Eden’s Isle is a remote island controlled by a Christian cult, and Esta grew up in her grandmother’s deeply devout household. She carries the scars of this - of the guilt of temptation, the fear of corrupting evil - as she chafes under the society’s restrictions. But Esta cannot stop thinking about more, and the promise of the water always calls.

This is a dark and infuriating character-driven book about the oppression of women and the way religion is wielded as a weapon. It is slow-paced, spanning the main character’s childhood through to her young adulthood. The atmosphere on the island is vividly portrayed, the suffocation environment a constant thread of tension. The prose is beautiful in its simplicity.

This isn’t a book about mermaids. While the seawomen are real (for the first part of the book, I thought they might be a fictional tools invented to control the women) they act as catalysts, not as a central feature of the plot. Similarly, I wouldn’t call this a romance (as I’ve seen mentioned in some reviews.) There is a romance subplot, but I still wouldn’t exactly class it as romance, since the love interest acts as a representation of escape - her attraction to him is fuelled by her desperate need to break free, as well as the thrill of the forbidden.

I think one of the most interesting themes of the book is the way that oppression is perpetuated and upheld by the oppressed people themselves. One of the most powerful enforcers for Esta her grandmother. Similarly it is the Elder Mothers called in as enforcers on behalf of the wider community. Women are encouraged to report on each other, to be suspicious of each other and watch for signs of corruption. There is no safe space, even with each other.

The book is compelling and thought-provoking, but nothing particularly new. Not just in the canon of dystopian literary fiction, but in the present reality for women and queer people, where their relationships are surveilled, religious authorities encourage snitching on friends and family, and their value is reduced to their bodies. That would be my warning for potential readers: there is no comfort in this book, just a sickening reflection of reality.

Some books are hard to put down & this is one of them! The way Chloe Timms has put this together I don't think this will be difficult for anyone to read & want to keep going!

Very vivid imagery helps put us right into the story. The world of the island is so well-crafted.

This one is thought-provoking & keeps you thinking with twists along the way.

Some people might read this in one sitting & we are looking forward to others by Chloe Timms.

Firstly, thank you to Chloe Timms, NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for allowing me access to this novel.

I really enjoyed this book, focused on a puritanical society on an island surrounded by mermaids. Where the 'seawomen' are blamed for all degradation into sin and the women on land are the first to be suspected at the first sign of bad crops or a storm. Think Salem on an island with mermaids, where looking at the sea can get you on the suspicious list.

It isn't fast moving but it is driven by both good plot and characterisation and I would absolutely pick up any further work by Chloe Timms.

Really, really enjoyed this title and it was such a change to read a work where the twist wasn't that the alternative society we've become immersed in is actually just a self-isolating community existing in modern times! The characters were well-drawn and their struggles fully-realised. Definitely recommend.

An absolutely stunning read, for fans of Margaret Atwood, Koran Millwood Hargrave and MR Carey. Esta is a young girl living on a dour, religious island that is isolated from the rest of the world. It’s heavily implied this is in the near future, possibly after climate catastrophe or war, but the upshot is that this island is cut off and patriarchal. It gets darker as Esta grows up and starts to question the elders and traditions, particularly the way in which women who don’t get pregnant after marriage and the mysterious “seawomen” are the scapegoats for all problems. I loved the dark themes and the way the landscape was beautifully described. Esta is trapped in every way, on an island surrounded by literal fortifications, taboos against swimming, and stultifying traditions. There were shades of The Wicker Man and dour British horror, but with a tense plot and brilliant writing. I can’t recommend this enough for fans of dystopic fiction.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for granting me the book for an honest review.

To be completely honest it was the cover that caught my eye, then the “blurb” made it a definite must read.

This book was well written and kept me interested. The imagery of the island and the different characters were fabulous.

If this was a book club book there would be plenty of subjects to cover and discuss, therefore I fully intend to put this forward to the group.

This was a great read, and I would most definitely recommend it.

Wow I really loved this book. I’ve been waiting for a good dystopian book for ages so I was delighted to receive a copy from NetGalley. Atmospheric, eerie , full of tension, unbelievable in places yet believable. Went off on a tangent that took me totally by surprise (not a twist as such, just not what I was expecting!) Will be recommending this to all my friends who love this genre. Well done on a great novel

For some reason I didn't think this was a book about a cult going into it. But this is a very misogynistic cult that at times reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale. The treatment of women, how they are viewed as less than but also how they are thrown away essentially like broken toys if they don't produce a baby within a certain timeframe.

I found each character to be well built. Esta at times I felt her voice didn't change much as we see her age. But overall she was a strong character.
Father Jessop made me uncomfortable everytime he was around.
Barrett I just wanted better for.

I spent the whole book wanting Esta to escape. To be able to break free and save herself.
This world gave me the creeps.
While I think the length of this was perfect. With the ending giving just enough information to know the story isn't over. I just want a book two. I want to see the cult destroyed.

The writing was slow paced but for this it worked. There was enough happening at all times to keep me hooked. I just wanted to know what happened next. I still feel this way.

Thank you, Hodder & Stoughton and Hodder Studio for the chance to read this book in exchange of an honest review.

Esta has known nothing but Eden's Isle, after a fire left scarred and orphaned. Raised by her grandmother in a deeply religious community, cut away from the mainland, Esta only knows this and the fears that rule everything: fear of the damnation, the outside world and of what lurks beneath the water, monsters called the Seawomen. Touching water means corruption and all their lives are ruled and controlled. Especially the women, who have to be married off and have a child in their first year or deemed cursed and cast into the sea. When she witnesses a woman's fate, Esta finds herself opening her eyes to her own future: a loveless marriage, a controlled life and she's not ready to renounce to her freedom forever.

The Seawomen is a powerful, raw and moving feminist story, with a fabulous writing style able to capture the reader's attention right away, with a brilliant and complex main character, willing to do anything to be herself and to be free. A dystopian fiction, with an atmospheric setting ruled by fears and rules and women's expectations, a powerful coming-of-age with a protagonist truly amazing and brave.
I truly loved everything in this book. It reminded a bit of The handmaid's tale, set in a cult where women are controlled and used for their own bodies. An enchanting and eerie read, realistic in its own way and totally recommended.

An atmospheric dystopian novel set on a remote and isolated island. The descriptions of the sea and land are well done and the sense of dread about what might happen next.

I did think some of the characters could've been developed more as it can be rather good v evil without much in between. And I'm not sure about the ending, there's a lot left unconcluded and the back stories were quite quick.
I will definitely read more from this author though as she has great imagination and skill.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

The first time I saw thos cover, my brain's response was MERMAIDS but when you dig deeper, it is abput so much more. Think Handmaid's Tale with an aquatic twist for thos enchantingly dark read.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Seawomen is a dark gripping story of a young girl searching for a life free of her oppressive island cult. Fans of The Handmaid's Tale and The Crucible have to pick this one up.

The story centers on Esta, who grows up on the island of Eden - a fanatical, religious cult cut off from the rest of the world. Growing up, her grandmother warns her of the Seawomen - mermaids that will tempt her away from God to darkness. In Eden’s community, changes of the weather, crops failing, or women not bearing children, are blamed on the influence of the Seawomen. Women “in league with the Seawomen” get brutalized and then drowned. Every girl on the island is married off and given a "motheryear”. She will have one year to bear a child - if she cannot do so, she must be under the influence of the Seawomen.

Esta grew up with these beliefs under her strict grandmother's eye. Yet, doubt and curiosity creep in and soon Esta uncovers the dark secrets of the so-called paradise.

The ominous tone of the book is conveyed well by the setting of the island. Since they cut Eden off from the rest of the world, it wasn't clear in which period the author set the story. Its manner and values were similar to Colonial America, though. This is where the Salem witch trials come to mind. The dread and almost suffocating atmosphere of the story stayed prevalent throughout the book. For me, it was almost too much. I like reading grimdark, but I need the right mindset for it and something to balance the darkness out. For example, Joe Abercrombie does this with his black humor. The Seawomen didn't have that.

More than anything, The Seawomen is slow-paced and character-driven. While I don’t tend to go for character-driven stories, Esta's inner life and family history were fascinating, and I enjoyed unraveling those dark secrets with her. The character work was phenomenal. Esta's curiosity and defiance were noble traits for a heroine. The author explores her conflict of forcing herself to conform to society but being drawn to the ocean well. I, for one, found Esta relatable. Don’t we all want to walk into the waves and disappear sometimes?

Another aspect I loved is that the book shows the complexity of female friendships and relationships between mothers and daughters. The most interesting to me was Ester's relationship with her fanatical grandmother, Sarl. After her parents die in a fire, Sarl raises Ester, but refuses to talk about Ester's parents. We get the sense it wasn't just a normal fire, though, and that Eden didn’t accept Ester’s mother. For me, it was the most gripping secret.

Believing that "darkness" is hereditary, Sarl raises Ester by keeping a watchful eye on her. Sarl’s own pious zeal leads her to pray at all times of the day and even starve herself "for God". Her doctrine is so ingrained within Ester, she thinks about it in almost every scene. You can sense the grandmother looming over her, especially when Ester does something that goes against the island's values. Thus, religious guilt and breaking away from that is another big part of Ester's story. As a former religious person, I understand how hard it can be to break away from that community. In that way, Ester's story resonated with me.

Women being falsely accused of being Seawomen reminded me of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. At some point, I started doubting if the Seawomen were even real or just a figment to keep the women on the island in line. I'm torn by that aspect. On the one hand, I liked it because you get just as paranoid and doubtful as the residents of the island. Esta was, in this regard, an unreliable narrator. On the other hand, I wanted to see actual mermaids. The cover as well as the description made me hope for a fantasy mermaid book. That is not what this was.

Since we're on the topic of mermaids, after a third of the book, Esta meets a love interest. This was where the book took a dive for me. I was really worried the book would go from a story about women's oppression to a boy-meets-girl type of story. While this thankfully didn't happen, I thought the romance was a bit insta-lovey. Now, there are worse cases of insta love. For Esta, her love interest represents freedom from the island, the life she could have. To me, that was a valid reason to "fall in love" with someone, although I think the connection relied more on physical attraction. There is only so much you can feel for someone you've seen three (3) times. However, since this is fantasy, I suspended my disbelief.

The plot only kicks off in the last 25% of the book. After that point, chaos ensues. The story could have easily gone into grim dark territory from here on. I appreciated that the author didn't go there. While the ending was abrupt, I found it satisfying. The hopeful conclusion made for a more interesting story.

The themes of religious fanaticism, control of women's bodies in a patriarchy, as well as familial relationships were prevalent throughout the story and well-explored. While I liked the dystopian vibe, it's not anything new. Especially not in Fantasy. Margaret Atwood's and T. Kingfisher's works come to mind. Still, I enjoyed reading The Seawomen and gave the book 3/5 stars.

Trigger warnings: Violence, drowning, sexual assault, forced pregnancy, body horror, gore, cults.

This was phenomenal. I finished it in two days and I’m still thinking about it now. Pitched as The Handmaid’s Tale x The Crucible x The Shape of Water, I knew I had to read this ASAP, so a massive thanks to the publishers for the chance to read and review this in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I only picked it up to read the first page to get a vibe, however I stayed with this long into the early hours as it just sucked me in. It’s incredibly atmospheric and the writing just flows. For a debut novel, it’s a testament to the author’s skills and I am very excited to see what else they publish in the future!

The characters were well fleshed out, there were some I absolutely despised and others I adored. I was rooting for our protagonist Esta the whole time. It was great to see her grow up and how certain events had altered her personality.

The plot was interesting, the ending is kind of ambiguous but I like to think it’s a happy ending. Major secrets were unravelled over time and I felt like they were realistic and believable. The romance aspect is slow and delivered over time which I think was great, you come to care for the characters and want them to be together.

❝I’d live on the land forever for you.❞

The setting was realistic, you could taste the salt in the air and hear the crashing waves, I loved it! The idea to isolate them on an island against the rest of the world was very smart, as it made the brainwashing tactics easier to believe.

I would definitely recommend this to fans who enjoyed The Handmaid’s Tale as this also takes women’s bodies and controls them via physical and mental methods.

❝She was breathless with rage. ‘How can it be about choice? None of us have a choice. All of us do things we don’t want to do. We shut our eyes and turn our heads and pray to God; we marry and we lie under men just to live another day… we turn away from watching the torment of girls we know have done nothing, because we know that if we don’t. we’ll be next.❞

I’ve highlighted so many parts of this book, here’s a particularly striking quote:

❝You never forget your first. You hope and pray it will be the last you ever see. You already know. Deep down. It’ll happen again and again and you will have to watch. The screaming, the waiting, watching her body tied down, the boat rocking and shunting, capsizing. Drowning. The point where you can see with your own eyes what it means to be a woman.❞

This was an incredible, thought-provoking and timely read that will stay with you long after you’ve finished the final page

5/5 stars.

Thank you to the publishers for gifting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I received this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

It’s taking me a while to get round to this because I was in a reading slump but this definitely brought me out of it.

This story is a tale of men and religion and the horrible things they can do in the name of ‘god’, it’s about superstition, lies, cruelty and power. It’s about the treatment of women and family secrets.
A dark story of men in power.

I enjoyed this book a lot, seeing the character fight for what is right even if it is against everything she knows and will make her unsafe. This harrowing tale may have sea women and the idea of mermaids but the story is easily believable and feels real due to the content and the comparison with our own reality. Think witch hunts but mermaids.

This bewitchingly sinister gothic romance is set on Eden Isle, a distant island community isolated from the world, where young Esta lives with her pious grandmother, in constant fear of transgressing the barbaric, misogynistic rules that dictate the islanders’ lives. Her mother and father are mysteriously ‘gone’, the same night of the fire that burned their family home to the ground and scarred three-year-old Esta’s face – but precisely what caused the blaze is just one of the mysteries set up at the start of this haunting book. The women of Eden Isle live in constant fear, forbidden even to look at the sea in case they succumb to the lure of the ‘Seawomen’, semi-mythical mer-women who are alleged to have tried to seduce the women and girls of the first settlers away; it’s their malevolent powers that are blamed for all wrong-doing and misfortune that happens on the island. Wives and daughters are tightly controlled by the Keepers and The Ministers, a ruling class of priests led by the all-powerful Father Jessop, who is a descendant of the first settlers seeking “another way” to live – as well as the anonymous Eldermothers who help to carry out punishments, prepare women for marriage and decide when their ‘motheryear’ will start. During this appointed twelve months a new wife must bear a child or, presumed barren, face Untethering: the barbaric witch-trial-esque ritual with which this brilliantly imaginative novel begins, where a childless wife is sent back to the Seawomen by being bound, drugged and inevitably drowned in an old boat, pushed out to sea by her husband, rendered free to marry again. As Esta grows, so does her curiosity for the Otherlands, and her sense of unease and dissatisfaction with the constricting rules that dominate her existence: but is testing her boundaries worth drawing the wrath of The Ministers or worse – the Seawomen themselves? Did she really see a silvery face flash beneath the shallow waters? With splashes of The Handmaid’s Tale and the isolated, quasi-religious communities depicted in the films Midsommar and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, this is a book you can truly submerge yourself in: so take a deep breath and dive beneath the waves…

3.5/5 Infuriating, heartbreaking and scarily realist this feminist dystopian tale makes for a frightening but fascinating read. The use of religion to control the population of an island is worryingly true to life, the imbalance of power between the genders and the fear bred into the women in particular is sickeningly relevant right now and the desire to escape was palpable from the first page. The pace was slow, the love story didn't thrill me, and some characters needed more air time to feel fully realised but overall this was an enjoyable, if challenging, read!
Thanks to NetGalley.co.uk and Hodder & Stoughton for the free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved being drawn into this watery world. So well drawn, with beautiful writing and a wonderful feminist take on an allegory.

I’m not sure what I was expecting going into The Seawomen. As I often do, between requesting the book and reading it, I had forgotten what the blurb said. I simply knew from the title that it would have something to do with the sea, and likely mermaids.

This book isn’t about mermaids. It’s set on an island, where the Seawoman (essentially mermaids) are demonised. The islanders cast them into the role of the devil, assigning them an ability to exert a malign influence over the female population. This made me think of the witch trials, and the accusations of witchcraft that women have endured over the centuries.

A few chapters in though, I picked up on the dystopian elements of this book. The joy for me in this book was the unfolding of the mysteries that we are presented with in the first few chapters. So I don’t want to give too many spoilers. So all I will say is the book is a blend of dystopia and magical realism. There is definitely a requirement to suspend disbelief in The Seawoman. Which I found a little jarring, but I think in the end worked really well.

What The Seawomen is about, though, is the oppression of women. The society living on this island values women for their ability to bear children, and little else. They are raised to become wives to men they don’t always get to choose, and it is seen as their sacred duty to then produce children. If they don’t, they face accusations of falling under the influence of the Seawomen. The islanders see the women’s inability to become pregnant as God rejecting them.. They then ‘Untether’ them, casting them into the sea to drown. The book opens with this image, of the islanders sending a woman to her death. It’s quite harrowing to read.

As we learn more about the island and its inhabitants, it becomes easy to see the motivation behind these lies that the men who rule the island are telling about the Seawomen. The ‘Ministers’, as they are called, are invested in the women staying under their control. If the women lose their fear of the sea, they might decide there’s a better life out there beyond the island. Without the women to bear children for them, the ‘Ministers’ version of an ‘idyllic’ society would be over. They would lose their control.

Timms writes the story from a first person point of view, from Esta’s perspective. This adds to the tension in the story, as Timms keeps us, quite literally, in the moment with Esta. Timms makes it clear that Esta is telling this story from some point in the future. So we get hints towards what is to come. We do get to the future point Esta is telling the story from, so this build up of tension does come to a satisfying conclusion. I couldn’t see how the book was going to end until the last few pages, which I liked. The story never felt predictable, yet Timms never fully surprised me either.

I would say the book’s biggest strength is how the author builds a dark, foreboding atmosphere. I think the combination of the weather (cold and stormy) as well as the sense of foreboding the narrative creates, really pulled me into the setting. Timms does a good job of describing the world without giving the reader too much detail and losing their interest. The fear the characters are feeling really comes off the page, so I felt afraid for Esta throughout the narrative. Timms describes the process of ‘Untethering’ and the fears of the women on the island in a cool, practical way, which makes it all the more chilling.

The story does move at a slow pace, which I think for a book within the literary dystopian genre, is okay. It’s definitely a slow burn, each reveal taking it’s time. This adds to the atmosphere as well. I do wish that Timms had explored the situation of the men on the island a little more.

There is a moment when Esta thinks that her arranged-husband is just as trapped as she is within the system. There is also a male character who does suffer at the hands of the same men the women do. But I felt that for most of the narrative, Timms portrayed the men as a monolith, as all having the same attitudes of those at the top of hierarchy. Though I understand that she probably did this for a heightened effect, I still would have liked a little more nuance. I think this is a trap a lot of feminist fiction can fall into. And this book is most certainly feminist.

The Seawomen did remind me of a couple of other dystopian books: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood and The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh. Both are also about women’s oppression. The Water Cure in particular does have the same feeling of isolation, as a result of it’s island setting. It tells the story of a single family isolated from, and afraid of, the outside world. It was interesting to read on Chloe Timm’s blog that she did take inspiration from these two books, as well as several others, when writing The Seawomen. The blog post is an interesting read. It’s a good look into the work an author often does for a novel. So I’d encourage you to read it if you’re at all interested in writing.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Seawoman. It’s a slow book, but builds a compelling, dark, and at times horrid atmosphere. I would recommend it to fans of The Handmaid’s Tale or The Water Cure, as it sits comfortably in that literary dystopian genre.

There's a trend of The Handmaid's Tale style books coming through and they're great. The Seawomen is no exception - a unique, dystopian setting and engaging story.

Wow this is one that will stay with me for a long time, stunning and thought provoking - religion and men rule thie island, a woman's sole purpose is having babies and keeping the home. Away from the island, in the Otherlands, live the Seawomen who it is thought can tempt the men and curse the islanders. Dystopian fiction that is very close to reality in parts, read this soon!