Despite the fact that the cover and jacket clearly show this is a mermaid book, Hannah does not actually turn into a mermaid until the last act of the book. Instead, she spends her time as a scullery maid feeling isolated, feeling threatened by one of the daughters of the household, and falling in love with a painter for no reason except that he is probably a mermaid too. This book was impossibly boring because nothing ever happened -- even after the big reveal, Hannah does nothing except swim at night. The conversations are so stilted and awkward that I kept having to read them two or three times to try and make sense of the nonsense.