disclaimer: I received this free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

rep: sapphic genderfluid Black m/c, sapphic Japanese-coded m/c, secondary Black characters

content warnings: multiple mentions of rape, colonization, torture, murder, violence, sexism and homophobia, slavery and human trafficking

I am so conflicted about The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea for many reasons. There were plenty of positives but also plenty of negatives. I thought having the Black character working on a Slaver ship was a bad move, despite the ship only trafficking their colonizers, and while Flora's role on the ship was a minimal part of the novel, it still did not sit right with me. I wasn't always too keen on the romance and truly do wish it was more developed, as it was a huge part of the novel and I do wish I enjoyed it more, it was just so disappointing.

The characters were both the positive and negatives of this book. Our main protagonist is genderfluid, happy being referred to as either she/he/them and by either Flora or Florian and I thought they were a really great character and had a really interesting character arc. Evelyn though? I could not care less for her, her chapters were mind-numbingly boring. I thought the other character POVs later were an interesting addition, such as Rake.

Now the world-building is probably the strongest element of this novel. The nuanced discussions about colonialism and imperialism were really good. But my favourite part was probably the little snippets we got of the Sea - they were fantastic and I really wish more focus was put on that element. Honestly give me a whole novel that takes place in this world's sea, please.

Anyway, full review to come soon