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Growing up motherless in an isolated community, Malin Reed has always been made to feel different from everybody else. The fact that, according to Malin's father, the absent mother was actually a mermaid only makes matters worse. When Malin's father dies, leaving behind nothing but his stories, Malin's choice at last becomes clear: stay, and never feel at home, or leave and go in search of mermaids and the fantastical inheritance that, up to now, has always seemed completely out of reach. a picaresque journey that crosses oceans and continents - from the high seas to desert plains, from a time of slavery to life in a circus - until it finally leads to a discovery that is the very last thing Malin would ever have expected... Beautifully written and hauntingly strange, set in an unspecified historical past, The Mermaid's Child is a remarkable piece of storytelling, weaving together the fantastical and the inevitable through the power of the imagination.
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Okay, so, this book was written very lyrically, and it wasn't bad. The problem is that it is marketed as something very different than it is! The back cover blurb talks about mermaids and fantasy, and feels a bit uplifting–that is not what this book is. It seems to be more along the lines of historical fiction, and . . . well, not uplifting. A “meditation on an adventurous but lonely life of struggle” seems more appropriate. It's not the sort of thing I would read normally, and if the blurb had reflected that, I would have known to stay away, haha.
If you like historical fiction though, particularly about the visceral struggles of being a woman in a man's seafaring world, you'll probably love it!