I loved everything about this book. From the cover to the ending it was top notch! The writing was original and captivating, the characters were well written and the descriptions weren't too much! 5 stars!!

Sirens is a wild ride of a feminist fantasy that'll leave you spellbound. We follow four women across centuries, each struggling to find their place in a world that doesn't always see them. There's Lucy, a modern-day college student dealing with cyberbullying and sleepwalking nightmares; Jess, her estranged sister with a mysterious past; Mary and Eliza, Irish twin convicts sailing to Australia in the 1800s.

As their stories intertwine, we uncover secrets, magic, and a whole lot of female empowerment with a splash of mermaid magic. The author weaves together history and fantasy seamlessly, creating a world that feels both familiar and utterly fantastical. If you loved Weyward, you're gonna be obsessed with this one!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

Another wonderful portrayal of strong women by Emilia Hart, who captured our imagination in “Weyward,” again with a tinge of the supernatural. This tale is again told in alternating timelines with two sets of sisters in Australia.

2019: journalism student Lucy, fleeing 300 miles after sleepwalking and trying to strangle a guy who posted nude pictures of her (more mortifying since she has a rare skin disorder, a water allergy); and Jess, the older sister who already fled to fictional Comber Bay, the “Bermuda Triangle of Australia*” (8 men have disappeared without a trace). Jess wants to ask Lucy about sleepwalking, but her cottage is abandoned.
1800: Blind Eliza and her twin sister Mary, prisoners taken after the Irish Rebellion and put on a convict ship headed to an Australian penal colony. For both of them, water stings, but it starts changing them.

What Lucy finds in Jess’ empty house are terrifying paintings of figures she has seen in her dreams: two women wading into the sea towards a ship; the same women held captive in the dark hold of the same ship. Jess has apparently been sharing Lucy’s nightmares about Mary and Eliza.

As she did in “Weyward,” author Hart examines the historical casually-accepted cruelty towards women, including stories of the prosecution of falsely accused Lindy Chamberlain and a similar fictional Comber Bay mom who adopted the abandoned Baby Hope in the present day timeline. There is a lot about the fate of women convicts who were raped and sold off as wives or concubines once they reached Australia in the 19th century, if they didn’t die in shipwrecks.

This is an amazing story as both sisters’ tales and unusual relationships with the sea converge. I loved it — maybe even more than “Weyward.” So many secrets are unfurled at a pace that is mesmerizing! 5 stars,

*Bermuda Triangle of Australia: supposedly the “real” Aussie Bermuda Triangle is Magnetic Island, home of multiple shipwrecks. I actually know some residents.

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES Max, Cameron, Cameron’s daughter and the cat all have green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO you know you’re in Australia with the presence of gum trees, eucalyptus, wattle/acacia, and banksia.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing a free e-ARC of this title in exchange for my review.

This was my first book by Emilia Hart, and I found it to be good - spooky - but good. I didn't really feel a connection to any of the characters, didn't feel pulled into the book exactly, but it was a spooky good read. I would love to hear this as an audiobook, also!

3 stars for "liked it'

One of my top 10 books of the year, mermaid/ ocean themes are some of my favorite to read. I enjoyed the flow of the story and being able to read the story from different pov's throughout. This will be one that I can comeback and read again and again.

The story was so-so; disappointing more so after reading her first book. I didn't like the switching back and forth and it just seemed like it was trying to hard to connect two timelines together.

I would like to extend my gratitude to NetGalley, the publisher, and Emilia Hart for providing me with an advance ebook copy in exchange for my honest review.

Emilia Hart's The Sirens is a masterful exploration of female relationships that transcends time, weaving together the past and present in a poignant narrative filled with depth and emotional resonance. At the heart of this compelling tale are Eliza and Mary, whose bond in the past serves as a powerful foundation for the story, and Lucy and Jess, whose connection in the contemporary timeline echoes their predecessor's experiences.

The character development in this novel is truly exceptional. Hart provides rich, multidimensional portrayals of the female characters that allow readers to engage deeply with their struggles and triumphs. Eliza and Mary’s friendship forms the emotional core of the narrative, showcasing a relationship built on trust, resilience, and empowerment against societal expectations. Their story is a vivid reminder of the strength found in female solidarity, echoing through generations.

In contrast, Lucy and Jess’s journey highlights how the past influences the present. Their close-knit relationship is steeped in emotional complexity and growth, illustrating the ongoing struggle for identity and self-acceptance. The way Hart ties these two narratives together not only enhances the plot but solidifies the overarching theme of women supporting women, making The Sirens an inspiring testament to female empowerment.

The writing style is both lyrical and immersive, drawing readers into a world where the echoes of the past shape the lives of the present. Hart’s ability to blend historical elements with contemporary issues creates a rich tapestry that resonates deeply.

While the pacing can sometimes feel uneven, and certain developments may appear rushed towards the conclusion, the emotional payoff is undeniable. Hart wraps up the story in a manner that feels satisfying and reflective, capping off the character arcs with a sense of closure that feels earned.

Overall, The Sirens is a magnificent exploration of female strength, connection, and legacy. It is a book that not only entertains but inspires, making it a must-read for anyone who cherishes stories of women's empowerment and the beauty of close relationships.

This was such an amazing read! I could not put it down. Emilia Hart has such an amazing gift of story telling and really making you feel invested in the story and characters. I have been telling everyone I know to read this book! I could seriously read a separate book about each of the incredible woman she wrote about in this story. I NEED to read her debut now!! Thank you Emilia Heart and NetGalley for the copy of this amazing book to read

The book starts with Lucy waking up as she's trying to strangle her ex. It gets hard to follow fairly fast and I just couldn't get into it. She goes to her sister's house to escape the aftermath of her attempted strangling but she's not there. I much preferred weyward!

The Siren by Emilia Hart was intriguing and kept my interest. I’m not a huge fan of fantasy type stories but Hart’s writing made it all seem possible… interestingly enough I found myself grabbing for the book more than usual. I now want to go and read her first book as well.

Omg this book had me hooked from the start! The opening had me so intrigued and I couldn't stop reading. Very excited to recommend to everyone to read.

3.5 stars, rounded up.

It took me a while to get through this book. I found it to be a little slow to start. However, when the story got going, I really started to enjoy it. I loved the themes of sisterhood, and thoroughly enjoyed the mysteries woven into the book. I almost gave this book 4 stars, but the epilogue detracted from that. I love that women were being protected from men, but then the dad literally cheated on his wife with a mermaid, to have a baby, and that was okay. Idk, that just didn't sit right with me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC!!

This was a huge disappointment. I really, REALLY loved Weyward, but this book dragged and was utterly boring compared to that one.
It felt a lot like Alice going down the rabbit hole and that rabbit hole is filled with bits and pieces of true crime podcasts and newspaper clippings. When a book is supposed to be about Sirens, you expect to have them more prominent in a novel than the front cover. I will say, the cover is STUNNING. But, unfortunately, I cancelled my preorder for this book after reading the arc.The plot is almost non existent. For about half the book we have two sisters in the past and two "sisters" in the present. The sisters in the past got themselves in trouble and were sent to New South Wales as convicts. Cool - but apart from knowing that those ships were overcrowded, that there was a captain and a clergyman onboard, that food was stale and scarce and everything was dirty with the stench of human waste, we learn really nothing solid about those crossings. The two sisters in the present are even more boring. I mean, the author picked the poorest excuse to send the heroine away from Sydney to seek refuge next to her sister. "The sister" is a weird plot as well, since NO younger sister ever would bother to try to keep the elder sisters' affection like this. The insistence on good moments spent together is but a clear attempt to forge a relationship between those two that isn't really there, except to serve the final (and predictable) twist. Again, much like in Weyward, no one is quite who they seemed to be, but that's a trick that the author used before and having read her I knew she could eventually go that way. Silly me - I like to be surprised.

Aside from the academic teenage plot - with Ben being nothing but the excuse-one-dimensional-serving-character -, the novel fails to convince me that these characters actually felt anything towards each other. Lucy is one poor excuse of a main character, all needy and "panicked" and "scared" and using chairs to lock doors but never really considering a second or a third way out of her situation. The sleepwalking is a formula many times seen before in supernatural plots when you need to "invent" an unexplainable connection between characters from different dimensions/times, much like dreams, and the author uses both. The author allows it to drop completely, it ceases to have any importance after shoving it down our throats for so many pages. The romance between young talented sister and art teacher has been seen too many times, the old tale of a man being influential towards a vulnerable impressionable young girl. It's not cemented well enough to be worth recreating here.

If the book has all these pages, it's because Emilia dragged it and dragged it, not even bothering to change narrative styles or pick different vocabulary when alternating from all these POV that she insists on recreating from Weyward. There's the woman from the past, the woman from the present and the other woman from the present remembering her past. Exhausting. At times, Emilia's writing - which was beautiful and tender in Weyward - becomes sloppy, with the same words and expressions being repeated over and over again (heart stops, heart pounds, blood pounds, panic, panic, panic, the sea and the waves) and the "sound" of this and that, also the cheap metaphors. Come on, if you're not going to use an original or at least remarkable metaphor, please don't polute your prose with easy and empty ones. Using a metaphor myself: The Sirens is like a patchwork quilt, the author kept knitting and just wouldn't stop, mixing up colors, times, fabrics, relationships that honestly didn't go together - in the end, it resulted in a pale version of Weyward. I kept reading tho, hoping for some sort of surprise or gleam that would meet my expectations. It never happened.

Is this another case in which the writer's imagination - worthy of acclamation on his/her first book - is soon lost and replicated into dozens of other similar books? Why over complicate this plot?

In the end, this should've been cut in at least 100 pages, to stop the rambling of Lucy, to avoid repetitive useless moments on board and to create some sense of rhythm, which it seriously lacked.

I really enjoyed the last EH novel I read, but this one didn’t quite hit in the same way for me. The POV switching sometimes lost my attention and the ending of the story kind of unraveled some of the rest of the plot. I loved the Australian historical elements and the whimsy and fantasy. The character development was also wonderful. Lots to love about this story!

This haunting novel drew me in with its exploration of the bonds that blend together, dreams we chase, and the secrets lurking in the past. Hart’s blend of magical realism and raw emotion made the story standout to me. The plot follows two sisters on a convict ship to Australia, a young woman haunted by nightmares as she searches for her missing sister, and the mystery of six men who’ve disappeared over the years, all woven together into a gripping tale.

The fact that this is coming out in March is a crime. This is an autumnal read if ever I read one. Hart has such an incredibly poignant way of tapping into the true heart of womanhood and this book is no exception. I went in knowing little--drawn by the gorgeous cover (she's winning in the cover departments!) and so I'll say nothing more than you don't want to miss this incredible book.

It is beautifully written. Intriguing concept with multiple timelines that weave together, and some very complicated relationships. At times I felt a little confused on how everything was related. There is such a mystery to it all, first trying to find Jess and then how Mary and Eliza relate to it all. Was not expecting half of the story.

Emilia Hart's The Sirens draws readers into a rich tapestry of the perilous lives of sisters, woven through centuries, as each stumble onto the shores of Combers Bay, NSW.

Lucy Martin has a disturbing and lifelike dream about twin sisters who are destined to sail from Ireland to a penal colony in New South Wales in the 1800's. She is desperate to sort out what is real. What she knows in her waking life is that she is in hot water with her university. They didn't believe her when she reported her lover for sharing naked pictures of her online. They certainly won't believe that a dream may have led Lucy to attempt to strangle her ex while sleepwalking. She needs to get away, quickly, to think. With a postcard in hand, Lucy flees to Combers Bay, NSW to track down her sister, Jess. She needs somebody to talk to; somebody to believe her. When Lucy arrives, Jess is gone. Lucy quickly realizes that her sister, an artist, shares the same crazy dream. Visions are faithfully depicted on canvases. Where is Jess?? This isn't anything that Lucy can ask her parents because then she will have to tell them her secrets, too. Soon waves of dream and wake, past and present crash together to reveal the vibrant, magical truth.

Weyward was such a great read that I jumped at the opportunity to read this one. The premise of this book was so fascinating. As I was reading this one, I really got caught up in the story and enjoyed it a lot, however, at times I got a little confused as to what was happening. Things just felt a little muddled along the way and that was disappointing. I do feel that this one is geared towards a younger audience, maybe not quite YA, but not full adult either. It probably exists in that in between space, which isn’t bad at all, I just wasn’t expecting it. I did, however, particularly enjoy the blend of genres. This book seamlessly blends magical realism, sisterhood, generational trauma, and mystery all in one book. It was quite the journey. The fantasy aspect needed to be a little more flushed out so I could fully understand. There was a lot that was left up to the readers interpretation which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I just prefer things to be a little more clear.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad read, it just didn’t wow me like I had hoped. I would recommend it to those looking for a nice magical realism read.

This was not the book for me. If it had started in the middle, I would have been able to devour the tale. The first half was so meandering and slow that by the time I got to the 2nd half, I didn't care about the story any longer. I didn't connect to the characters. The backstory of Eliza and Mary and the splicing of time periods make the book drag. The few Irish catchphrases took me out of the narrative as I struggled to pronounce the words. It felt unnecessary. The thread around the missing men was the most compelling part of the novel.