Daughters of the Sea — (2009-2011) Young adult. Publisher: Daughters of the Sea tells the story of 3 mermaid sisters who are separated at birth by a storm and go on to lead three very different lives. Book 1 is about Hannah, who spent her early days in an orphanage and is now a scullery maid in the house of rich, powerful family. She is irresistibly drawn to the sea and through a series of accidents and encounters discovers her true identity. Hannah relizes that she must keep the truth a secretbut she also knows that soon she will have to make the choice — to be a creature of the land or the sea.
 
 Hannah
The other orphan girls at the Boston Home for Little Wanderers fantasize that they are secretly the long-lost daughters of wealthy families, or even of royalty. Hannah harbors no such dreams. What she doesn't know, however, is that her heritage is the strangest of all. When she is packed off to live in dry landlocked Kansas and falls deathly ill, she begins to realize that she's not like other girls.
Desperate, Hannah returns to Boston and finds a job as a scullery maid with the wealthy Hawley family. She begins to discover more signs of her not-quite-human nature, while at the same time dealing with the first stirrings of young love and with the Hawleys' creepy oldest daughter (whose voice I kept hearing as Drusilla's from Buffy). When the family travels to their vacation home in Maine, Hannah feels the pull of the sea even more strongly, and learns that she must make a difficult choice.
Many of the conflicts in Hannah come from the restrictions that surrounded women and the lower classes at the turn of the century. At first, this vivid portrayal of strict social etiquette reminded me a bit of Libba Bray's novels (though there's a lot less of the Gothic here), but as Hannah progressed, I realized that it reminded me of nothing so much as Eileen Kernaghan's Wild Talent. Both Hannah and Wild Talent focus on working-class girls with unusual abilities making their way through a sometimes unwelcoming society. Both novels have a hint of romance but are primarily coming-of-age tales. Readers who like one will probably like the other.
Hannah started a little slowly for me, since I felt like the Kansas plot was too quickly and easily resolved, and almost could have been left out. Once the story moves back to the East Coast, though, it's smooth sailing.
I did wish there had been more resolution to Hannah's story. It appears that this will be a series, and I assume we will learn in later books what becomes of her, but my personal preference as a reader is for series installments to stand on their own even if they do have an overarching plot as well.
Still, this is a pleasant and often lovely read, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to a young girl. I will happily read further books in the Daughters of the Sea series. —Kelly Lasiter
 May
May is the second in Kathryn Lasky’s Daughters of the Sea series, which tells the story of three orphaned sisters, separated as infants, who discover they are mermaids. In the previous book we met Hannah, who found her true nature while working as a maid to a wealthy family. Here we meet the second sister, May, who was adopted by a lighthouse keeper and his manipulative wife. Her parents have kept something from her, and when she is fifteen she works up the courage to learn what it is.
Compared to her sister, May learns her scaly secret much earlier in the story. Readers who were frustrated with the pace of Hannah will probably be pleased with this difference, and May’s curiosity and her process of discovery are compelling. The faster-moving internal journey, though, is juxtaposed with a more limited external journey. May spends much of the novel under her adoptive mother’s thumb and only leaves her hometown in her clandestine swims. I liked the intricate social world of Hannah and missed that here. May doesn’t interact with many people beyond her parents, a few other briefly glimpsed authority figures such as a doctor and a librarian, and her two potential love interests (one bland, the other over-the-top awful). Later, it turns out that May’s story is taking place concurrently with Hannah’s and their paths converge.
One of the best parts, to me, was the glimpse into the larger world of mermaids, shown in a handful of chapters from the point of view of the girls’ long-lost aunt. What we see is really interesting, and I love the way Lasky tied in the Scottish mythology of the Blue Hag.
The Daughters of the Sea books occupy an odd space between middle grade and young adult literature. The coming-of-age/self-discovery and romance themes would seem to place them in the young adult category; but the writing style, and the occasional “teachy” moments I’ve come to expect from Lasky, make the books feel younger. In addition, I think most young adult readers will want more grit. I’d recommend this series to girls right on the border of the two age groups — maybe 11 or so — especially if they enjoy the gentler books for girls that were written in the past. (For example, I think I’d have really liked this during my Anne of Green Gables phase at roughly that age.)
This may sound like a petty gripe, but I found the character nicknames distracting at times. Is it really that common to form a nickname from an unstressed syllable? I was okay with “Zeeba” for Hepzibah, mostly because it reminded me of Zeena from Ethan Frome, on whom Lasky may have partially based this malingering, malignant character. But “Gar” for Edgar threw me for a loop. I spent half the book having no idea why May was calling her father “Gar” and seriously wondered if it was a regional term for “Dad” that was unfamiliar to me before the light finally dawned.
The story, as in Hannah, is left open-ended, and I assume the third book will introduce the final sister and the fourth will be an adventure featuring all three girls and tying up the loose ends. Overall, I didn’t like May quite as much as I did Hannah, though I must admit that the pacing and plotting are better executed here. Recommended for preteen girls looking for a sweet, charming tale.
—Kelly Lasiter
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