If you grew up with the Little Mermaid and now want something a bit more grown up, Skin of the Sea is your catnip.
Plot: Simidele was once human but she doesn’t remember that life, and that’s probably for the best. She has become a Mami Wata (water spirit whose job it is to bless the spirits of those who die at sea and help them return to Olodumare). Because the Portuguese have recently discovered Africa, most of those Simidele blesses are Africans who die on their way to a new life as slaves. Simidele struggles with this – surely there is more they can do! And very soon, she has her chance, because she finds a boy around her age floating in the water, and he is not dead. Surely the rule that her only job is to bless the dead doesn’t factor in for someone who might actually survive if she only helped? So she does, and in so doing sets in motion a chain of events that will affect not only the mortal world but the power structure of the gods who saved her. Shenanigans ensue.
Bowen is a master with words. The language of Skin of the Sea is poetic, each word chosen meticulously to effect a specific feeling. This comes through in the audiobook as well, which is exceptionally well narrated by Yetide Badaki. The first in a series, it effectively sets the foundation for the world, and the key players within it, without bogging down the story too much with stale exposition. If anything, the book felt like it moved at breakneck speed, from one disaster to another. It would certainly do well on screen for that reason.
That said, despite the setting, the mythos, and the characters all being very deliberately different to what often underpins stories of mermaids in the west, the story underneath still felt very familiar. If you’re looking for a fresh spin on a classic (by which I mean the Hans Christian Andersen version, not the Disney one), this book will be very satisfying. If you’re looking for a fresh story entirely, this won’t fit the bill. Part of the issue, and perhaps this is a First Book in a Series problem, is that so much of the text has to be dedicated to the world building and moving the plot along that there is hardly any space for characterization. Simi is wonderfully complex, but everyone else is mostly just there. There isn’t much more to Kolo than there was to Price Eric, which is hardly anything at all. The other characters are just cardboard cutouts – your precocious children, your ominous, fickle gods, your loyal soldiers, and so on. The characters are puddle deep, but the story relies on us caring about them for its emotional resonance.
Still, it’s a beautiful book and certainly if YA fantasy is your bag, you’re going to absolutely adore Simi.
One warning – this gets characterized as a romance, but this is more YA fantasy than a “proper” romance, so it’s important to manage your expectations about where the book will land at the end.