First-time author Sarah Porter reimagines the mermaid myth in a thought-provoking tale of transformation. Fourteen-year-old Lucette lost her mother to a ruptured appendix, and her father to the sea, and she's left with her uncle in an Alaskan fishing village. One night, Luce is pursued by her drunken uncle, and he nearly rapes her. She flees him and steps off of a cliff. But instead of falling to her death, she transforms into a "metaskaza" and is immediately adopted by a tribe of beautiful young mermaids.
The mermaids not only transform physically but, like the sirens of legend, they also gain the gift of song, and Luce's song is spectacular. She immediately becomes indispensable to Catarina, queen of the tribe, and learns to follow the "timahk," or code of honor among mermaids. But Luce is torn: she loves singing and the power it gives her, yet she detests its purpose--after all, her beloved father died at sea. Porter's prose extolling the majesty of the ocean and the enchantment of the mermaids' music, plus the suspenseful series of shipwrecks, will keep readers turning the pages. At times, the secondary characters' actions can be inconsistent, such as Dana who at first aligns herself with Luce and seems to have a strong moral compass, but later abandons her. But the supporting characters' motives may be addressed in the planned later installments. Porter excels in her depiction of Luce struggling to master the voice she's been given as she tries to bend it into a tool of forgiveness rather than destruction. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness