Lucy is running from what she's done - and what someone did to her.
There's only one person who might understand: her sister Jess. But when Lucy arrives at her sister's desolate cliff-top house, Jess is gone.
Lucy is now alone, in a strange town steeped in rumour. Stories of men disappearing without a trace. A foundling discovered in a sea-swept cave. And women's voices murmuring on the waves...
As Lucy searches for her sister, those voices get ever louder. They tell of two sisters, two centuries ago, bound and transported across the world. A world where men always get their way. A world that is at once distant, and achingly familiar.
Are these voices luring Lucy closer to her sister? Or will the secrets of the past pull them both under?
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She breathes in time with the sea (Prologue).
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(@BoroughPress, 13 February 2025, 352 pages, ARC from the publisher via @NetGalley)
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I've read and enjoyed other books by the author so was looking forward to The Sirens. I loved this book. I was captivated by Lucy, Jess and the story of Mary, one of the victims of a sunken ship full of female convicts, told in flashback. I knew Mary was connected to Lucy and Jess somehow but this isn't revealed until the final chapters of the book. The first chunk of the book focuses on Lucy, who's come seeking her sister's help after an incident at college to find she's seemingly vanished just before an exhibition of her art, the subject, the ship Mary and other female convicts were in when it sunk on the shores of the little seaside town Jess inexplicably fled to. The second chunk of the book focuses on Jess and where she's gone. Mary's story is woven in between Jess and Lucy. This is an engrossing read. I loved it and would recommend it.
5/5