It has been decades since the girl who was once Evie became the Sea witch - feared and loathed by the people of the sea and the land alike. She has been kept prisoner in her cove of black water, her only real company the people who died and became anchored in her polypus garden. When a young mermaid named Alia comes to her and asks to strike a magical bargain Evie knows what the cost will be for both of them, but it is a bargain she makes none the less, sending the mermaid to try and claim the heart of her Prince. Evie should have remembered that mermaids lie and that a heart can be blind, because close behind the first mermaid comes her twin sister Runa - who is desperate to create a bargain of her own to save her sisters life.
Life on the surface is even harder than Runa expected, and knowing the life of the Prince is the cost of her return to a mermaid Alia refuses to save her own life - even when she realises that he doesn't love her and her life is doomed. Forced to act Runa makes a decision that will change both their lives, and sets in motion a chain of events that will either save or doom the land and the sea. For decades the power of magic has been flowing from the land to the sea, the death of countless witches tipping the balance of power in favour of the ocean and the mermaid King who rules them all and Evie is starting to understand exactly what that means for her - and for everyone else. The time is coming when Runa will have to make the ultimate choice, and the choice she makes has the power to save or destroy two worlds.
I absolutely adored Sea witch and was a bit worried that any sequel would fall flat because we all know a version of the little mermaid and the Sea witch is always painted as a sinister character rather than a sympathetic one - but I shouldn't have worried at all. Sea witch rising was just as good, if not better than Sea witch, with the same attention to detail in terms of character building and cultural references. For someone who has Scandinavian heritage it was a real treat to enter a world that felt right, that had a sense of history and culture. As with the Sea witch there is more than one layer to the story, you have the main characters and the main storyline, but there are other characters and storylines that work together to create depth and connection to the story.
This series has been a real treat, and I hope that we see more of these re-imagined traditional tales from Henning because she has a real knack for keeping true to the ideas of the stories, while breathing a fresh spark of life into them and making them her own.
If you like this book then try:
- A court of thorns and roses by Sarah J. Maas
- Cinder by Marissa Meyer
- Long may she reign by Rhiannon Thomas
- Throne of glass by Sarah J. Maas
- Graceling by Kristin Cashore
- Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
- The treachery of beautiful things by Ruth Frances Long
- Ella enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
- Enchanted by Alethea Kontis
- Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix
- Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell
- Throne of glass by Sarah J. Maas
- Crown duel by Sherwood Smith
- Dealing with dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
- Princess of the midnight ball by Jessica Day George
Reviewed by Brilla
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