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Review: The Mermaid, The Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall Rating: 5/5

"Two souls fight For love, to be True love’s might To save the Sea."

On a fateful voyage aboard the pirate ship, the Dove, three souls find themselves thrust together in a way that will change their lives forever. Flora has never minded casting themselves off as a boy to stay safe but when they are charged with guarding Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, it becomes far more challenging as feelings they didn't know they had burst to the forefront. With the help of fellow pirate, Rake, Flora and Evelyn escape the Dove but this ship has a way of holding onto people and leaving will not be so simple.

I love three things: mermaids, witches and the sea. Add to that some amazing diversity in a superb fantasy setting and I'm guaranteed to love it even more. Maggie Tokuda-Hall's debut YA fantasy novel is a thrilling, fraught journey not only to safety but to self-awareness. While I didn't love every page, I definitely loved enough to add this author to my auto-buy list.

The world Tokuda-Hall has composed is rich with life and diversity. I loved the Japanese influences in the Empire that Evelyn comes from and the subtle African notes in Tustwe, where Flora and Alfie were born. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a single white character in this novel but there sure were a lot of queer ones.

The queer romance was what attracted me to this novel and I was so excited to watch Flora and Evelyn to fall in love. What I was not expecting was the gorgeous exploration of gender we get with Flora - who also goes by Florian throughout the novel. Flora doesn't mind being considered a boy or a girl or either and it was so lovely to see that bigender rep on-page. It doesn't matter how they represent, Evelyn loves them either way, and the fact that none of this was questioned by the other characters was fantastic.

There's loads of queerness in the supporting characters too. Keiko, Evelyn's lady-in-waiting at the start of the book who is gay. The Pirate Supreme, the most notorious pirate in The Sea, who is nonbinary. And Xenobia, a turbulent witch we meet partway through the novel, had a female lover in her youth.

I did struggle a bit with the structure of the novel. It's split into three very distinct parts that feel more like episodes than an ongoing, flowing story. A lot of crucial stuff happens in the middle section too but I found it really hard to absorb what was happening after being yanked from one location to the other. The first third was definitely the strongest part of the novel but I loved the ending so much that I'm not going to let it affect my star-rating.

If you love a good old-fashioned adventure story but want more diversity, look no further. The Mermaid, The Witch and the Sea will surely have something to tickle your fancy.