In a contemporary Portland, Oregon, where magical peoples are an open fact of life, two Black teenagers who are best friends and effectively sisters narrate in alternating chapters. Tavia is a siren, born into the only group of magical beings that is exclusively Black and female, and she must keep her compelling voice hidden or face being collared and silenced by the state. Effie, who performs as a mermaid at a Renaissance faire, is haunted by a childhood tragedy, an unknown parentage, and a worsening skin condition that hints at a nature she does not yet understand. Their private struggles are overtaken by public ones when a murdered Black woman is posthumously accused of having been a siren, a televised trial turns the whole country against sirens, a beloved online figure comes out as one, and Tavia's voice slips out during a police stop. Morrow builds her invented mythology — sirens, gargoyles, elokos, and more — directly onto present-day realities of racism, sexism, respectability, and protest, so that the fantasy machinery and the social argument are the same thing. The novel, Morrow's young-adult debut, closes by affirming sisterhood as the girls' strongest protection and earned wide award attention, including Locus, Ignyte, and Audie recognition for its audio edition.
Author: Bethany C. Morrow · Original publisher: Tor Teen (New York), 2020
