Title The Mermaid Series --- Author Christina Henry Cover Art TK Publisher Berkley - 2018 First Printing Berkley - 2018 Category Fantasy Warnings None Main Characters Amelia, Levi, P.T. Barnum Main Elements Mermaids Website christinahenry.net

From the author of Lost Boy comes a historical fairy tale of a mermaid caught in the public eye...

Once there was a mermaid called Amelia who could never be content in the sea, so she came to live on land.

Once there was a man called P.T. Barnum, a man who longed to make his fortune by selling the wonderous and miraculous, and there is nothing more miraculous than a real mermaid.

Amelia agrees to play the mermaid for Barnum, believing she can leave anytime she likes. But Barnum has never given up on a money-making scheme in his life...

This is a beautiful, magical book. The writing style drew me in right away, evoking the fairy tale aspect and the time period, a little bit of our world with a little something extra thrown in. We start with a love story, a fisherman catches a wild creature with stormy eyes in his net one day and instead of keeping her, let's her go. She on the other hand, is bored of her ocean world and wants to know more about the land, but the lonely eyes of the man caught her in a way the net never could and she is content to spend her days with him. But those days were numbered...

Time never meant much to mermaids, and now she is faced with countless years alone when the chance to see the world at last comes her way. She just needs some money to do so, and presenting herself in Barnum's museum seems a small price to pay. But the more she sees of the world, the more horrified she becomes. These staring masses, the cruelties man does to his fellow man, the treatment of women, the religious fanatics, all appall this creature who is not in the least human (even in her true form she isn't "half woman half fish" as we've always envisioned the mermaid to be, in fact with claws and fangs she is quite terrifying). She wants to get away from it all, but now that the world knows about her, where is she to go?

Henry doesn't claim to be historically acurate, modifying events and people to meet her needs, but then this is not intended as a historical novel. It's more a snapshot of how people view the unknown, whether supernatural or simply humans that are different from themselves. How we exploit others for our own benefit. And how, in this world of the uncaring masses, one can still find love and happiness.

I really enjoyed the character of Amelia as she has to navigate this strange world of people who think and act in ways that are simply incomprehensible to her. After living in the vast lonely sea, she can't imagine how humans can live in cramped, smelly, noisy cities. Why women are treated differently from men. Why people wear such uncomfortable clothes. And why people would kill over differing beliefs of what is good and what is evil.

After reading The Mermaid I'm looking forward to reading Henry's takes on Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan.