True to its name, "The Sirens" captivates, lyrically drawing you into a mystical swirl of mystery, historical fiction, and female empowerment.

Told in a dual timeline, the novel fundamentally focuses on the lives of sisters Mary and Eliza, who were passengers on a convict ship sailing to Australia in the 1800s. Wrongfully imprisoned and suffering from horrid conditions, the twins have nothing left to cling to but each other. Far in the future, we enter the life of Lucy, a young woman who is grappling with strange nightmares and sleepwalking that has navigated her straight into trouble. Lucy flees to a coastal town to seek refuge with her older sister, Jess. From then on, the reader is taken on a journey exploring not just the bonds of sisterhood, but also the bonds between both timelines.

Across the board, I found the characters likeable and relatable. There is a strong magical realism thread to this book that dips its toes into fantasy. I read and enjoyed Emilia Hart's "Weyward," but I enjoyed this one even more.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Emilia Hart for an advance copy for honest review. Barrie Kreinik performed the narration and did an excellent job of bringing all characters to life convincingly.

The Sirens by Emilia Hart

Who knew that dreams could be so powerful. When Lucy awakens one night with her hands wrapped around her ex-lovers throat, she feels to her sister’s house, hoping she can help explain the vivid dreams. Lucy’s ex-lover honestly deserved that.

Mary and Elizabeth are twin sisters who fear the ocean because their mother drowned when they were little. But they start to notice changes to their bodies and they begin to feel the sea calling to them.

I thought the dual POVs were interesting. But I definitely found Lucy’s story a little more interesting. When Lucy’s sister is no where to be found, she starts to do some digging and brings to read her sister’s diary. We learn more about Lucy’s sister Jess and why she missed Lucy’s recent birthday. Her life changes forever when she reads that diary. I was shocked to hear what she found inside of it! I didn’t see the ending coming at all.

The twists in this story were great! This book was definitely dark but interesting. This was very different from what I normally read/listen to but I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much. Barrie did a wonderful job narrating! I’m glad I was able to listen to it. I did find it a little slow so I think if I had read it, it would have taken me a lot longer to finish it. I’m looking forward to reading more books by Emilia.

Thank you so much NetGalley, Emilia and Macmillan Audio for the E-ALC! I was so excited to be able to listen to this!

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Publication: April 1 2025

#NetGalley

The Sirens by Emilia Hart is a multi-layered puzzle of a book, grounded in the contemporary world while hinting at the fantastical just a hair’s-breadth away. As with her powerful book, Wayward, I’d recommend reading trigger warnings before starting this title.

The Sirens is perfect for readers who like:
- Multiple points-of-view
- Multiple timelines
- Stories grounded in a contemporary setting but with fantastical elements
- Mermaids
- Sister stories
- Mystery facets
- Feminine rage
- Epistolary elements (journal entries)

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audiobook ARC. I look forward to reading whatever Emilia Hart dreams up next!

I was so excited to read this book and thrilled when I was approved for an ARC. I was drawn to the cover, the title, and the description. I really liked Weyward and was hoping for another good book from Emilia Hart. However, I found this new novel very difficult to read. The pacing was slow and I just couldn't connect with the characters. Unfortunately the book was a DNF for me at about 65%, but I did push through on the audiobook to see how it ended. The narration helped a bit, but I still struggled to finish the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing an ARC in exchange for honest thoughts.

I gave this book 2 Stars

The Sirens
By Emilia Hart
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Book of year: 12
Favorite Quote:
She asked Lucy to make a choice but, sometimes there is no choice, only love.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read The Sirens by Emilia Hart.
After finishing Weyward, I knew I needed more of Emilia Hart’s storytelling. I love the way she weaves multiple perspectives from different time periods, seamlessly bringing them together in a powerful way. This seems to be an emerging genre, and I’m finding myself drawn to it more and more.
The Sirens follows four women across different eras: Lucy in 2019, her sister Jess in 1999, whose story unfolds through the pages of her adolescent diary, and Mary and Eliza in 1800. Hart has a remarkable ability to tug at my heartstrings, making me deeply admire these women despite the hardships they endure.
I had no idea where this book was going to take me, and its quiet, unexpected twists kept surprising me. Emilia Hart is quickly becoming an auto-read author for me!

4.25/5. Thanks to Ms. Hart, the publisher, and Netgalley for the advanced listening copy!

This is my first Emilia Hart book read, but Weyward is also on my list for this year. And now I am very excited to read Weyward. This was a wonderful introduction to Ms. Hart's writing.

The story follows Lucy, a college student who wakes up to find herself strangling a man who has done her wrong. Her first thought is to go to her sister, Jess, who she hasn't seen in quite a while but feels safe with. Once she gets there, though, Jess isn't there. In Lucy's quest to find her sister, she ends up unraveling long held family secrets - and secrets of the town she's drawn to.

Part of that discovery is Lucy reading her sister's diary from 20 years earlier, revealing the answers to mysteries through another set of eyes. These come to us just as they come to Lucy with every page turn.

Interwoven in that story is the story of Mary and Eliza, prisoners on a ship to Australia in the 1800s. Parts of Jess and Lucy's story is reflected in this past, young girls finding out just what they truly are and how to embrace it.

This novel has a bit of everything I like: mystery, murder, mermaids. The prose itself is very beautiful, evoking a real sense of place for me. The narrator, Barrie Kreinik, is also a fantastic addition. Overall, an audiobook I will have no issue recommending to friends.

Sirens written by Emilia Hart and wonderfully narrated by Barrie Kreinik is a story within a story within a story. Part historical fiction, part mystery and ultimately resolution and revenge- through three different timelines, at least the way I see it. I enjoyed the escape the story provided and expect that others will also. Although in many ways the story coasted along, it did keep my interest to the end.
Thank you to NetGalley, MacMillan Audio and the author for the opportunity to listen to this ARC/ALC.

I loved this story, but I have to admit I got confused some throughout the switching narratives. There was a connection between several girls both from the past to the present that were drawn to the water/cliff edge. The culmination and revelations toward the end were somewhat unexpected and very interesting, but I felt like I missed some of the detail earlier on in the setup just trying to figure out the dynamics between characters.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of the audiobook to review.

My biggest issue with this book is that the build up felt very slow. The first third dragged while the last third flew by. I do think the book did very well to tie the different timelines together and showcase how throughout history and even today, women have been treated unfairly, persecuted, and taking advantage of. Australia’s history as a penal colony is not unknown, but the stories of women who suffered exile are still somehow lost in the tale. It is that history that is the most compelling part of the book for me along with the female relationships.

4 / 5 ⭐️

Thank you Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this ARC.

The Sirens by Emilia Hart is a hauntingly beautiful tale of feminine rage and sisterhood with a hefty dose of magical realism.

This book is told in 3 POVs: First, Lucy in 2019, running from a mistake brought on by a boy she trusted who turned on her. She goes to find her sister Jess, only to find her house on a small town cliffside mysteriously empty and unlocked, her things left behind. Here, she hides from the world and discovers secrets hidden for years. Next, Mary, stuck on a cargo ship with her sister Eliza. They have been exiled from their home of Ireland with only rumors and fear for what their future holds on the prison island of Australia. Finally, we hear from Jess, mainly from her 20 year old diary, telling the story of her vulnerable teenage years struggling with problems unlike those of her peers.

The audio of this book sets the scenes spectacularly. For me (an American with no knowledge of accents), her voice acting pulled me into the setting perfectly, allowing seamless transitions from present day small-town Australia to the cargo hold full of Irish women, dark and dripping drifting further and further from their home.

This book is great for lovers of character-driven stories with themes focused on finding ones identity, healing from trauma, and discovering generational secrets. The plot twists are somewhat obvious but it did not manage to ruin my enjoyment of the story. I don't recommend this for anyone looking for a high fantasy with epic stakes, you won't find that here.

CW: revenge porn mention, adult/minor relationship, confinement, sexual assault, violence, sexism, pregnancy/miscarriage

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing an ALC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

A huge thank you to Emilia Hart, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of The Sirens! I received both an eArc and ALC. Both were wonderful, and the narration was exceptionally well done.

Emilia is a mastermind when it comes to her writing. Set against the backdrop of two compelling timelines, we follow the lives of two sisters from the 1800s who are thrust onto a convict ship bound for Australia. Fast-forward to 2019, where we meet Lucy and her older sister—a pair who, though vastly different, are connected in unexpected ways.

The alternating timelines and dual sisterly perspectives were a great choice, giving us a rich, layered narrative as the stories of the past and present weave together in a way that feels both eerie and magical.

This book is not just a historical fantasy; it’s a beautifully crafted tale of transformation and the deep, sometimes haunting connections between women. As a lover of siren mythology (I’m a firm believer in their existence, by the way :] !), this story had me completely captivated. The sirens here are as enchanting as they are mysterious, adding an intriguing layer to the plot.

That said, my one critique would be that the action doesn't really pick up until around the 60%-70% mark. While I appreciated the time spent unraveling the backstories of the characters, I personally would have loved a bit more momentum earlier on.

And I definitely did not see that coming in the ending!!

Thank you once again to Emilia Hart, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for the early access. The Sirens will be available on April 1, 2025—mark your calendars and add it to your TBR shelf!

Weyward was one of my favorite books of 2023, so naturally I had to get my hands on this one as soon as I saw it.

Hart always has a way of writing the natural landscape within her novels that feels like they are coming to life. I really feel like I am wherever she is writing in that moment. She has a gift for writing the female experience, specifically relating to trauma and the healing process and transforming it into resilience and strength within a layer of magical realism.

This was wonderful take on a classic siren tale, weaving together storylines over 200 years apart masterfully. If you have read Hart's previous work or simply enjoy losing yourself within a story that allows you to shift between reality and magic, I highly recommend this book.

The audiobook is also done beautifully and brings the lyrical elements within the story to life.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio and St. Martin's Press for both the digital and audio ARC's in exchange for an honest review.

Fans of Weyward will love Emilia Hart’s newest release, The Sirens.
It’s a grounded fantasy, set primarily in 2019, so I’d say it’s more like contemporary fiction, with fantasy elements. That’s actually some of my favorite stuff now— contemporary, believable, but with a unique twist. Whether it’s Sci-Fi, Fantasy, surrealism, supernatural.
The main story is a mystery about a woman named Lucy, who goes to a remote seaside town in Australia to reconnect with her sister, Jess, but when she arrives, she finds her sister is gone. No one knows where she went, and she’s kind of caused a ruckus in the town with her art, so she’s not particularly well liked there. While trying to track Jess down, she finds out that men have been disappearing from the town without a trace, but they’re all kind of bad guys so the women in the town feel like the sea mother is protecting them. Lucy starts to unravel a bunch of family secrets, a bunch of history she didn’t know about her sister, and she begins to feel a pull toward the sea.
I really liked the seaside setting, which provides a moody, atmospheric backdrop that is very different from the posh Newport, Cape Cod, or Italian coastal settings that have dominated books lately.
There’s a poetry to the natural world that feels wild and messy and mysterious and feminine and the author does a great job weaving in Native lore and mythology, all of which gives the book a magic.
One of the timelines, which follows two sisters as they cross the ocean in 1800, wasn’t as compelling to me. It’s well-written, but the pacing was already pretty slow-burn, so I could’ve done without slowing it down with the ship journey.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillian Audio for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I loved reading Weyward last year, so I was very excited to get a sneak peek at Hart’s latest novel. With this book, she has cemented herself as a master of weaving multiple POVs and timelines seamlessly, even hundreds of years apart.

Here, we see the stories of two sets of sisters who lived in the 1800s and 2019. Hart writes whimsically, keeping the reader interested and wanting to dig deeper into the stories. I had no difficulty following the two different stories/timelines. This novel is part fantasy and part historical fiction, and it is an interesting mix for sure.

I think Hart made a stronger connection between the characters in Weyward. In The Sirens, she attempted to do this again, but while they are connected, it’s not quite as strong, and there is a big plot hole in the timeline between the two.

I enjoyed the book overall, but it didn’t live up to the writing in Weyward for me. To be clear, the two books are not linked at all, I just had certain expectations about Hart based on her debut novel. I wish Hart had incorporated more of the fantasy/magical elements of the story, they are there, but I would have liked to see more detail/emphasis on these. I never felt connected to the characters here as I did when reading Weyward.

I liked The Sirens, but if you were to ask me which of Hart’s books to read, the answer is Weyward, hands down.

3.75/5

I was really looking forward to this because I did enjoy Weyward.

Pros: Magical Realism felt like a eerie fairytale, the main characters were interesting, and I liked the horror elements to the story.

Cons: The twist was SO predictable and I wanted to just get the big reveal out of the way because it was very obvious.

Overall, I think this book had a lot of potential and I could see the strings of what it could have been, but we just got a lot of nothing from the story. Somethings were big deals and then they weren’t that big of a deal later in the book. It just felt like nothing was resolved really in the end.

When I started this book, I thought I was going to end up giving it a 2 star review, though I was determined to finish it. It just didn't reach out and grab me for longer than a book usually takes to do so. After having finished it the only reason I'm not giving it a 5 star review is because it took me much longer to really start reading it (like can't put it down reading it) than it should have, which means something wasn't gelling at the beginning.

By about 1/4 in I was hooked and I tore through the last 3/4 of the book in one day. That being said, I also gave up on reading it a few times before I got that first 1/4 down. Ultimately I did love it and I hope that if the premise at all appeals to you, you DO give it a bit more grace than you might otherwise be inclined to, it really does make it more than worth it in the end!

I listened to this on audio and my lack of initial interest should not at all be attributed to the narrator, who was a delight and had an accent that both fit the story and heightened my enjoyment of it. At times I felt like I was in the characters head and living in their world and I know that she played a part in that.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The melancholy tone of “The Sirens” seeped in through the audiobook performed brilliantly by Barrie Kreinik. The thick atmosphere left its mark. I became pensive while listening to this, my mind couldn't seem to leave this world even while I was otherwise occupied. (I kept joking to myself that a siren's call was pulling me back.) 🌊

A dual timeline sets the stage for this poignant story of sisters, sea, and song. Its slow meandering start anchors this moody read. There is a search for self that multiple characters embark upon each in their own way. The question...Who am I, really? is explored at length. The early chapters have a lot to unpack, but they ground these characters in reality providing a sense of sadness and depth. The characters' desperation made the magical elements feel hard won. The first timeline is set in 1800 with twin sisters Mary and Eliza aboard a convict ship ⚓ in atrocious living conditions headed to New South Wales. The 2019 timeline is mostly told from Lucy's perspective as the younger of two sisters interspersed with entries from her older sister Jes's teenage diary 📔. Lucy sleepwalks into her former lover's bedroom and wakes with her hands clutching his throat after he humiliates her by sharing private photos that end up online. Lucy panics over her actions and flees to her sister's home. She remembers Jes sleepwalking in the past. Does she still?

A haunting sense of dread enveloped me while listening. I could visualize every detail easily and my heart 💔 went out to each of these women. I think some may pick this up expecting fantasy given the title and gorgeous cover art, but it isn't. I would say it's historical fiction, women's fiction and magical realism. It's a gritty tale with an undercurrent of feminism running through it.

If you're looking for a light mermaid tale 🧜🏻‍♀️this, isn't it, but if you loved Hart's debut, “Weyward” 🐦‍⬛ chances are good that this will work for you too.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing an Advance Listening Copy for review. All opinions are my own.

The Sirens is a story told in two timelines, 2019 following Lucy and 1800 following Mary and Eliza.
In 2019, Lucy wakes up from a dream and realizes that she was actually trying to choke her ex. She tries to convince everyone that she was sleeping while choking him. But Lucy doesn't think they'll believe her after the incident of her ex sharing intimate photos on her online. She chooses to run away for help to her sister Jess, only to discover that she is missing. Back in Jess's town, Lucy hears tales of strange disappearances of men and a baby that was found abandoned in a cave. Lucy finds her sister's hidden diary and starts her road to discovery.

In 1800 we follow the story of Mary and Eliza's transformation as they're forced onto a ship leaving Ireland and going to Australia.

This story was beautiful, whimsical, and tragic. This is a great story on feminism and fantasy. If you've read Emilia Hart before, I'm sure you already are aware of how stunning her writing is. This book was no different. She also does a fantastic job writing her characters. I felt connected to them and a strong empathy.

I also appreciated that this story had so much mystery to it. I was immediately intrigued by the stories of all four of these women and to find out what happened to them. I received the audiobook from NetGalley and the narrator, Barrie Kreinik, did a fantastic job as well. The narration was engaging and clear.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this audiobook. All opinions are my own.


TW: Adult/minor relationship, sexual assault, violence, confinement, sexism, pregnancy

4.5 rounded up

Narrator: The narrator did a wonderful job bringing this story to life. Especially when she sung the lyrics in the story. Absolutely beautiful!

Story: The audiobook kept me wanting more and I finished it in one day. The characters, the history, the twists tied well together. It was an interesting and captivating story. The main female characters of the story were beautifully written and I enjoyed watching how they developed throughout the story.

The timeline does switch throughout the story, but it is a smooth transition and easy to follow. I liked how the story is broken up into three parts, each serving a specific purpose in the story. I especially enjoyed part 3 and how it all came together.

I highly recommend adding this book to your TBR!

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the advance audiobook.

Okay, I'm bored in the house and I'm in the house bored

The story is so slow. Literally nothing happens in the first 50% the time line switches aren't seamless and its just awkward.
I wanted the woman rage, feminism etc but instead it was just a bit awkward.
Our main character sleeps with a student who then takes images or film of their activities and so she gets mad and attacks him and then flees the school because they wouldn't believe her.
She is both the aggressor (sleeping with a student) and then the victim (of the filmed activities) and then the aggressor again (assault) and then she decides this is the time to connect to her sister in another city she never talks to. But then her sister isn't there and she becomes a strange researcher of the 1800s . It didn't work for me . If this plot would have been avoided (student teacher ) this could have been a better story.