"Hart has firmly cemented herself as a master of multi-timeline storytelling and feminist gothic fiction."
After being captivated by Emlia Hart’s Weyward, I was eager to dive into her new novel The Sirens, and it didn’t disappoint. Once again, Hart delivers a spellbinding story that deftly moves across timelines, generations, and mysteries, drawing the reader into a richly atmospheric world where the past refuses to stay buried.
At its heart, The Sirens is a tale of sisters. In the early 19th century, Mary and Eliza are transported from Ireland to New Zealand as prisoners, their perilous ocean voyage steeped in hardship, secrets, and whispers of the miraculous. In the present day, sisters Jess and Lucy are pulled into Mary and Eliza’s story through hauntingly vivid dreams that blur the line between memory and imagination. Hart also threads in passages from Jess’s teenage diary, adding yet another lens through which truth slowly comes into focus.
As the narrative unfolds, Hart reveals a mystery that has echoed across centuries: the miraculous birth of a child named Hope and the strange, recurring disappearances of men. Each fragment of story - past, present, and deeply personal - gradually interlocks until the full picture emerges, and with it, an unforgettable meditation on resilience, sisterhood, and the legacy of untold histories.
Hart’s prose is both lyrical and propulsive, balancing the gothic atmosphere of the sea crossing with the intimacy of family bonds in the modern day. Her ability to juggle three strands of narrative without losing momentum is remarkable, and the slow-burn unravelling of the central mystery is deeply satisfying.
Much like Weyward, The Sirens is a novel about women finding their voices in the face of oppression, about how the echoes of the past continue to ripple forward, shaping the present. It’s haunting, immersive, and beautifully crafted - a story that lingers long after the final page.
| Primary Genre | Fantasy |
| Other Genres: |
Lucy is running from what she's done - and what someone did to her.
There's only one person who might understand: her sister Jess. But when Lucy arrives at her sister's desolate cliff-top house, Jess is gone.
Lucy is now alone, in a strange town steeped in rumour. Stories of men disappearing without a trace. A foundling discovered in a sea-swept cave. And women's voices murmuring on the waves…
As Lucy searches for her sister, those voices get ever louder. They tell of two sisters, two centuries ago, bound and transported across the world. A world where men always get their way. A world that is at once distant, and achingly familiar.
Are these voices luring Lucy closer to her sister? Or will the secrets of the past pull them both under?
The Sirens features in the following genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Narrative theme: Journeys and voyages, Myths and Legends / Mythic fiction, Speculative fiction, Mythical creatures: Mermaids, mermen and other water spirits or beings
The Sirens is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Sirens was written by Emilia Hart and published by The Borough Press an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
The Sirens has 384 pages
