What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
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Sirena
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. YA Mermaid Romance. Protagonist is a mermaid, one of 50, who is promised immortality if she can seduce a mortal man. Unlike her sisters, she is heart-broken when their siren songs lead many men to their deaths & swears to live her life alone. [s]
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Thank you, Becca! I tried all over Amazon and GoodReads under that title and pulled up nothing!
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Anyway, the female lead is a mermaid. She has 49 sister and 50 brothers, though the story mentions her brothers were cast into the ocean (not the Mediterranean Sea, where the females were sent) and all eaten by orcas.
The whole brood were children of Eros and a fish when Eros got a "roving eye" the night after seducing another woman. Being demi-goddesses, the mermaid were all promised immortality if they could seduce a mortal man.
I think by the time the story began, one or two sisters had already passed away. The female lead and her remaining sisters use their siren song to lure three (ish) boats to their island, where they crash on the rocks.
The surviving sailors are, needless to say, NOT happy about that and throw rocks at the mermaids every time they get close. They even yank one sister onto shore and stone her to death. The men trust nothing about the mermaids, and things get bad when there's no fresh water supply on the island. The female lead tries to convince them to eat the flowers, which do have moisture, but they don't believe her. All the men die of dehydration.
The next time ships get close, the female lead refuses to sing her siren song and instead tries to warn the ships to avoid her sisters. One ship crashes, but the others are able to successfully turn away. I think the female lead got injured during this. But this does prove to be her breaking point, and she leaves her sisters.
She lives off the shore of an isolated island for a long time until a single ship deserts one of its own men there. The man (male lead) had been cursed by Hera and bitten by a snake. He pleads with them to not leave him, but they see him as an ill omen and leave him to die.
The female lead takes pity on him, as by morning he is delirious with fever, and cleans his wound using a shell and salt water. He wakes up and winds up surviving on the island, but every night the snake's venom returns and leaves him near dead by morning.
Eventually the female lead reveals herself to him, and she expects him to be repulsed, but they wind up falling in love. She gains her immortality, and she also eventually teaches him to swim by watching how frogs swim in the spring. She only ever uses her siren song to protect herself from a bear, and the male lead is surprised she never sings for him as she has such a beautiful voice.
Eventually, the female lead had to make a choice. The male lead gets the option to return to mainland Greece, where is wound would be forever healed and the curse on him broken. But they would never see each other again. The female lead ultimately decides to let him go with the memories of their love together being enough to get her through eternity.
She also learns her sisters all achieved immortality and I believe she returns to live with them. The book also mentions mermaids usually go around topless and adorn their hair with shells and starfish.
Any help is appreciated, and thank you so much again!