Winner of the 2020 Cost Book Award.
Winner of the 2020 Costa Novel Award.
Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020
Features original music created for the audiobook.
March 1976: St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village on the island of Black Conch, at the start of the rainy season. A fisherman sings to himself in his pirogue, waiting for a catch but attracts a sea-dweller he doesn't expect. Aycayia, a beautiful young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid, has been swimming the Caribbean Sea for centuries. And she is entranced by this man David and his song.
'Monique Roffey is a unique talent and most daring and versatile of writers' — Bernardine Evaristo
‘Sensuous, beguiling, but without whimsy … a striking achievement.’ — The Sunday Times
‘Not your standard mermaid.’ – @MargaretAtwood
