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Reviewed by:
  • Mermaid Moon by Susann Cokal
  • Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor
Cokal, Susann Mermaid Moon. Candlewick, 2020 [492p]
Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-5362-0959-4 $22.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-5362-1179-5 $22.99
Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 8-12

Under the guidance of a sea witch, mermaid Sanna turns her tail into legs and goes ashore to the Thirty-Seven Dark Islands to find any information about her landish mother. She is taken for a saint and a maker of miracles by the islands’ toiling residents when the magic she’s just barely controlling begins to leak out, turning white roses red and reshaping their iconic statue of Our Lady of the Sea. Thyrla, baroness of the islands and a witch in her own right, will not stand for another adored female in her land and, in an attempt to neutralize the threat, betroths Sanna to her loathsome son, traps her in the castle, and plans to use Sanna’s blood to extend her own life. The sense of dark intrigue and strange fantasy evoked by the fairy tale motifs is unfortunately muted by Cokal’s static prose, and the tension between good and evil plays out with little action at a stumbling pace. Thyrla, however, is a villain on par with Maleficent, cool, calculating, and so invested in power that she’s willingly sacrificed nearly her entire family—including children she specifically bore to kill—to keep her hold on the island and her youth. It’s the revelation of her love for her son that makes her the most complicated, if not sympathetic, character here, a far more interesting foil to pure-hearted Sanna. Though it lacks the polish of Lanagan’s The Brides of Rollrock Island (BCCB 9/12) or Fama’s Monstrous Beauty (BCCB 10/12), this is still a haunting tale of love, betrayal, and family, on land and in sea. [End Page 299]

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