The Sirens
A spellbinding novel about sisters separated by centuries, but bound together by the sea, from the author of the runaway New York Times bestseller Weyward
2019: Lucy awakens from a dream to find her hands around her ex-lover’s throat. Horrified, she flees to her older sister’s house on the Australian coast, hoping she can help explain the strangely vivid nightmare that preceded the attack—but Jess is nowhere to be found.
As Lucy awaits her return, the rumors surrounding Jess’s strange small town start to emerge. Numerous men have gone missing at sea, spread over decades. A tiny baby was found hidden in a cave. And sailors tell of hearing women’s voices on the waves. Desperate for answers, Lucy finds and begins to read her sister’s adolescent diary.
1999: Jess is a lonely sixteen-year-old in a rural town in the middle of the continent. Diagnosed with a rare allergy to water, she has always felt different, until her young, charming art teacher takes an interest in her drawings, seeing a power and maturity in them—and in her—that no one else has.
1800: Twin sisters Mary and Eliza have been torn from their loving father in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship bound for Australia. For their entire lives, they’ve feared the ocean, as their mother tragically drowned when they were just girls. Yet as the boat bears them further and further from all they know, they begin to notice changes in their bodies that they can’t explain, and they feel the sea beginning to call to them…
A breathtaking tale of female resilience and the bonds of sisterhood across time and space, The Sirens captures the power of dreams, and the mystery and magic of the sea.
Emilia Hart
Emilia Hart is a British-Australian author whose novels blend historical fiction, folklore, Gothic atmosphere, and the supernatural, often tracing the lives of women separated by generations but connected by experiences that refuse to remain buried.
Born in Sydney, Australia, Hart studied English Literature and Law at the University of New South Wales before working as a lawyer in Sydney and London. Writing had long been part of her life, but her path toward becoming a novelist gathered momentum after she moved to the United Kingdom. She later studied novel writing with Curtis Brown Creative, and an early version of her debut was highly commended in the 2021 Caledonia Novel Award.
More books by Emilia Hart
Reviews and Comments
Emilia Hart’s The Sirens is a work of magical realism that reaches from the present day into history. The story is set in coasts of Australia and at sea, told through the lives of two pairs of siblings. One set of siblings lives in the present, the other in the 1800s. The sea is a powerful element in the story, which centers on family and relationships with their old traumas. Although I’m not a reader who typically focuses on relationships, the story had enough magic and the scent of the sea to keep me entertained. Perhaps a touch of more fantasy would have been nice, but it was fine as it was. The historical setting added its own colour.