Lyrical, haunting, magical and immensely readable. I flew it.

Fleeing from strange dreams and terrible consequences Lucy finds herself at her absent sister’s remote coastal house. Lucy’s sister Jess is away but Lucy finds strange artwork which capture her dreams and her elusive sister’s diary, which may hold the key to her past and where her sister has disappeared to.

I’m new to Emilia Hart, Weyward is on my shelf and I will get to it! All I can say is that she has not been over sold. The writing is effortless, the story unfolds at a great pace and the back and forth in time isn’t remotely jarring. This story is perfectly balanced.

I love the line Hart walks between magic and reality. At no point could you really say this was fantasy but there is a fantastical element, but that choice is in the reading.

The story is both sad and empowering, it tells the story of women who have fought back and been punished accordingly, but that’s not the end of their story.

I really loved it and will be diving in to more of this author’s work!

Thank you #netgalley and the publisher for my #arc

Wow! An absolute must read.

I read the authors first book Weyward as a book club pick and really enjoyed it. When I saw she had a new title out I couldn’t wait to read it. I must say this is even better than the first.

I was captivated from the start, as we learn the stories of two sets of sisters, living two hundred years apart. Their lives so different, yet in there something pulling them together?

I love the way this is written, back and forth across the dual time line, each story giving away its secrets as it progresses.

The characters are well written and developed and the scenes set so well you could be there. I love it when you can really visualise what is happening.

A surprising tale, with lots of twists and turns, yes I may have guessed a few but that doesn’t take anything away from this mesmerising read.

Definitely one I just couldn’t put down.

'I know people who said they've heard it, standing on the beach at night. Voices, coming from the waves. Women's voices'.

Lucy awakes with a start, horrified, mystified at what she's done. There's only one thing to do: flee. Loathe to admit anything to her parents, only her estranged sister, Jess, is left to turn to. Although they've not been in contact in ages, Lucy makes her way to Comber Bay - a sleepy town best known for its own series of mysterious disturbances. Indeed, when Lucy finally knocks on Jess's door, she discovers that not only is she not at home, it's clear she fled. More ominous is the painting in Jess's studio, depicting two sisters standing in front of the ocean, two sisters who have been haunting Lucy's vivid dreams. Lucy must take a step back; in time and from everything she's ever believed, in order to truly understand herself and her family.

'The Sirens' is told in a dual timeline, one contemporary and the other from over 200 years in the past. The story's multiple POVS create a haunting, atmospheric tale of betrayal, lies, love, and acceptance - anointed by the magic of the sea: its wisdom and fantastical myths. The clarity of water distills the truth, and cleanses them so that they may find a different future.

Despite all the success of Weyward, this is my first novel from Emilia Hart, and I was taken away on a journey with it. Like most good stories, it does take a while to build and get to know the characters. Being shrouded in some mystery, the story a slow burn but takes the reader on an evocative journey along the way. This book will suit historical fiction fans who also appreciate magical realism.

'I have always seen this. This moment. Us, changed by the sea.'

i would like to preface this by saying that i loved weyward. it was so good, and one of the best books i've ever read. unfortunately the sirens fell flat in comparison.

as per the title, i was expecting a little more fantasy with this book and found it severely lacking. there was a mystery element to the sirens which is spread across the multiple POVs, but next to nothing really happens until the very end. the mystery is introduced fairly close to the beginning, then we're left to meander through pointless interactions and thoughts until towards the end when things are revealed.

the characters themselves were fairly interesting in the beginning. i was intrigued by the mystery surrounding jess. mary and eliza felt irrelevant. i really enjoyed their chapters but they didn't add anything to the story regarding jess and lucy. it seemed that throughout the book, everyone kept making bad decisions and i just couldn't bring myself to feel bad for them when things turned out the way the did.

the revelations at the ending really surprised me in the sense that i didn't see if coming, but i didn't care enough about anyone to actually care.

if you're reading this book because you loved weyward, i'd advise you lower your expectations a bit and the sirens might be more enjoyable.

After enjoying Emilia Hart’s first novel, Weyward, in 2023, I was looking forward to reading her new one, The Sirens. Weyward linked the stories of three women in different time periods through a family connection, a shared love of nature and a theme of witchcraft. The Sirens also has multiple timelines, but this time the characters are linked by water and the sea.

The novel begins in Australia in 2019 with student Lucy waking up from a sleepwalking episode with her hands around her ex-boyfriend’s neck. Ben is not entirely innocent – they broke up after he shared a nude photo of her with his friends – but she’s afraid he’ll report her for assault, so she packs her things and flees. Planning to take refuge with her sister Jess, an artist, Lucy heads for the town of Comber Bay, but on arrival she finds her sister’s house empty, as if it had been abandoned in a hurry. Lucy is concerned, but on learning that Jess did tell one of the neighbours that she would be going away for a while, she decides to wait in the house until she returns.

Comber Bay is a small town on the coast of New South Wales and has a sinister reputation; over a forty year period, eight men disappeared without trace, never to be seen again. Also, in 1982, a baby was found abandoned in a cave not far from Jess’s house. As she waits to hear from her sister, Lucy begins to uncover the truth behind these mysteries – but she becomes distracted by unsettling dreams of another pair of sisters who lived two centuries earlier.

Lucy’s present day story alternates with the story of those other two sisters, Mary and Eliza, who were found guilty of a crime in Ireland in 1800 and transported to Australia on a convict ship. Later in the book, Jess’s story also begins to unfold, mainly in the form of diary entries from the 1990s (the diary reads more like a novel, but I think we just have to suspend disbelief there). It takes a while for all of these threads to come together, but we eventually begin to see how cleverly they are connected. There are some surprising twists that I didn’t see coming, as well as some that I was able to guess before they were revealed. As ever, when a book has more than one timeline, I find that some are more compelling than others – and in this case, I particularly enjoyed Lucy’s story and the flashbacks to Jess’s teenage years. Mary and Eliza never fully came to life for me, so their adventures on board the Naiad didn’t interest me quite as much as I would have liked.

The title and cover of the book made me think there would be more siren/mermaid mythology incorporated into the story, but there’s only a little bit of that. There’s a lot of beautiful watery imagery, though, and water plays a big part in the novel in so many different ways. There’s Mary and Eliza’s sea voyage on the Naiad; the setting of Comber Bay, with its coastline, cliffs and caves; Jess’s paintings of ships; even the rare skin condition Lucy suffers from, aquagenic urticaria. It’s a book with lots of layers and things to think about. Having read two Emilia Hart books now, however, I do have a problem with her portrayal of men. Almost every male character in both books is either violent and abusive, a rapist or generally misogynistic or predatory. Obviously that’s true of some men, but I think it’s unrealistic that nearly every man who crosses paths with our female protagonists would be a terrible person. I think it should be possible to promote feminism and give women a voice without going too far in the other direction.

Apart from that, I did like the book and loved the eerie atmosphere Hart creates with Lucy alone in the abandoned Cliff House, uncovering the troubled history of Comber Bay’s past while being haunted by the cries of the women on the convict ship. It’s very similar to Weyward in some ways, but also different enough to be an interesting, enjoyable novel in its own right.

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.

This is an interesting book with strong clearly identifiable characters. Its mix of timelines works well as sometimes this can disrupt the flow, but not with this novel. I did, however, find it a little slow in places. It’s well written and although I found it a slow burn, it was a good read.

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.

After the breath-taking debut of Weyward, I was sceptical that Emilia Hart's The Sirens could reach the same heights—but I was thrilled to realise that this wasn't the case! This novel is a veritable triumph, seamlessly weaving themes of female strength and resilience amidst the grim backdrop of female convict ships to the Australian Colonies.

The plot centres around Lucy, running from her past and searching for her sister Jess, who vanishes in a desolate cliff-top house. As Lucy navigates the eerie seaside town, she encounters stories of mysterious male disappearances, a foundling discovered in a sea-swept cave, and the haunting whispers of women on the waves. These voices recount tales of two sisters, Mary and Eliza, twins from Ireland in the 1800's who are convicted of a felony and sent on a ship to Australia. The girls leave behind their father, having lost their mother to the sea when they were young.

Hart masterfully intertwines historical fiction with an almost ethereal atmosphere using Irish folklore as a backdrop. This engages the reader in Lucy's quest while expertly highlighting the timeless struggle of female resilience and defiance. The connection between past and present is beautifully rendered, creating a narrative that is hauntingly familiar yet distinctively unique.

The Sirens is a compelling read, sure to captivate readers with its vivid storytelling, rich character development, and poignant themes. Emilia Hart has once again proven her literary prowess, delivering a story that echoes the voices of the past while resonating deeply with contemporary audiences. A must-read!

It's so easy to get wrapped up in an Emilia Hart book; her writing is so captivating and gorgeous, if not occasionally a touch overwrought.

But when you tie this lovely, lyrical writing with great flawed female characters, mysterious happenings (. . . you can kind of easily guess the main plot twists, however), magical realism (mermaids?!?!), and put a bow of supporting women's wrongs on top of it, you get a very engaging and enjoyable read, and what more can you ask for?

Thank you to the publisher, The Borough Press, and to NetGalley for the ARC.

It’s one of *those books* that will leave you thinking about it for way longer than closing the book after the last page - it leaves you with a feeling that you just can’t shake - yet another 6 STAR read from Emilia Hart!

The twists and turns of this story kept me hooked, I was rapidly turning pages between the multiple POVs and timelines. I loved Jess’ diary element revealing secrets from the past - I thought I’d guessed the storyline halfway through but was mistaken with a jaw dropping turn of events that was revealed so magnificently.

I love how Emilia looks into often forgotten areas of history and gives the women the platform and recognition that they deserve whilst weaving in Celtic folklore in a haunting yet comforting way.

The haunting atmosphere of the caves and cliff house, weird dreams and fractured relationships made for one of the best reading experiences I’ve ever had.

Thank you Borough Press for the gifted earc in exchange for an honest review.

A captivating read that again sees Emilia Hart put women, and the utter horror they experience at the hands of men, at the centre of the story.

In Weyward, which I loved, the women were witches. This time round, Emilia has placed her focus on the sirens of the sea! The story begins with Lucy, who escapes to her sister Jessica's house, after she has violently attacked a fellow student in her sleep. The student wants to press charges, so Lucy flees., but when she gets to the house, her sister is nowhere to be seen. She's also left behind her phone, meaning she is unreachable. Lucy begins to do some digging and starts to unravel a story that is going to have a lasting impact on her life.

Parallel to this, we hear the story of Mary and Eliza, twins from the 1800's who are convicted of a felony and sent on a ship to Australia. The girls lived with their father, who raised them alone since their Mam was lost at sea. Their story predominantly shares the journey on board said ship.

Emilia is a consummate story teller, and her prose is beautifully written, she's such a scene setter. The senses are captured brilliantly - you can really smell the sea and feel the wind on your face, it is so immersive. The supernatural elements are set out well too. It's not at all "Disney mermaids" and therefore more believable.

The historical side is well researched, - how terrible the English have been throughout history. though I'm ashamed! . Invading Ireland, sending convicts to another invaded country, Australia. They put women in camps to be chosen by men as wives, concubines or servants. All very harrowing stuff.

I loved it. Emilia has cemented herself as an auto buy author for me now. Thanks to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really struggled to finish this book, and almost DNF'd multiple times. However, I had heard so many good things about this title, and was really looking forward to being able to ARC read this book.

While I was really excited about the premise of this book, I found the characters a little flat and lacking. I was also looking forward to stories being told across multiple timelines, but found them a little disjointed and hard to follow at times.

Nevertheless, I am a fan of this author's work, and would read more books of hers in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for this ARC.

Having been so excited for The sirens after reading Wayward last year, I was probably setting myself up for a fail due to my high expectations. The Sirens wasn’t what I expected and I found that it didn’t really grab my attention or develop an engaging plot until very close to the end. The two timelines is usually a favourite storyline for me but here I wasn’t invested like I expected to be. Don’t get me wrong, this is beautifully written but it just didn’t make me want to keep reading.
I liked this but I just didn’t love it.

Emilia Hart’s debut novel Weyward involved generations of witchcraft in the English countryside. Her follow up, The Sirens, involves a different kind of traditionally female mythological creature. Once again Hart works across multiple timelines, using this structure to dole out the reveals which, unfortunately, are all too predictable.
The Sirens opens with a bang. Lucy wakes from a particularly vivid dream to find it is not a dream at all but rather that she is strangling Ben, a peer at university who, it turns out cyberbullied her. Unable to deal with the fallout of this, Lucy flees to her much older sister Jess, who lives in an old house in Comber Bay, a small fishing village on the South Coast of NSW, a place famous for a series of strange disappearances. On the way she is plagued by dreams of a pair of Irish sisters, convicts who are being transported to Australia. And when she arrives, not on is the house is open and Jess is missing but in Jess’s studio are paintings depicting the same sisters that Lucy has seen in her dreams. So begins Lucy’s quest to find the truth about Jess and, in many respects, herself.
The Sirens brings Australian/English author Hart back to Australia. And in The Sirens she effectively captures the landscape, the characters and the cadences of Comber Bay and its inhabitants. She also uses this story to tell the very real, often harrowing story of the women transported to Australia during the convict era. But the overarching narrative to carry all of this is fairly thin, told as what is essentially all Lucy’s backstory and full of reveals that have been telegraphed well in advance. So that overall The Sirens is an often interesting but ultimately unsatisfying piece of modern mythmaking.

Lucy desperately needs the comfort and support offered only by her sister, Jess. But when she visits her sibling’s home, Jess is gone and Lucy feels fully alone in the world, in a town where rumours abound. But where are the women’s voices coming from? As they get louder, they begin to tell a story that will have similar links to what Jess and Lucy are going through. This is beautifully written, but subtle, making the reader almost lean into the words to ensure they don’t miss a second.

Written across different timelines, the story follows the journey of Mary and her twin Eliza from Cork in Ireland across the sea to New South Wales. Being 1800 and convicted of assault, their punishment is transportation. Then there is Lucy , a uni student in 2019, who has assaulted a fellow student whilst walking in her sleep. Fleeing the campus, Lucy heads to Comber Bay, where her older sister Jess has recently located to. Hoping for a safe haven, Lucy is surprised to find the house a complete mess, and Jess seems to have disappeared. Finding Jess’s schoolgirl diary from 1998, Lucy becomes aware of the comparisons and coincidences that both sisters have with Mary and Eliza.

After loving Weyward this was a book I was really looking forward to. Hart writes so beautifully and with real feeling towards her characters.

This is no Weyward and I did struggle to read due to the slowness of the plots. I did finish, but it was definitely an effort until Part 3, when the narrative became from the POV of Jess.

I do admire this author and appreciate her writing, but two thirds of this book were too slow and mundane, with the twists signposted well before they were revealed. With no depth to the characterisation, it all felt a little flat. I wasn’t eager to pick it up and continue. A neat ending with an unsurprising epilogue.

2.5*

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Collins UK.

Emilia Hart's second novel is a compelling and atmospheric story that captivated me from the beginning.
In 2019, Lucy wakes up to find herself strangling an ex-boyfriend. Within hours, her entire future is upended. Cast out of university and isolated from her family, she has no choice but to turn to her absent sister in the seaside town of Comber Bay.
Little does she know, the ones she considers safe have secrets. A string of mysterious disappearances have shaken the town over its long history while stories abound about Sirens - the dangerously beautiful sea creatures of Greek Mythology - in the nearby cove.

I don't want to spoil too much; the joy here is watching the plot unravel for yourself. The highlight was the way in which Hart portrayed her settings. As I read, I was transported to the Australian coast, feeling the sea breeze on my face and hearing the whisper of the tide. A few pages later, I was adrift in a convict ship crossing the ocean. I was concerned about how the two might line up towards the beginning, but I needn't have worried.

It came to a dreamy, authentic conclusion in the last few pages. Through two narratives and several timelines, Hart skilfully weaves themes of Sisterhood, Misogyny, Motherhood and Revenge into a story that will resonate with women of all ages. I would, however, caution vulnerable readers to tread carefully. There are moments of body horror/sexual abuse that could be upsetting - as well as a prominent Adult-Minor Relationship.

I would not have chosen to pick this up in a bookstore as i am not sure what classification it would be under so i may have missed it. Its not fantasy, more of a thriller with supernatural elements.

Told in a dual timeline, you have Mary and Eliza in the 1800's and Jess and Lucy in the present day.

Mary and Eliza are sisters deported from Ireland and sent on a Slave ship to Australia. They are taken away from their father and spend months locked in shackles in the ships hold. It was very harrowing to read this section, how women at that time were treated, abused, starved, beaten, it was a barbaric time and i feel that the author wrote about this quite sensitively.

Jess and Lucy are also sisters, Lucy is at university when she is accused of assaulting a room mate and flees the campus to go and find her sister Jess but when she gets to Jess's house she has disappeared and Lucy sets off to find her.

All 4 women are allergic to water, it covers their skin in horrific blisters and they have all been told to stay away from water. This deep rooted fear is apparent in the old timeline especially when the women find themselves slopping about in water all the time, whereas in modern times its a little easier to deal with.

There are a few twists and turns in this book, there is a bit of an odd viewpoint in the end of one of the men in the story which i didnt really understand, and i didnt understand how Mary, Eliza, Jess, and Lucy are connected because its never really explained.

I appreciate the time and dedication the author took to wrte this book, she said she deleted over 300,000 words over the course of a decade trying to write it.

Its a story about family, love, resilience, and the female spirit. However it also contains themes of abuse, child sexual exploitation, slavery, assault, rape, and violence. All things women have had to suffer at the hands of men for centuries, and i do feel that it was written in a sympathetic way, an i say that as a rape survivor. I was certainly not triggered by this book, but felt incredulous at the excuses they gave for doing it.

I enjoyed the book and would read more from this author in the future.

I read as little about this book as I could prior to reading it so really didn't know what to expect. I'm glad that this was the case as allowing the story to unravel with minimal knowledge of the story and no expectations of what it was going to be really was the best way to read it.

It is a story of female resilience across different time periods, with secrets and a hunt for the truth tying these women together. There is a fantasy element but this comes about slowly, with the main bulk of the story being focused on each of the women's stories.

I loved the switching to different perspectives and the use of diary entries. I very quickly grew attached to each of the women involved in the story and found that I couldn't put the book down.

Unfortunately, I did figure out the end of all the stories quite early on and that is the only reason I couldn't give the story 5 stars. I wanted the mystery to be maintained for longer but even with me knowing what was going to happen, I was hooked.

I enjoyed Emilia Hart’s debut, Weyward and was excited to read her follow-up novel, The Sirens. Whilst poetic and lyrical in its prose, I didn’t enjoy it as much as Weyward.

This story is told over two timelines, following Mary and Eliza in the 1800s and Lucy in 2019. As with her previous novel, Emilia Hart’s writing is lyrical and elegant and captures your attention from the first page.

The story explores the powerful bond of sisterhood and feminism in a fantastical setting. It’s evocative and beautifully written.

I just didn’t have the same eagerness to speed through this one as I did with Weyward. I love a feminist story and can attest to the bonds of sisterhood, but I did guess the twist early on and the representation of men, in a blanket portrayal, was not something I was completely on board with.

Despite that, this is still a beautifully written book and an interesting read for anyone who enjoys a bit of fantastical folklore in their contemporary books.