Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book, and to Macmillon Audio and Netgalley for the ALC of the same!

I started reading a digital copy of this book, and I was pulled in after a few chapters, but I knew the right narrator could really make the accents and the snippets of songs shine. I wasn't wrong, and Barrie Kreinik did just that. I both read and listened to the novel, and the audio really added to the experience (trying to read accents in my head never works for me).

There were pieces that didn't connect for me - like (view spoiler). I know that's not huge, but it's something that pulls me out of the narrative - like comparing it to my own family life and knowing nothing like that could happen within a small family.

But, that's tiny. The overarching story was excellent. I loved the dual storyline and wanted to know more about what happened in each, and where they overlapped. I think that arc was beautifully written and so well crafted, and I loved the ending.

This is a beautifully written story! I loved this book so much. I still think about these characters. I couldn't put this down. I had to know how it ended.

The Sirens, by Emila Hart, takes place in three distinct time periods--1801, 1999, 2019. In 1801 a convict transport ship leaves Dublin for New South Wales, loaded with women convicts. The trip is horrifying, and several women die from neglect and disease. in 2019, Lucy flees to Comber Bay to find her older sister and escape from a broken heart and frightening sleepwalking episodes. In 1999, readers learn Jess' story. All three time periods are linked by tragedy. Readers who are familiar with Greek tragedy will have an advantage over readers with little or no knowledge of the Greek world, where sirens have their own story to tell.

Hart provides a more nuanced view of sirens than is sometimes found in Greek mythology. As was the case with her previous novel, Wayward, The Sirens focuses on the lives of women and their need for magical protection from destructive and dangerous men. I think it is fair to say that Hart focuses on women's lives and on making sure that women are strong enough to survive in a man's world. The Sirens is beautifully written. It is creative and imaginative and unusual, which is why this novel is such a beautiful rendering. I liked this novel, but I realize there are readers who want a more straightforward story with an easily absorbed plot. That is not the case with The Sirens, where the plot and characters are both complex and unique, but in the end, readers are rewarded with an ending worth the effort.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC. I am recommending this novel.

This was such an amazing book! After reading Weyward, I was so curious if her second story would hit just as hard and it did!

This is an amazing story of female empowerment, finding your sense of belonging, and sisterhood. The story centers on four women and the past and present are slowly and methodically woven together through the pages. Once again, I have to give huge kudos to Hart for all the research that must have went into this book. She is the queen of taking historical events/mythology and creating these unique and magical stories. I am a SUCKER for a book that celebrates female friendships and sisterhood and this brought all the emotions. There were plenty of family secrets and mystery spread throughout that kept me wondering and guessing. The plight of women throughout history was once again so sensitively and realistically written that I am just left amazed by Hart’s writing style.

PLEASE go read The Sirens when it is published on April 1, 2025! In the meantime, give Weyward a read if you haven’t already!

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartins press for this arc. I can’t explain how much I enjoyed this book.

Being a fan of mermaids, sirens, just any water creature is why picked this up. i am happy i read this. it gave feeling to family and friends. I enjoyed that it had multiple timelines, i think it completes a story well.

Told through two perspectives over two timelines, we follow the stories of Lucy, a student in the modern day who finds her sister is missing; and sisters Mary and Eliza, destined for Australia in 1800. Hart's writing is lovely, slowly bringing the two stories together. I do wish the pacing had been more consistent, as it seems that so much is packed into the end.

3.5 stars rounded.

Loved it! It has a similar feel to Weyward, but it has a different storyline, obviously. I appreciate how the imagery of the authors words invokes a clear picture in your mind. You feel like you're in the cave or in the ship. You can see the scales and smell the ocean. Beautiful book

Firstly, thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me an ARC! This is a 4.75 leaning HEAVILY toward 5, so I’m rounding it up

This book has so many wonderful components added to it. From female friendship through hardship, to atmospheric depictions that take you to the time and place of the story. I truly felt like I was in a small seaside town experiencing a thunderstorm for this entire book. Honestly I highly recommend reading it on a thunderstormy summer day. Emilia has a way of writing for women scorned. If you want to feel female rage, look no further. There are some heavy themes in this so look up the TW! Like in Weyward, this book focuses on women and their struggles in relationships and society while embracing their strength and resilience. The way these things are captured is gorgeous and I can now confirm Emilia is an auto buy author for me.

I will say I am not a huge fan of the epilogue. It kind of ruined that character for me entirely. Especially since (I’m assuming) it involved someone else and it just felt very out of character for both of them. It’s honestly what made me take away that .25 from the rating.

Lucy is a college student who wakes up one night sleepwalking. Not just sleepwalking, but sleepwalking into her ex flings room and trying to choke the life from him. Trying to run away from this situation, she goes to the only person she remembers ever having dealt with sleepwalking. Her older sister Jessica. Lucy drives over a day to her sisters new home, to find her missing. While she waits for Jess to come back, she finds herself unraveling mysteries she never thought possible.

Jessica just moved to a small seaside town called Combers Bay. Combers bay is the home of a mysterious string of disappearances, all of which are men. She is an artist and has an exhibit coming up for her newest paintings, but she’s no where to be found.

Mary and Eliza are twins born by the sea in Ireland. In 1801 after getting convicted of a crime, they are forced onto a female convict boat to go to New South Wales. On the boat they meet other women that were accused of being criminals, and begin bonding from the awful conditions. Eliza is blind and Mary is her eyes. They are told that they will be put in “female factories” when they reach NSW. On this boat they experience real atrocities and are facing imminent danger, on land and sea.

This solidified Emilia Hart as an auto-read author for me. I just love how she takes a topic and makes it her own, while also staying true to some of the lore surrounding what she is choosing to write about. I don't read many stories about sirens, but I was engrossed from beginning to end. I liked how this book was dual timeline and how the present and past intertwined. She created such an atmosphere of suspense with the women being sent as prisoners to Australia in 1800, how Jess's journal filled in more of the story, and the most present timeline from Lily's POV - and what mysteries they all were hiding.

I was so excited when I got approved for this because I have been waiting for this book for a while! It was such a delight and I’m so happy I got the chance to experience this story! I can’t wait for it to get into other’s hands!

I hate to say that if it wasn't for the epilogue, this book would have been better.
The way the stories wove together and the overall mystery was very interesting.
I really just feel like a different epilogue or no epilogue would have been better overall.
Also, there is a random head injury in this that felt a little pointless.

very intriguing fiction, not sure it was to my taste, but not a bad read! good book about family and friends

Thank you to Emilia Hart, Net Galley and St. Martins Press!

The Sirens is a great mix of historical fiction and magical realism that follows three women in different time periods, all connected by a mysterious and dangerous force: the sirens. The book looks at themes of female empowerment, societal expectations, and fate, using the sirens as both literal and symbolic representations of temptation and inner conflict. With three sisters of my own, it really hits different 😭

Hart’s writing brings the coastal setting to life, creating a strong sense of atmosphere with very detailed descriptions. The story moves between multiple decades, and while the timelines are complex, they offer an interesting puzzle that is rewarding.

The pacing is slow, and the structure might be tricky for some readers, as it was a bit for me, but The Sirens is a thoughtful and emotional exploration of memory, legacy, and the forces shaping women’s lives.
If you enjoy books with a lot of atmosphere and deep themes, you’ll probably like this one

The Sirens will be published on April 1, 2025!

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5)

While I loved Emilia Hart's Weyward, I did not connect with this book in the same way. I struggled to follow the plot and connect with the characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for giving me the opportunity to read this book. I have always been drawn to books that travel across multiple timelines and people and this definitely did not disappoint. This book was beautifully written and I will definitely be reading books from this author in the future.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC of The Sirens. I’m excited to read Weyward next.

Hart’s writing is engaging, but the plot felt predictable.
By 85%, I was still waiting for everything to connect. The fantasy elements needed more development.

In 2019, Lucy wakes up from a sleepwalking episode to find that she is physically assaulting another student at her college. Rather than facing the consequences of her behavior, she flees to her estranged sister's home in Comber Bay, only to find that Jess has mysteriously left, without her car or her phone just days before an upcoming exhibit of her painting. Lucy is left to figure out where Jess has gone, and why, and slowly pieces the mystery together with the help of her sister's diary from when she was a teenager, before Lucy was born. Lucy's point of view alternates with these diary entries from 1999, as well as the point of view of Mary, a young woman in 1800 who is being transported to Australia from Ireland with her blind sister on the Naiad, a ship we know is doomed to sink just outside Comber Bay. This book has elements of magical realism, as both Jess and Lucy dream of Mary and Eliza as they are transported on the ship, while there are also hints that Jess and Lucy's severe allergy to water is not as it appears.
For me, the threads of this story were easy to connect and predict, particularly the relationship between Jess and Lucy and Mary and Eliza, as well as some other threads that I won't mention for fear of being too much of a spoiler. That said, while I did also feel some of the plot lines were just dropped at the conclusion of the novel without any real closure, this book was still beautifully written and enjoyable to read. I enjoyed the character development displayed by Lucy as she investigated Jess's disappearance in particular.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

A heartfelt thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Emilia Hart for my first ARC—what an incredible introduction to early reviews. Sirens captured all of my favorite things: mermaids, Australia, art, diverse representation, and, most poignantly… female rage.

I’ve heard incredible things about Weyward, so I was eager to dive into Emilia Hart’s latest work. My expectations were high and I still couldn’t put it down; almost as if Hart had made this book happen after reading a wishlist from my own diary rather than Jess’s. The story weaves true crime and historical fiction with an achingly beautiful quality that makes even the (I will say, VERY many) predictable moments resonate with emotional depth. It’s a beautiful exploration of found family and female solidarity, all set against a vividly described nautical backdrop that engages every sense. I swear I know what Comber Bay smells like and it still haunts me.

Sirens features characters navigating chronic pain (through aquagenic urticaria, a rare water allergy), a prominent character with visual impairment, foreword acknowledgement and inclusion of Indigenous peoples, and imprisoned women. Every element was handled with compassion and an evident dedication to accurate, thoughtful representation.

This book was provided to me for free in exchange for my honest review.

The Sirens is a beautiful book about family, strength, and love. It’s told from dual timelines from the perspective of two sets of sisters and the obstacles they overcome. Really magical and I liked it so much!

Lucy is currently in college when she finds herself sleep walking, attempting to harm her ex. She flees to her older sister’s cliffside cottage for help. When she reaches Jess’s home, her sister isn’t there. In her search for answers, Lucy reads Jess’s diary from high school, and learns more secrets than she ever thought could exist.

This story was magical, atmospheric, mysterious and tense. There are two main timelines, hundreds of years apart, that make up the main story, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the diary entries that gave Jess her own story as well. The mystery of the sunken ship that killed female prisoners in the cove where Jess lives was so interesting, and I love how the author tied that story to the present. This story is about sister love, female strength and power, and how family bonds may bend but don’t always break.