonialism, and the effects of this are shown on different characters throughout the book. When you read there are two types of characters you will see

• The ones who forever hate the emperor and therefore hate imperial nobles
• The ones who for some reason saw colonialism as a good thing
• The imperialists who thing they are better than everyone

And you can relate to this on a personal level if you are from a colonised country, when you think about what was lost. 

It is an interesting world building, in the sense that the Emperor has colonized and set the imperial rule around the known world and now he is trying to conquer the sea.

The magic system in the book is unique, stories are spells. They are cast and in exchange for  something. You would have to pay close attention when reading this part it can get quite confusing.

What didn’t work so well

This is why i rated it three stars

I didn’t find the characters interesting, i tried but i just couldn’t. I wish the secondary characters in the were more developed, maybe that would have helped a bit especially the pirate supreme their story felt incomplete to me. Although the witchcaft system was interesting, i would have liked to see more of it. It was just used three times and then dropped. I felt the ending was rushed. It was like…one two three KABOOM. The end.

 

And that’s all  for this review, remember to pick up the book if you are interested in it.

Thanks for reading please subscribe and share this post.

As always,

Nelo- Booked Unicorn