I’ve had this book on my Amazon wishlist since the cover was revealed in the early stages of publication and promotion. The premise of mermaids following slave ships was a heartbreaking new take on the mythical creatures and their creation story. I was equally excited, and emotionally warry to dive into this world and explore these characters.

Initially I was under the impression that the entire story would take place in the ocean. I quickly realized that would not be the case. Our MC Simi became a mermaid (Mami Wata) after being thrown overboard from a slave ship, and is now tasked with capturing the souls of other slaves who endure her same fate. Simi ends up finding a teenage boy who has been thrown overboard who is barely alive, and doesn’t have it in her heart to let the ocean claim him. In saving this boy she dooms the rest of her kind to the wrath of the highest god. Her creator warns her that she must now travel on land with this boy in order to set things back on the right path.

I initially did not like our male MC. While I can sympathize with his situation (he was beaten to the brink of death and thrown into the ocean, then rescued by a mermaid) when he regains consciousness he harms Simi, and then begins demanding and manipulating her into giving him what he wants. To say he didn’t give off a great first impression to me as the reader would be an understatement. But I tried to understand that he was in survival mode with adrenaline coursing through him, and his mind was solely focused on the steps he needed to take to get back to his village.

From this point in the novel we begin uncovering more of the mythical lore, understanding the gods and goddesses hierarchy and structure, as well as encountering other mythical creatures along the way. The first 60% of the book I was intrigued, engaged, and excited to see what would happen next. However once our characters reached the village I began losing interest.

It was at this point that we are introduced to a character who I immediately spotted as being out of place, and who ended up being the ultimate bad guy. The novel also became repetitive and formulaic in the way we moved from event to event, catastrophe to catastrophe. The characters were put in harm's way so many times that I stopped caring that they were in harm's way. I became desensitized, and hadn’t formed enough of a bond to the characters to particularly care what periles lay ahead.

Despite the character’s stories unfolding through flashbacks and via their own storytelling, I didn’t become as attached to them as I wanted to. Our main characters were well written and fleshed out, with character arcs that made sense narratively. I think my distaste for the repetition in the plot structure, as well as the story taking place primarily on land when I expected to be reading about the ocean, formed a disconnect I couldn’t recover from.

The strongest part of the novel for me was the beginning where we discover why the Mami Wata were created, how the gods and goddesses have been trying to avenge their people by tracking and destroying the slave ships and villages, as well as the truly heartbreaking scenes where Simi is collecting the souls of those thrown overboard. I think if I had gone into this novel understanding we’d be on land a majority of the time I might have had a different reading experience.