In Great Waters

by Kit Whitfield

During a time of great upheaval, the citizens of Venice make a pact that will change the world. The landsmen of the city broker a treaty with a water-dwelling tribe of deepsmen, cementing the alliance through marriage. The mingling of the two races produces a fresh, peerless strain of royal blood. To protect their shores, other nations make their own partnerships with this new breed–and then, jealous of their power, ban any further unions between the two peoples. Dalliance with a deepswoman becomes punishable by death. Any “bastard” child must be destroyed.

This is an Earth where the legends of the deep are true–where the people of the ocean are as real and as dangerous as the people of the land. This is the world of intrigue and betrayal that Kit Whitfield brings to life in an unforgettable alternate history: the tale of Anne, the youngest princess of a faltering England, struggling to survive in a troubled court, and Henry, a bastard abandoned on the shore to face his bewildering destiny, finding himself a pawn in a game he does not understand.
Yet even a pawn may checkmate a king.

Genres: Fantasy, Mermaids, Historical, Young Adult, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Alternate History

405 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2009

About the author

Kit Whitfield grew up in London. In her time, she has trained as a chef and a masseur, as well as working as a website editor, quote hunter, toy shop assistant and publisher.

Reviews

[Lightreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, that is a book. It was described to me as “young adult mermaid romance,” and after having read it I am here to tell you only one of those things is true, and that’s the mermaids.

This is alternate history England, where half-bred landsmen/deepsmen are the royal houses of Europe for geopolitical reasons. The book tracks the young lives of the spare English princess and a half-breed child tossed up onto the beach.

I’m not doing this well, I’m making it sound all . . . ordinary. This book isn’t – this book is – okay. This book is uncomfortable. It runs with chilly currents, and it stressed me out. It is strong and controlled and balanced, and it does not flinch – that was my job. I have a purely idiosyncratic dislike for ‘foundling from the wild’ stories, and this book starts out that way, much to my grumbling. But within five pages I had stopped and breathed in and said wow at least twice. I realized, 90% of the way through, that I had no idea how things were going to come out, down to whether we’d have a celebratory feast or all of the main cast would be summarily executed. This almost never happens to me – figuring books out is pretty much what I do, even when I don’t want to. And when I can’t it’s usually because they’re inept or unfair or sloppy. With this book it’s because it’s just that good, that tensely gripped to the outer political narrative and the inner psychological one.

Seven ways of saying it was really good, because I’m actually having a hard time talking about it. Thematically difficult, because nearly everything in this book is a weight-bearing element, and the exact opposite of cuddly, and just. Wow.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whistle knows he's not like everyone else. His lungs give out after only a half hour underwater, and his tail is strangely divided. Finally, his mother gives up on him and casts him out onto the land, where a scholar takes him in and tries to civilize him.

This could be an interesting tale (heh) of a fish out of water (heh) with a critique of colonialism and humanism running beneath it. But then we get the explanation of *why* Henry/Whistle is being raised, and to me, the explanation turns this book into something even greater.

In Great Waters is a cross between British history, and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, but with mermaids. It sounds like crack, but Whitfield is an incredible writer. As in Benighted, fantastical creatures are used to people and complicate a world that is recognizable but a bit off. Issues of power and control, of who gets to make decisions, of what world-view is acknowledged, how history is created, of how norms are created/overturned/reaffirmed--all of it roils through her books. Physicality has a power here that few authors acknowledge, from the calloused hands of lycanthropes in Benighted to the curved backs and crutches of royalty here. These are the books I would give to anyone who doubts that fantasy can still have new things to say.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review originally published here.

Why I Read It: This was the April selection for Calico Reaction's Theme Park book club. You may also have noticed that this isn't actually on my review cue (over on the left). That's because I actually just finished this last night. I bumped it up and decided to review it today because I'd rather review a book club pick while it's still fresh in my mind. :) There will probably be spoilers, so read ahead with caution.

I have to admit, when I first started reading this I found it was SO SLOW. The first couple of chapters chronicling Henry's abandonment and then err.. adoption? by the Allards, felt like they meandered at times. I *liked* learning about the merpeople during Henry's very early years, and I liked the story of how the Venetians made their pact with the deepsmen, but the rest of those beginning chapters felt slow-moving: we get to see Henry's thought-processes in excruciating detail and it's a lot of him being angry, tearing stuff up, and trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I am forgiving of this slow beginning though because it really is necessary in characterizing Henry.

Once we get to the second part of the novel which introduces us to Anne's POV I found things picked up a bit. It's where the political intrigue is introduced, and we get to see how things work in the court. It's still not action-packed or anything -- it's very much about the political machinations of the court -- but Anne was an extremely likable heroine, so reading her story arc was really enjoyable. She starts off as a meek and quiet girl who tries to hide behind her less-than stellar looks and anxieties to keep out of harm's way, but she really grows into her own and learns to be independent and really seizes her agency; she refuses to be a pawn in a game and vies to take control while still maintaining her moral integrity (though she often questions that as well, though she never becomes indecisive). By the time her and Henry meet and hatch their own plan I was already so invested in her story and was quite hooked (heh) by that point.

So as you can probably already tell, I liked Anne quite a bit more than Henry. I tried to be sympathetic towards him -- he was thrust out of the sea and into the arms of people who keep him hidden constantly and rarely give him answers -- but he was such a BRAT sometimes. He's very demanding and entitled and it drove me up a wall sometimes. His friendship with John redeemed him somewhat in that it made him more likable, but he was still bossy towards him. I never once found myself rooting for him to take the throne, and when I was, it was for Anne's sake. As much as Henry drove me kind of crazy though, I did admire his resolution at times; his refusal to lie for the sake of appearances, and his disdain for court politics elevated him in my eyes, even when I wanted to shake him for being so stubborn and unchanging. So even though I never loved Henry, he wasn't a BAD character, nor did he mar my liking of the story. I never warmed up to him, but I understood why he was the way he was.

Despite there being such a focus on characters in this novel I should mention the awesome world-building. I love that this is a world ruled by people who are half mermaid and half human (though Anne's relatives are so in-bred I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate). The "origin" story of Angelica and the Venetians was awesome and I loved it, and the fact that other nations would want such a strong pact with the deepsman makes so much sense, especially when you consider that places like England and Scotland are islands, and that half of France borders the ocean. The rituals involved with the royalty and the deepsman was also really cool, and everything just felt really well thought out; it honestly felt like that reality could be TRUE if merpeople actually existed.

Final Verdict: This book was a definite win for me. It started out really slow, but it didn't take too long for things to pick up, and when they did, they REALLY did. I was much more invested in Anne's story arc than in Henry's, but that didn't tarnish my enjoyment of the novel as a whole. Even though I wasn't Henry's biggest fan, he wasn't a BAD character and he had some redeeming qualities that added some layers to him, even though he was so stubborn and unchanging. The world-building was another great aspect of the novel where beings who are half merpeople and half human rule the courts, and it was AWESOME. It made a lot of sense to me and was so well conceived and thought out that it felt like something that could actually happen. So yeah, I really enjoyed this book and definitely want to check out Whitfield's other novel Benighted.

[jesse]

A first contact story set in the royal courts of 17th century Europe, a meditation on the meaning of human and animal nature, and a chilly and refreshingly unromantic love story, In Great Waters combines fantasy, science fiction, and historical fiction and grounds them all in two prickly, defensive, quite literally cold-blooded protagonists, Henry and Anne, a human-mermaid hybrid with designs on the English throne and the princess he means to unseat. Along the way it discusses morality, religion, and the storytelling impulse, giving us a decidedly inhuman perspective on these three quintessentially human activities and weighing their benefits and drawbacks. This is a rich--and richly told--novel that gives no quarter to sentimentality or romanticism, and is all the better for it. [1]

Said premise is that merpeople, here called deepsmen, exist, following the ocean currents in nomadic tribes, vulnerable to human contraptions like fishing nets, but also capable of ripping apart most sailing vessels. In the 9th century, an alliance was struck between deepsmen and the city of Venice. A human-deepsman half-breed named Angelica secured the city's naval superiority by directing her tribe's attacks on the foreign fleets besieging it, married the Venetian Doge, and dispersed her children and grandchildren among the royal courts of Europe. For a seafaring nation, a ruler with deepsman blood, who could secure the protection of their local tribe and direct them to attack the fleet of their nation's enemies, quickly became a necessity. Whitfield constructs a world in which royalty is less a social or political construct than it is a function of biology, with characters often referring to the physiological attributes of hybrids, such as their vertebrate legs (actually bifurcated tails) as the attributes of royalty. This simultaneously strengthens and weakens the position of the royal families, who on the one hand can't be ousted by power-hungry but fully human nobles, but on the other hand are vulnerable to attacks from any sailor's bastard (a word which in Whitfield's novel is applied exclusively to non-royal half-breeds), or from hybrids deliberately created by those same nobles. The conception or concealment of bastards is thus outlawed and punishable by death--a sentence which is also applied to the hybrids--but as the decades and centuries pass the royal houses of Europe become more and more interbred, until a healthy, sane, and fertile royal is the exception rather than the rule, and by the time the novel opens (an exact date is never given, but the setting feels 16th-17th century) are so weak as to be ripe for the picking.

Into this world come our two protagonists, Henry and Anne. Henry is a bastard, raised for the first five years of his life underwater with his mother's tribe, then abandoned on the English shore when he--weaker and slower than full-blooded deepsmen--becomes too troublesome for his mother to protect and care for. He's found by a scholar named Allard, who brings him to the attention of Lord Claybrook, a high ranking courtier who has his eye on the English throne. Anne is the youngest princess of the failing English royal house. Her grandfather Edward, the current king, is old, and though her father William is healthy, the heir presumptive is his brother Philip, a physically and mentally handicapped dead end. William tries to secure his line's survival by marrying the Romanian princess Erzebet, but their union produces only daughters--Anne and her older sister Mary--and though Mary is entirely healthy and mostly human in her appearance, Anne is a genetic throwback whose face is phosphorescent (later revealed to be an attribute of deep-dwelling deepsmen tribes), and in the atmosphere of panic created by Philip's birth, is soon rumored to be retarded herself. When William dies, both the court and England's relations with its deepsman tribes are left in Erzebet's hands, and when she dies under mysterious circumstances the responsibility for the latter devolves to Anne and Mary, then only in their early teens, while their grandfather searches desperately for acceptable husbands for them who will ensure England's stability and the continuation of the royal line.

The first two thirds of In Great Waters are spent following the childhood and very quick maturation of its two protagonists in two parallel plot strands. Like a lot of authors who throw children into settings rife with politics and intrigue, Whitfield makes both of her protagonists much too savvy, observant, and intelligent to be believable, but she rather cleverly draws attention to this fact, and explains it by making it a component of Henry and Anne's inhuman ancestry. Henry, we're told in the novel's very first sentence, "could remember the moment of his birth," and from that moment until he's abandoned on land it's clear that deepsmen development is much faster than the human kind, that Henry is expected to learn how to fend for himself and function in the tribe much faster than a human would. It's also made clear that this accelerated development also expresses itself in a chilliness in both Henry and Anne's natures--they are both, quite literally, cold fish, regarding others less with fuzzy mammalian attachment than in coldly utilitarian terms. Anne's sister Mary is her rival for Erzebet's attentions, and even at four years old Anne calculates whether to accept Mary's friendly overtures or work against her, while five year old Henry plays games of dominance and control with Allard. (Mary, meanwhile, is a great deal more affectionate but also less ruthless and politically savvy than Anne, and it's one of the novel's few missed opportunities that it does relatively little with her, and doesn't fully mine the differences between the sisters nor explore the suggested correlation between Mary's more pronounced humanity and her more human appearance.)

What's most interesting about In Great Waters is how it stresses that, despite my comments above, the tension between compassion and unsentimental pragmatism doesn't parallel the division between human and deepsman, that though the humans profess to love their fellow man and desire mercy and forgiveness, Anne's civilized background embodies that tension just as much as Henry's savage one. Deepsmen society, as seen through Henry's eyes at the beginning of the novel, more strongly recalls an animal pride than a human tribe. Deepsmen have no crafts, agriculture, or animal husbandry, and very nearly no history, art, or culture. Tribes are run by a strict rule of the survival of the fittest, and the protocols for establishing their hierarchy are clearly modeled on the natural world--males fight in single combat over females or leadership, and excess young men are often driven out of the tribe. Henry's expulsion from the tribe is an example of these protocols in action, and once on land he continues to act them out, challenging Allard and the other humans he encounters to fights in order to prove his dominance, and reacting with puzzlement when it's assumed that he feels a son's love and attachment to Allard and his wife. At the same time, Henry recoils in disgust from the political machinations Claybrook sets in motion in order to put him on the throne. He's more than willing to kill King Edward in single combat, but doesn't understand why an army must be assembled, and perhaps killed, to resolve what should be a simple test of strength, or why another bastard child, discovered several years after Henry is, must be put to a cruel, torturous death even though it is too weak to fight. The death of the bastard child is the crux of the novel for Henry, but it is also so for Anne. Raised in the bosom of civilization, her life proscribed by ritual and tradition, her time spent studying languages and rhetoric (while Henry adamantly refuses to learn how to write or speak a second language), Anne nevertheless finds herself struggling with the same questions as Henry when faced with the child's execution. "Should we be merciful to our enemies?" She asks Erzebet, and finds no good answer.

If there is a complaint to be leveled against In Great Waters, it's that sufficient sparks fail to fly when Henry and Anne finally meet, and that the last third of the novel, in which they join forces in order to secure England's future, is a bit of a letdown. The two clash marvelously against one another in their first few encounters, matching wit for wit and unflappable calm for unflappable calm, but once the obvious alliance is made (for some reason, the idea of marrying Henry to Mary or Anne never occurs to Claybrook) the novel goes a little slack. One almost suspects that Whitfield was undone by her desire to undermine the romantic expectations that her setup creates--if the bulk of your novel follows the parallel and equally unhappy stories of two chilly, pragmatic young people of opposite genders, it almost seems required for their meeting to result in a searing romance--and though I can understand that desire (and indeed, given how poorly handled the romance in Benighted was, applaud it), I think that Whitfield couldn't quite come up with a suitably exciting substitute for it. Romantic or not, the final meeting and partnering up of Henry and Anne should have been explosive. Instead they become slightly nicer and more accommodating towards one another, for no reason other than the same political instincts that have driven them throughout the novel, which now tell them to appease each other.

Still, there is much to enjoy in those chapters of In Great Waters in which Henry and Anne play off each other. The two see the world in such completely opposed terms that their interactions are almost dizzying. Anne is devout, and derives much of her morality--which ultimately drives her to save Henry from the stake--from her Christian faith. When Henry learns about Christianity, however, he is appalled: "The landsmen weren't just strange. They were stupid, bone-deep stupid. They were mad." The same resistance to the Christ story and its inherent irrationality is also what makes it clear to Henry that the story of Angelica's miraculous emergence from the sea just as the people of Venice needed her most is a political fabrication, and unlike humans he lacks both the ability and the desire to overlay reality with narrative.

It struck Henry, listening to Westlake tell his stories, that the nastiness of the landsmen's possessions, the straight lines and enclosing roofs and binding clothing, could be explained by this. They didn't notice them. They looked at clothes and thought of ceremonies; they looked at buildings and thought of their owners. Always the ideas, and never the things themselves. They couldn't feel what was up against their skin; the world, thriving and struggling and vitally, irrefutably real.

What's best about In Great Waters is how fully in layers these two worldviews--Henry's materialism, Anne's spirituality; the savage, animalistic mindset that sees no purpose in intangibles, in language that is anything more than utilitarian, in social constructs that extend beyond the tribe and beyond the moment, versus the human tendency to create complex, pie-in-the-sky structures, which gives us history and art and culture and science, but also cruelty and war and needless slaughter--until there's no choosing between them. By the end of the novel all that's left is to accept, as Henry and Anne do, that they are fundamentally of two different species and will never truly understand one another, and yet it's precisely out of that alienness that they manage to find room for the compassion that has eluded them for so much of their lives, each rejecting just enough of the ideas they've grown up with while still remaining true to themselves. At several points during my reading it occurred to me that In Great Waters, with its emphasis on court politics and its period setting, might appeal more to readers of historical fiction than to genre fans, but it's this ending and the light it casts on the events of the novel that shows how perfectly suited it is to the latter group--it is a pitch-perfect, and utterly persuasive, description of the meeting and coming to terms of humans and aliens. [2]

[1] asking the wrong questions, abigail nussbam, 21.03.2012
[2] asking the wrong questions, abigail nussbaum, 21.03.2012

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Whitfield's Benighted and was so excited to read her second book that I pre-ordered it from Amazon. Now I'm wishing I'd waited to get it from the library, or skipped it entirely.

The premise of the book is this: in an alternate-history version of medieval Europe, kings must retain the support of the "deepsmen" (merfolk), such that every country with access to the ocean is ruled by a half-blooded king. Being jealous of their power--in the form of the ability to communicate with the deepsmen, whose communication consists of dolphin-like sounds that "landsmen" (regular humans) can't produce--the royals have any non-royal half-blood child killed. But England is in trouble: the king is old, and the only heirs to the throne are a couple of teenage girls. Enter the protagonists: Henry, an unauthorized half-blooded child, and Anne, the younger of the two princesses.

A large part of my problem with this book is that I didn't buy the premise. Now, the idea of the deepsmen is fascinating. These aren't your mythical merfolk; Whitfield must have really thought about what such people would actually be like, and they're anything but romanticized. If you're looking for new ideas and something that hasn't been done before, you might find this book worth reading for this alone. But the way they're portrayed--with an intelligence level somewhere between that of a normal human and that of a dolphin, and primarily concerned with their own survival--I never bought into the idea that they were essential allies for anybody. And even supposing that they were, the idea that disabled kings (did I mention that the half-bloods can't walk, and at best hobble around with canes? It's painful to read about) could hold thrones all over Europe for hundreds of years merely because they can talk to the deepsmen is both ridiculous and unnecessary. That's what ambassadors are for.

Moving on to the story itself, though, we follow Henry as he's being secretly raised to be a king (having been conveniently discovered on the beach by someone who was willing to risk execution to keep him hidden) and Anne while she's... well, that's another problem. For the first half the book or so, Anne doesn't do much. At about 130 pages, I put the book down in disgust and left it for a month or so, but once I've bought something I hate to not finish it. It does get better in the second half, and one thing I can say for it is that both the plot and characters are original; since it's not something I've seen before, I didn't know how it was going to turn out, and that's always nice. It turned out to be a quick read, but with nothing memorable except the idea of the deepsmen; the prose and the character development are competent, but things become far easier for the protagonists than they should have been, and opportunities for action and excitement are continuously evaded. The dealing with the two major antagonists toward the end was unrealistic and silly. It can be rather difficult to sympathize with the protagonists as well: we're supposed to support Henry in his quest for the kingship, when he wants it only to avoid execution for his bloodline. He clearly has no aptitude for the position, even flat-out stating that doesn't care for or know anything about the people of England. (The author, who's British, seems to be counting on nationalistic sentiments here, since the other option is French. As an American, I thought the other option was much better.)

This isn't necessarily a terrible book. There are some good parts--the feral-child part of Henry's story, Anne's growth and learning how to take responsibility, and most of all the originality. Thematics are certainly present and may redeem the book in the eyes of more "literary" readers than I. Still, due to plotting and believability issues, I can't recommend it.

[Merrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

See. Okay. I will admit to picking up this book because I thought it was a romance novel about mermaids. HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN? I mean, cracktastic, but also awesome.

What I got instead was better and worse at the same time. Kit Whitfield does an excellent job at world building. I mean, truly excellent. She thinks through implications of things I would never, ever have even thought of. Truly phenomenal. And she's really a brilliant writer as well.

Just. The book was entirely devoid of love. Maternal, paternal, love between friends, between sisters, between husband and wife. Nothing. Everyone was using everyone, and I couldn't find, the whole book, one character that I actually liked, that had any redeeming qualities at all. Maybe Allard? Possibly John, for all that he was so naive?

So I wasn't expecting that, and I kind of missed having it. I can't say that I liked the book, entirely, but it was a really fascinating literary experience.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can also find my review of In Great Waters on my book blog



In Great Waters is a speculative fiction novel set in an alternative Britain where merpeople are real. They are not really like humans: fiercer, more direct, more blunt, essentially, very intelligent animals. They can interbreed with humans. And thus we meet Henry, or rather, Whistle, a crossbreed who is born in the sea and ultimately grows up among humans on land.

I don't want to give too much away. This is a novel where great care is taken: the world building is immersive yet gradual. It's detailed and carried out with great craftsmanship. Tension - and plot - builds up very gradually. The reader gets to absorb this world, become a part of it, and understand it (and its characters) before the story starts gaining momentum. In a way, the book gives you a chance to experience intrigue at the settings and characters, before the plot becomes intriguing, and once the plot starts creating tension and pace, it turns genuinely thrilling, with several twists and turns that are authentic and not too far-fetched.

There are some big events, about three quarters of the way into the book, and after that the big central plot tension is partially relieved, yet the story continues, tidying up (with a few more tense episodes). I do feel that the book allowed itself a somewhat more gradual ending than most readers will be used to, and perhaps it could have been somewhat shorter.

However, the imagination and craftsmanship is stunning and truly immersive. The book actually made me think about some things with a different perspective (royalness and bloodlines are an important part of the book, and, once you accept the central conceit, you start to look at our own world with new eyes, and may find our own world more baffling and illogical than the one in this novel). And last but not least, it is a thrilling novel, with large sections of page-turning pace and tension.

I would absolutely recommend this novel, and I don't think I've read anything quite like it. Glad I stumbled across a review of the book by Jo Walton: this book deserves a lot more attention.

[Clay Kallam · Rating 2 out of 5]

“In Great Waters” (Del Rey, $15, 398 pages) starts strong, though Kit Whitfield is as much interested in England’s past as fantasy’s future. This one is set in more or less Elizabethan times, but there’s one big difference: A species of humans called deepsmen live in the ocean, and can interbreed with the land dwellers. For reasons not quite made clear, these deepsmen are so valued that, as soon as they emerge from the waters to hobble about on canes on land (most have tails, but the offspring of land dwellers and deepsmen sometimes have legs), they are made into royalty.

There’s a lot of plot going on here, with courtly machinations and bastard deepsmen, and Whitfield throws in not only echoes of actual English history (an older royal sister named Mary who allies with France) but also of a much more ancient time (Alexander the Great’s half-witted half-brother Phillip is also name-checked).

In the end, though, Whitfield can’t figure out how to tie everything together, so like so many books with great setups, the narrative can’t measure up to the backstory. In other words, check this one out of the library if it sounds interesting, but spending the cold hard cash is not advised.

[oliviasbooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read 117 pages. The plot is is not uninteresting and the concept is very original, but I dislike the characters. As as reviewer here said, the relationships are devoid of positive emotions. And there is a lot of cold scheming, suspicion and loneliness in the mix that is not my idea of entertainment.
But if you like books in the same line as The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory and do not mind that history has been tampered with by adding merpeople to the royal houses of Europe, this might be the next good read for you.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty much exactly what I thought it was, and yet different at the same time.

[Jam · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a great book by a great author- not a comfortable read as such (though probably more so than Bareback), but one that drew me in. The basic plotline -merpeople exist, the royalty of Europe are descendants of deepsmen and landsmen- is an interesting concept and very well-handled. Whitfield has a great line in the Other, in the ways in which something can be not-human, the way even *people* can be Other, can be animal or alien.

And the Deepsmen aren't human, function differently on a personal and social group level (Whitfield based them on dolphins, I believe), and as a mixture of both worlds, the royalty of Europe are crippled in both, even though they're able to use that to maintain their own power and the sovereignty of their countries. It's Elizabethan politics at work, with the added layer that they control the seas by maintaining relationships with Deepsmen clans.

They maintain their bloodline by marrying amongst themselves, throwing up all the problems of inbreeding intensified, they kill any commoner/deepswomen "bastard" babies that are found, they sacrifice others and themselves for the sake of their country-- at a time when "Country" and "King" were frequently the same.

The book focuses on two characters: Ann, a princess of England and Whistle, a bastard child with Deepswoman mother who eventually abandons him on the shores of England. Conspiracies and plots occur, as they tend to, but mostly serve to show how that world works, how the characters work. I didn't find the events of the book surprising, but I liked seeing how everything unfolded. I liked seeing the characters work, the different ways of being strong and of using their strength. The ending feels very complete, which is almost a shame because it's a world I would have liked to come back to.

The ending feels somewhat rushed, which is why this is a 4 star review rather than a 5, but it's still definitely one I'd happily push on others.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it! Gritty and realistic - no glossy, slick, cartoony puff-fiction here (not violent/gore/sex explicit either though).

I thought the author portrayed perfectly the total confusion of a mer-child suddenly dumped on land, down to his aversion to sharp angles and corners (which you won't find underwater...) Told from the viewpoints of two characters, Whistle/Henry and Princess Anne, this book has all the politics and drama of good historical fiction (did you like the Other Boelyn Girl?) and the fun of a different version of European history, with the twist of the life/language/culture of the merpeople.

I sat down with this and read the whole thing until I finished at 2:30am! This one is be a must-buy for me!

[Liviu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very compelling book and a page turner set in a world where the mixed blood children of "deepsmen" and "landsmen" are "royal", the novel left me a bit mixed at the end. I guess it's ultimately a well written YA book though it has some adult language, but the main teenage characters do not really grow into adulthood until the end and the book should appeal especially to the YA crowd.

Still I loved Ms. Whitefield style and I am willing to read more novels by her, though I would love an epic fantasy with adult characters.

[Fishface · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great read! Combines the best kind of interspecies romance -- piscatorial love -- with all the real issues that would come of that if it ever really happened the way it does in this story. Full of old-school medieval scheming and intrigue, too. Beautifully written for the most part, except the author kept jolting me out of the story by using "him" and "her" in place of "he" or "she." Otherwise the text was almost free of anachronism. Highly, highly recommended.

[Roxane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This read was for the 2012 Theme Park book club, April theme: Under the Sea

I finished In Great Waters several weeks ago and I generally always find it difficult to go back and remember precise details, put words on weeks old impressions for a review. Not for this novel though, it's stayed with me ever since I finished it and I catch myself thinking about Anne and Henry every now and again. A sign that I probably need to read the author's debut, Bareback.

In Great Waters' premises is fascinating. Imagine mermans (or deepsman as they are called here) coming out the sea and taking over Venice and whose half human, half merman offspring slowly grow to rule over all of Europe. I am making this sound simplistic and naive when it really isn't. Whitfield manages to make this not only plausible but believable as well. She cleverly mixes history, politics and fantasy to create this rich and vivid parallel world. Several reviewers have pointed out that the names Henry and Anne echo that of Henry VIII and his wife (well one of them!), Anne. But to be quite honest, given the extent of my historical knowledge, I can't quite see the resemblance beyond their names.

In Great Waters should not be admired just for its world-building (although it definitely is one of its strong points) but also for the strength and depth of its characters. While Anne is a more likable character, there's something to Henry that I felt inexplicably drawn to: our rules cannot apply to him. He clearly doesn't belong to the world of men but then neither did he belong to the world of deepsmen as a young child. In the end, he manages to make a place for himself as some sort of in-between which was a relief really because the idea of Henry as king, ruling over human subjects when he struggled so much to understand them, would have been a total let down for me.

Whitfield blew me away during those first few pages when Henry is first faced with the world of humans. His incomprehension of such basic things as clothing, decorations, symbols and colors was amazingly described. The way his sight adjusts and how he grows and starts to see what humans see was illuminating. Strangely enough, I never found the fact that he was so alien, alienating.

Anne is an equally interesting and strong character and I couldn't wait for a confrontation between these two. With Anne, the tone changed a bit, echoing that of the unsaid intrigues of the court. While I found that by the end of the novel, the reader knew as much of Henry as he did of Anne, some details in Anne's story and her feelings were left to the reader's speculation, especially when it came to sexuality and abuse.

An element to the fantasy setting that I particularly enjoyed was that Whitfield's hybrids had little to do with the little mermaid. They were not beautiful, elegant creatures born to be kings and queens. Quite the contrary, Anne and Henry's legs aren't strong enough to support them on earth and in the sea, the fact that they have two legs instead of one strong fin, means that they are slower than deepsmen. I liked the idea that they were victim of limitations in both worlds and in a way, it explains Angelica's (Anne's ancestor - the first Queen) initial apparition out of the sea. As Henry rightfully points out, Angelica must have spent some time among humans before her apparition or she wouldn't speak perfect Italian and be familiar with human ways. Like Henry, Angelica had probably struggled for years in both worlds and never quite found a place in either before she saw an opportunity to bridge the two worlds and make a position for herself.

I really enjoyed the almost biological explanations of Henry and Anne's strange bodies, how it affected their everyday lives on earth and in the sea. There are almost anthropological and sociological elements to this novel what with the way the author looks at habits, customs but also language and physical attributes, pointing out things we take for granted and never question.

There's clearly a lot to admire in this novel. Some might be disappointed by the peaceful resolution that wraps things almost a bit too neatly but to be quite honest, I was a relieved that Anne and Henry didn't have to endure any more hardships and horrors at that stage.

Some of the reviews I read prior to reading the book referred to it as challenging, not for everyone but that if you pushed beyond the first 50-60 pages, you would find it rewarding. While I can see their point, I must say that I didn't find it difficult to get into the novel. Henry's alienness is exactly what grabbed me and made this book special in my eyes. While it takes its time, I really don't see how this story could be told in any other way. I enjoyed it immensely and highly recommend it. I didn't find it challenging because you have to bare with the first bit, not at all, it's challenging because it questions perspectives and details you've probably never questioned before. In a strange way, it does what some great scifi works do by highlighting our assumptions and what we take for granted. And that I think this is the work of a very talented writer.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay,were to begin?
I picked this book up on a whim.I wasn't really expecting much from it, it had just been something to spend up the last bit of money on a giftcard, but isn't that how we find the great ones?

I normally don't like books where the story changes from one lead to another and back again, but Whifield manages it very well. I didn't become bored with Henry or Anne's stories and although I wanted to know what was happening with the other character, I wasn't in a rush to finish the other's leading parts, or tempted to skip them.
Whitfield's writing is fun to read. she is descriptive, but not overly so or, as a detail lover myself I find is the case at times, underly so. The way she paints the two worlds of land and sea is beautiful, captivating and shockingly real. She makes it abundantly clear this is not Ariel's under the sea, but a realistic ideal of what life would really be like in the churning currents of the deep.

Likewise, she does not make life on land a fairy-tale of beautiful princesses and charming knights. The lives of royalty and courtiers was filled with suspicion, plots and constant fear of treason.

I glanced through the reviews and found many people saying the same thing: "Good writing, but depressing stories/characters."
I found none of it, however.
For me, the characters were real, thought-driven and inspiring. They read as being intensely human, they each had their flaws and dark thoughts, but each was striving for something better. Even side characters, such as John, Philip and Samuel had their own distinct personalities, something we find rarely in fiction these days.
It threw me off a little when reminded of their ages compared to their mature actions, but I also had to consider the times this story was set in; where children often had to mature quicker than their ages.

Without revealing too much, I would say I really adored Henry and his interaction with others, particularity Anne, John and Allard. The way he spoke and acted with others made it all the more convincing he was not from any social interactions we understood or accepted. Henry's character drove this book to the five-star rating. Absolutely wonderful story!

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Divided into seven parts or 'books', In Great Waters tells the story of an alternate history where the world where the landsman that inhabit the sea (humans) and deepsmen that live in the ocean (merpeople?). Royalty has developed into a mixture of both beings and through marriage spread throughout the continent of Europe and beyond.

It is the story of Princess Anne, princess of England and Henry, a bastard child of a forbidden landsman-deepswoman tryst. As the throne of England becomes more shaky, what will become of the careful and vital alliance between the two races?

This is the first story I've read by Kit Whitfield, although I understand she has written about similar themes, but with humans and werewolves. I wasn't quite sure what to expect and even after I've finished I still done really know what to say about this story. I don't think I've ever really read anything quite like it. The plot doesn't throw many punches and although the character's introspection is shown in detail, I never really connected or sympathized with them. And if asked, will I read it again…likely not, but was I glad that I read it….yup. I don't think this would be for everyone, but it oddly enough reminded me of Philippa Gregory, so if you like her work I think you would like this.

[Jacqie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can tell that the author has thought long and hard about how it would be if merfolk and humans had intermingled and what cultural consequences would result. I was hoping for something more beautiful and less grotesque. I think that she has well-thought-out reasons for the deformities and quirks of her characters. She details the emergence of a young boy from the mer-culture into human society in exquisite detail. However, I never found someone to really root for in the book. The characters were too alien to me and not sympathetic enough. If you don't need to attach to characters the way I do, you may enjoy this book.

[Miss Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

MERMAIDS. :DDDD This book does such great mermaids, they're well thought out in their every aspect. The way they think! The fact that their bodies are not designed for land! The deconstruction of the mythic mermaid she does with the Angelica story! The way she handles the question of mermaids and Christianity!

Mermaids! 4 stars

(p.s. excellent worldbuilding, fleshed out characters, Anne is wonderful and brave and Henry's head is so alien I can't help but love him, do not feed me ridiculousness about 'likeability' unless you want to explain to me why your grounds for liking are so terribly narrow. Also one of the few book handlings of religion I actually like)

[Stefanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whitfield cares deeply about the plot and built a fascinating world in which real English history was been subverted by the presence of deepsmen, this story's mermaids. The beginning of the story where a young half-deepsman boy is brought on to land to be raised there is fascinating in its psychological aspect, and the genealogies were well plotted.

Unfortunately the story dragged on too long and felt more like reading a history textbook than a novel. The characters were boring and underdeveloped until the last few chapters when they all suddenly figured themselves out so there could be a satisfying conclusion.

Would recommend to history majors and seekers of adult scary mermaid books.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn’t really picture the royal family…..not entirely sure what being half deepsmen looks like. I also felt like the characters were aloof. I didn’t get attached to any of them. I didn’t feel like I got to know them well. I also did NOT like the ending. I felt like it didn’t fit in with the character and story arc of one of the main characters.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an alternative history of the English monarchy in which merfolk are real. This book was odd; I picked it up on a whim because of the mermaid angle. Interesting enough to finish, but not something I will read again.

[Chad D · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the fantasy alternate-history genre over which Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell reign supreme, this book is a noble entry. Especially notable are its relatively serious engagement with Elizabethan religion (what would early Protestants have done when presented with a race of merpeople?) and its successful portrayal of the merpeople as alien. We are inside Henry's head, and it is a strange place; he does not think like a human. We are inside Anne's head, more human than Henry's, and it holds more recognisable human emotion, but also very strange places and choices.

[Kay Emm · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. This book was a CHORE. Such a great premises wasted on a weak author. The characters were one-dimensional, their interactions were boring and pointless, and the blather between dialog felt like word salad filler. I tried so hard to read this book, but I just couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to like this book, but it's so painfully dull and repetitive. I'm definitely skipping anything else this author has written. If this is a book you'd really like to read, save yourself the pain of wasting money on it and see if your library's got a copy.

[Ekmef · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been on my 'want to read list' ever since I started using Goodreads, because I really loved the first book by Kit Whitfield. I was a bit afraid that it would be a sappy romantic novel (the blub certainly doesn't help) but it's actually a really nice and well crafted story. It is really cool how she made the deepspeople society completely different from the 'landspeople'. The book really reads like it was written for today's society, not ten years ago.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical mermaids, what could be a better beach read? A surprisingly thoughtful alt history that puts mermaids in the center of European history. Come for the mermaid political drama, stay for the fascinating theological discussion about whether or not mermaids are implicated in original sin.

[elsie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay.

A good premise bogged down a lot by repetition of ideas. The first half of the book is a real slog as the author goes on and on about the same thing a lot. The second half was very predictable. A disappointing read, considering the interesting concept.

[Haviva Avirom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well-written, thoughtful history, interesting backstory. But it was all so grim and brutal. No one was happy without anxiety ever in the whole book and that was exhausting. There's too much of that in the real world for it to be bearable in fiction for me.

[Randi (The Artist Formerly known as Guitar Chick) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ehhhh. Goes for a nifty alternate history vibe but spends too much time on the history and not on the characters.

[Sandy D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great world building and court intrigue, but the characters were so unlikable that I didn't care what happened to them.