When the Mermaid Sings By Helen Hollick
Set in the early 18th Century, this novella is the story of 14-year-old Jesamiah Mereno and begins soon after his father and mother have died. His parents die within a week of each other and he is bereft and left to defend himself from his cruel older half-brother, Phillipe. When his brother taunts and humiliates him near his mother’s grave, he says something that finally makes Jesamiah fight back. Relieved to have found the strength to stand up to his brother, Jesamiah has no choice but to flee from his home in Virginia and find a way to make a living. He is helped by a friend of his father’s, a Captain called Malachias Taylor, and joins the crew of his ship the Mermaid. Seeking anonymity and determined to start a new life for himself, Jesamiah changes his last name to Acorne.
In the novella, he graduates from being an innocent boy, to a worldly, brave, young man. Jesamiah makes discoveries that he could not have imagined before going to sea, both about his father, what it means to be a privateer, and about women. He occasionally hears a girl’s voice and wonders who she is, and if she’s the mermaid he thought he’d seen at the beginning of his life at sea. Jesamiah makes encounters that shock him, but toughen him up. Although he’s young and naive, he has common sense and uses knowledge that he picked up from his mother, to become accepted and to help save his, and others’ lives.
If you have followed Jesamiah Acorne’s various nautical adventures and read the books in the series of Sea Witch Voyages starting in January 1716, this is the story of where it all began. If you haven’t, then this is a great place to be introduced to the boy, Jesamiah and learn what happened to him to make him the man he later becomes.
This book isn’t in a genre I’ve read much of before reading this book, but now look forward to Helen Hollick’s Sea Witch Voyages series. When the Mermaid Sings, is a wonderfully evoked, fast-paced and haunting read. I couldn’t wait to discover what happened next and how Jesamiah would deal with the cunning, dangerous, people he encountered on his travels.
Buy a copy of When the Mermaid Sings here.
Star rating 8
