Goodreads Monday (5/31/21) – The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

Hi again, bibliophiles!

Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme created by Lauren’s Page Turners. All you have to do to participate is pick a book from your Goodreads TBR, and explain why you want to read it.

Wrapping up my focus on AAPI authors for the month of May (though I’ll always try to pick diverse books from my TBR for this meme), here’s one I found out about more recently. (thanks, Phoenix!) I’m always on the hunt for good fantasy novels with mermaids in them, and I’m confident that this one will deliver.

Let’s begin, shall we?

GOODREADS MONDAY (5/31/21) – THE MERMAID, THE WITCH, AND THE SEA by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Blurb from Goodreads:

A desperate orphan turned pirate and a rebellious imperial daughter find a connection on the high seas in a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic.

Aboard the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl takes on the identity of Florian the man to earn the respect and protection of the crew. For Flora, former starving urchin, the brutal life of a pirate is about survival: don’t trust, don’t stick out, and don’t feel. But on this voyage, as the pirates prepare to sell their unsuspecting passengers into slavery, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is en route to a dreaded arranged marriage with her own casket in tow. Flora doesn’t expect to be taken under Evelyn’s wing, and Evelyn doesn’t expect to find such a deep bond with the pirate Florian. 

Soon the unlikely pair set in motion a wild escape that will free a captured mermaid (coveted for her blood, which causes men to have visions and lose memories) and involve the mysterious Pirate Supreme, an opportunistic witch, and the all-encompassing Sea itself.

So why do I want to read this?

I think I need to read more pirate books. Seems like the kind of thing that would be good for my soul.

I’ve become a little bit jaded with YA fantasy in the last year or so, but I think my faith is slowly being restored! The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea looks like it has everything that makes for a fantasy that I’ll adore. We’ve got:

✅Cross-dressing pirates

✅Sapphic romance

✅Mermaids

✅Witches

And the Sea itself as a character? I’m SO excited! We explored the concept of places as characters a lot in my AP English class last year, and this one sounds like a fascinating example.

The cherry on top? The cover, of course! It’s one of those covers that makes me notice something new every time I look at it – I didn’t notice the figures in the sea and in the clouds at first! GAH

In short, you had me at “sapphic fantasy with mermaids.” I’m a woman of simple tastes.

Since I already posted once today, check out my May 2021 Wrap-Up for today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Goodreads Monday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!