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I’m not a huge water fan, which is no secret. But I have always love The Little Mermaid and read my first book about a mermaid this year which has made me want to read even more books about mermaids and here we are. With this list of 18 awesome books about sirens and mermaids.
Now, I don’t think this will make me more excited about swimming or anything but I do certainly love reading these and have added quite a few of them to my TBR starting with A Song Below Water, for sure. Now get those flippers out and get reading!
- If you want to listen to some of these, consider trying Audible! You can get your first month free (one free book) plus tons of others they have for free. Get that Audible deal here.
- If you’re on more of a budget, try Scribd! You can get your first month free there. You can read books and listen to audiobooks. It is unlimited (especially the reading) but if you listen to tons of new audiobooks you may be restricted after a few. I don’t listen to enough to confirm this, but I do use Scribd myself and like it a lot. Sign up for Scribd here!
- Shop my collection of bookish goodies on Etsy! These aren’t my shop items, but other shops I’ve curated into a book-themed collection. Shop my Etsy bookish goodies here!
- If you want to read more on your Kindle but don’t want to buy books, Kindle Unlimited is a wonderful option. It’s $9.99 a month but if you read a lot and like to read more than just new releases, it could be worth it. Get Kindle Unlimited here!
- Get $5 off of $25 from BookOutlet! This is a great place to find new books for pretty cheap. They also have sales quite a bit, so keep an eye out for those. I tend to check here for books I want if they’re more expensive other places. They don’t have everything but they do have a lot. Shop BookOutlet here!
- Thrift Books has become my go-to when I’m looking for a book and want it cheap. It’s great if you like buying used books. With this you can get a free book after spending $30!
- Shop my book lists here! You can find every book list I have on Bookshop.org (except my monthly round-ups) and I add everything I can but they occasionally won’t have some. I do occasionally add extras though. If any lists are empty, they’ll be filled in shortly! Shop my bookshop.org book lists here.
- Shopping internationally? Check out Book Depository!
Sea Witch
This Little Mermaid retelling takes us to a whole new world (wrong Disney movie, sorry) under the sea. Ok, I don’t think I could make any other Disney songs work in that. This mermaid book introduces us to Ursula before she was evil.
Evie has been an outcast in her fishing town since her best friend Anna died. But one day a girl who shares a striking resemblance to Anna shows up on the shore and each girls has their own prince charming.
Evie feels like her life might work out OK now but she has her secrets as does her new mysterious friend.
Without Evie’s help, her friend can’t stay in Havnestad, at least not on two legs. So with Evie’s powerful magic, she helps to save her friend’s humanity and her prince’s heart before she realizes what she bargained away.
A Song Below Water
Tavia is a siren, but she has to keep her powers hidden thanks to a society determined to hide this sort of thing. Effie is busy fighting literal demons from her past and these two friends need to fight their way through high school together.
Everything changes, though, after a siren murder trial when Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice at the worst possible moment.
Nothing in Portland, Oregon seems safe anymore and their unbreakable sisterhood proves to be the strongest magic of all. If you’re looking for a book about mermaids by a black author, make sure to pick this one up!
Mermaid Moon
Sanna is only half seavish but has been living as a mermaid after a witch cast a spell that made her people, including her mother, forget how and where she was born.
Now, at sixteen, Sanna is an outsider among the seavish people where women rule and mothers mean everything and she is determined to return to land to find out who she really is.
She begins to apprentice under a witch to learn the magic of making and unmaking. Now she has two legs and a task to complete from her teacher when she lands on the shore of Thirty-Seven Dark Islands where her fellow mermaids wait floating on the seaskin.
The Daughter of the Pirate King
So, this is technically a book about pirates, but the sequel is called Daughter of the Siren Queen, so I’m counting it even though it’s not actually a mermaid book.
Alosa, a seventeen-year-old pirate captain is sent on a mission to retrieve an ancient hidden map, which is the key to a legendary treasure trove.
She allows herself to be captured by her enemies to be able to search their ship. The only thing standing between Alosa and the map is an unfairly attractive first mate, Riden. She has a few tricks up her sleeves though and no one can stop the Daughter of the Pirate King.
The Siren
If you like romance and books about sirens, make sure you check this one out. Especially if you liked The Selection series (same author).
Kahlen is bound to serve the ocean by luring humans to their watery graves with her watery voice. Akinli is human and everything Kahlen has dreamed of, but falling in love puts them both in danger.
Rolling in the Deep
This is a short book about mermaids (just 128 pages) and is different than the usual falling in love with a human story. The Imagine Network commissioned a documentary about mermaids to be filmed from the cruise ship Atargatis, but they really didn’t expect to see anything that they didn’t normally, like eyewitness accounts that amounted to nothing.
And they really didn’t expect to see real mermaids and certainly not with teeth. Whether it’s a hoax or a tragedy, this is the story of the Atargatis, lost at sea with all hands on deck and the truth can only be found below the bathypelagic zone in the Mariana Trench.
I read this one and really enjoyed it! I did find out once I was into it already that it’s actually a novella for the book Into the Drowning Deep which I’m also very excited to read.
Coral
In a society where blending in is key, Coral has always been different than her mermaid sisters. She is said to be suffering from the horrible Disease that humans suffer from: emotions. Her sister had the Disease and she was taken away by the Red Tide, so will Coral be taken away too?
On land, Brooke is left anxious and depressed making her feel isolated. The numbness from the cool, comforting ocean is all she can rely on, but now she’s stuck at a group home that is promising a second chance at life.
Merrick just wants to escape his controlling father but he is San Fransisco’s golden boy. After his sister’s suicide attempt, he feels like re reaches his breaking point and escape is his only option. But all three will do anything it takes to survive when their worlds collide.
Lost Voices
Luce is fourteen years old and has led a difficult life, but things only get worse when she is assaulted and left on the cliffs outside of a grim Alaskan fishing village.
Instead of dying after she crashes into the icy waves below like she thought she would, she turned into a mermaid. She is welcomed by a tribe of mermaids like her, lost girls who surrendered their humanity at the darkest times of their lives.
Luce is very excited about her new life until she realizes that mermaids feel an uncontrollable desire to lure human seafarers to their watery deaths with their enchanted voices.
Her voice is so strong she could even be queen of her new tribe, but her struggle to retain her humanity puts her at odds with everyone else.
To Kill a Kingdom
Princess Lira is the most lethal of the siren royalty with the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection and she is revered across the sea until she is forced to kill one of her own in a twist of fate.
Her mother, the Sea Queen, transforms her into a human as punishment and she is robbed of her song. She must deliver the heart of Prince Elian to the Sea Queen by winter solstice or she will remain a human forever.
Prince Ellian calls the ocean home even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. His calling is to hunt unsavory sirens and when he rescues a drowning woman, she is more than she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good, but can he trust her?
Bonus mermaid book: Some Kind of Twisted Love
Forgive my Fins
Lily’s big secret isn’t that she has the hots for gorgeous swimming god Brody Bennet, but that she’s actually a mermaid. And not just any mermaid, but a Thalassinian Princess.
Three years ago she learned that her mother was human and it made sense why she never fit in in Thalassinia and she’s gone to Seaview High ever since.
The only problem is that mermaids bond for life and in a case of mistaken identity when she tries to win over Brody, she finds out fast that happily ever after is never as easy as expected.
Wake
Penn, Thea, and Lexi are the new girls in town for the summer and they are the kind of girls you envy: gorgeous, fearless, and dangerous, but Gemma is the one they chose to be part of their group. Gemma seems to have it all, too. She’s carefree, pretty, and falling in love with Alex, the boy next door.
This summer they take their relationship to the next level and there’s no going back, but Gemma’s life changes forever one night when she’s taking a swim and finds Penn. Thea, and Lexi partying in the cove.
She is invited to join them and wakes up on the beach felling groggy but knowing something is different. She’s stronger, more beautiful, and faster than ever, but now with her powers, she has to choose between the ones she loves and a new world brimming with unimaginable secrets.
Songs from the Deep
The sirens lurking on the shores of Moira’s island town have always fascinated her. She gets as close to them as she can and plays her violin at the edge of the sea even though she knows their haunting songs can lure anyone to their death.
A young boy is found dead on the shore and is assumed to be a victim of the sirens, but Moira isn’t so sure.
She is convinced his death was framed as a siren attack and convinces her childhood friend, and lighthouse keeper, Jude Osric, to help her find the real killer, rekindling their friendship in the process.
They have to race against time to save humans and the sirens as the townspeople itch to hunt them down while Moira and Jude’s secrets threaten to unravel their already fragile friendship.
Atlantia
Rio has always dreamed of the sand below and the sky above, of life beyond Atlantia, her underwater home. Rio’s sister Bay changes her life with a decision that leaves her stranded and alone below.
Now, abandoned, she has nothing left to lose and no longer has to hide her siren voice. She is guided by a dangerous and unlikely mentor as she forms a plan that leads to more treacherous questions about her mother’s death, her own destiny, and the corrupt system that governs the divide between the land and sea.
Of Poseidon
This book about mermaids is a little different than the rest: it has a male mermaid! Or merman I suppose? Galen is a Syrena prince searching the land for a girl that he has heard can communicate with fish.
When Emma is on vacation, she meets Galen at the beach and their connection is immediate and strong, though he isn’t sure she’s the one he’s been looking for.
At least not until a deadly shark encounter that proves how strong her gift is and that it may be the only thing that can save his kingdom.
The Sirens Fate
Here is another mermaid romance for you. Ian Reynolds never wanted any part of the wealth and privilege he was born into. He is disgusted by his father’s lavish lifestyle and creates his own empire as an author.
But this all falls apart when his girlfriend is murdered by her secret lover which throws him into a depression. He escapes to his housekeepers hometown of Romiou and it seems his arrival there was orchestrated by something wicked lurking in the water waiting to claim him.
Bonus mermaid book: The Mermaid
All the Stars and Teeth
Amora Montara is the princess of the island kingdom Visdia. She has spent her entire life training to be High Animancer, the master of souls, meaning she didn’t have a choice in her magic while the rest of her kingdom did. She must prove her mastery of this dangerous magic to secure her place as heir to the throne.
Her demonstration goes awry and she is forced to flee when she strikes a deal with Bastian, a mysterious pirate, but she has to help him reclaim his stolen magic in exchange for helping prove she’s fit to rule.
It turns out sailing the kingdom offers more wonder and peril and if she ever wants to conquer the new, dark magic on the rise, Amora must face legendary monsters and cross paths with vengeful mermaids or lose the crown forever.
Ocean’s Daughter
Instead of a sunny day on the Isle of Sky with a trip to the beach and a boat ride, Riva is led to a tidal wave of events that pull her under the waves in pursuit of her long-lost father. The ocean responds to her voice and the fate of the Mer, and the world, may rest in her hands.
Depths
Arianna is the youngest daughter of a siren and to become one herself, she must kill a man and sacrifice his heart to the God of the Deep.
What she didn’t expect though, was to be assigned a prince. Or to fall in love with him. She is torn between her love and her family and now must decide what lies at the depth of her soul.
I hope one or more of these books has satisfied your quest for a book about mermaids or a book about sirens. I know after reading this I have at least five new books I want to read. I already had a couple of them, but I’m looking forward to reading even more mermaid books.
Have you read any of these books about mermaids? Which ones? Any others I have to read?
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