The Mermaid

From the author of Lost Boy comes a beautiful historical fairy tale about a mermaid who leaves the sea, only to become the star attraction of history's greatest showman. Once there was a mermaid called Amelia who could never be content in the sea, a mermaid who longed to know all the world and all its wonders, and so she came to live on land. Once there was a man called P. T. Barnum, a man who longed to make his fortune by selling the wondrous and miraculous, and there is nothing more miraculous than a real mermaid. Amelia agrees to play the mermaid for Barnum and walk among men in their world, believing she can leave anytime she likes. But Barnum has never given up a money-making scheme in his life, and he's determined to hold on to his mermaid.

"Beautifully written and daringly conceived, The Mermaid is a fabulous story, in both senses of that word. It's full of magic and passion and courage, set against a convincing historical backdrop in which women, much less mermaids, have only the power they seize for themselves. Henry's spare, muscular prose is a delight. I loved this novel."—Louisa Morgan, author of The Secret History of Witches

"There is a current of longing that runs through The Mermaid: longing for the sea, for truth, for love. It is irresistible and will sweep you away."—Ellen Herrick, author of The Sparrow Sisters

"In her latest novel, The Mermaid, Christina Henry weaves a captivating tale of an intriguing young woman who finds herself in the world of the greatest showman, PT Barnum. Original and magical, this is a novel to dive into and savour."—Hazel Gaynor, New York Times bestselling author of The Cottingley Secret
 
“Beautifully eloquent language…the credible historical setting will draw readers into this lovely reimagined fairy tale.”—Booklist (starred review)

Praise for Lost Boy

“Christina Henry shakes the fairy dust off a legend; this Peter Pan will give you chills.”—Genevieve Valentine, author of* Persona

• "A riveting rewrite of Peter Pan...Never wanting to grow up, never wanting anyone else to grow up, doesn't look like such an innocent and charming ambition anymore."—The Wall Street Journal

  “Multiple twists keep the reader guessing, and the fluid writing is enthralling...Henry immerses the reader in Neverland and genuinely shocks...This is a fine addition to the shelves of any fan of children’s classics and their modern subversions.”—*Publishers Weekly

• “This wild, unrelenting tale, full to the brim with the freedom and violence of young boys who never want to grow up, will appeal to fans of dark fantasy.”*—Booklist

• “Turns Neverland into a claustrophobic world where time is disturbingly nebulous and identity is chillingly manipulated...a deeply impactful, imaginative and haunting story of loyalty, disillusionment and self-discovery.”—RT Book Reviews

“Once again, Henry takes readers on an adventure of epic and horrific proportions...Her smooth prose and firm writing hooked me up instantly and held me hostage to the very end.”—Smexy Books

“We all have a soft spot for the classics that we read when we were growing up. But…this retelling will poke and jab at that soft spot until you can never look at it the same way again.”—*Kirkus Reviews

• “*Lost Boy *owes more to William Golding’s *Lord of the Flies *than it does Barrie, as Henry examines the darker side to leaving a bunch of boys to fend for themselves… This audacious and gripping treatment of this well-known story is expertly told by Henry’s emotive, evocative prose.”—*Starburst Magazine

• “Lost Boy *is a fantastic adventure story with a *Lord of the Flies sensibility… Henry’s writing is among the most substantive and touching in the fantasy genre.”—I Smell Sheep

Auteur
Christina Henry is the author of Lost Boy, Alice, Red Queen, and the national bestselling Black Wings series featuring Agent of Death Madeline Black and her popcorn-loving gargoyle, Beezle.

Texte du rabat

From the author of Lost Boy comes a beautiful historical fairy tale about a mermaid who leaves the sea, only to become the star attraction of history's greatest showman.

Once there was a mermaid called Amelia who could never be content in the sea, a mermaid who longed to know all the world and all its wonders, and so she came to live on land.

Once there was a man called P. T. Barnum, a man who longed to make his fortune by selling the wondrous and miraculous, and there is nothing more miraculous than a real mermaid.

Amelia agrees to play the mermaid for Barnum and walk among men in their world, believing she can leave anytime she likes. But Barnum has never given up a money-making scheme in his life, and he's determined to hold on to his mermaid.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1

Once there was a fisherman, a lonely man who lived on a cold and rocky coast and was never able to convince any woman to come away and live in that forbidding place with him. He loved the sea more than any person and so was never able to take a wife, for women see what is in men's hearts more clearly than men would wish.

But though he loved the freezing spray on his face and the sight of the rolling clouds on the horizon, he still wished for somebody to love. One evening after a long day, he pulled up his net and found a woman in it-something like a woman, anyway, with black hair and eyes as grey as a stormy sea and a gleaming fish's tail.

He was sorry that she was caught and told her so, though the storm in her eyes rolled into his heart. She stopped her thrashing and crashing at his voice, though she did not understand his words. The fisherman loosed her, and she dove back into the water the way a wild thing returns to a wild place, and he watched her go.

But her eyes had seen inside him the way that women's eyes do, and his loneliness snaked into her, and she was sorry for it, for that loneliness caught her more surely than the net.

She swam away from his boat as fast as she could, and she felt his loneliness trailing between them like a cord. She did not want his feelings to bind her, to pull her back to him, so her tail flashed silver in the water and her eyes looked straight before her and never behind.

But though she didn't look back, she felt him watching, and she remembered the shape of his boat and the rocky curve of the land not too far off and the lines around his eyes, eyes that were as dark as the deep sea under the moon. She remembered, and so she returned again to watch him.

She was called a name that meant, in her own tongue, Breaking the Surface of the Sea. When she was born, she'd come in a great hurry, much sooner than all of her six older sisters and brothers. The attendant who'd aided her mother had been astonished when she tried to swim away before the cord that bound her to her mother was cut.

Her mother and father and siblings spent most of her childhood trying to find her, for she was never where she ought to be. She was warned repeatedly of the dangers of the surface and of the men who cast nets there, and of their cruelty to the denizens of the ocean.

They should never have told her, for in the telling she wanted to know more, and wanting to know more led her farther and farther afield.

Her home was deep in the ocean, far away from the land that pushed up against the water on either side, and this was because her people feared the men with their hooks and their nets and the boats that floated on the surface of the waves as if by magic. The storytellers told of silver fins caught by cruel met…