Author(s): Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Senior Fiction | Read our reviews!

In a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic, a desperate orphan turned pirate and a rebellious imperial lady find a connection on the high seas. 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, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is headed to an arranged marriage she dreads. 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. . Neither expects to fall in love. Soon the unlikely pair set in motion a wild escape that will free a captured mermaid (coveted for her blood) and involve the mysterious Pirate Supreme, an opportunistic witch, double agents, and the all-encompassing Sea herself. Deftly entwining swashbuckling action and quiet magic, Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s inventive debut novel conjures a diverse cast of characters seeking mastery over their fates while searching for answers to big questions about identity, power, and love. 

_______________________
STELLA'S REVIEW:
Maggie Tokuda-Hall's debut, The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea, took a few chapters to crank up the gears, but once it got going it was all hands on deck. Flora/Florian is our main protagonist. Orphaned and alone in the world with her brother, they are taken aboard the pirate ship Dove, after proving themselves—a trial by knife! Flora quickly learns to fight, clean the deck and tough it out like the pirates and takes on her boy selfhood to survive in the cutthroat world of piracy. She’s also the sound one in the sister/brother relationship. When the young Lady Evelyn Hasegawa is promised in marriage—much to her annoyance—to an up-and-coming lord on a far-flung island, passage comes in the form of a berth on the Dove. But not all is what it seems on the Dove, and an arranged marriage isn’t the worst thing that’s planned for Evelyn. Meeting Florian changes the path plotted for Evelyn by her parents, who couldn’t wait to be unbridled from their disappointment, and the pirates who have trading in mind. A relationship blossoms between the young people, one that will surprise and eventually delight them both. But there's a long and complicated road towards this delight (be warned—it is bittersweet), twisting and turning in unexpected ways and involving spies on the sea, wealthy imperialists, the Pirate Supreme who seeks vengeance against those that harm the Sea, an ancient Witch on the Floating Island who will reveal more than she intended and The Sea herself and her mermaids who come to rescue those who respect them and curse those who do not. It’s high drama, in turns both brutal and delicate, on the sea with dark magic and gender fluidity. And the ending suggests there will be more adventures to follow.