This is a tricky book to review, as some parts were completely fantastic, but others dragged. I think I preferred the premise to the actual story.

Think this was an interesting concept but the execution just didn't match up to it for me, unfortunately. The worldbuilding left a lot to be desired and I couldn't see it as a viable prequel.

I gave this book a quick try, and ultimately decided to DNF -- my tastes have changed since I requested this. Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book!

An interesting, but deeply sad and mysterious retelling of <i>The Little Mermaid</i> -- or, rather, what happened long long before Ariel was even born.

~~~

Sea Witch is the first installment in the series of the same title. It narrates the story of three childhood friends - Evie, Anna and Nik - and their adventures, until one tragic accident which drastically changed their lives.
Until one day a mermaid girl looking just like Anna, the friend who drowned that day, appears, raising even more questions about that day.

This read came with a lot of contrasts.
It was a quite captivating read at times, but one that felt unnecessarily slow for the most part.
I came to deeply care for Evie and Nik, although I couldn't help but wonder at their naivety.

All in all, I think I went in with too many expectations of a <i>Little Mermaid</i> retelling and I completely overlooked the fact that it wasn't an actual <i>Ariel</i> story.

The Little Mermaid has been a favourite fairy tale of mine all my life and so I was certain I would enjoy this new spin on the story. I usually love a retelling, often as much as the original it was inspired by and although I did enjoy this book I didn't love it. The story takes a VERY long time to get going but the last third is well worth the wait. 3.5 stars

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

Certainly a premise i was interested in, however there have been so many recent releases with a similar idea and I feel as though this one could’ve had that bit extra to make it stand out from them. I was excited for a villain origin story but it just didn’t feel dark enough for me.

I was really excited for a retelling of the little mermaid and it started off exactly how I wanted, pacey and hooking me in, and then it just kind of fell away from me. I ended up feeling a little deflated, maybe it was too hyped in my head and it just didn't live up to expectations.

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning held a strong potential that it unfortunately doesn’t live up to. With the promise of the origin story of the Sea Witch, Henning offered to tell an alternate side to the classic The Little Mermaid story that we are familiar with. I was excited to strip back the layers of ‘the villain’ and to see how she was formed, and to question her identity as a ‘villain‘ at all.
Sadly, while Henning did form an origin story, it fell flat due to a variety of reasons.

For one, the structure and writing. The story takes place in the present day, but is often interrupted with flashbacks to show the backstory (to the backstory). The writing in these flashbacks was often poorly done; I had to re-read certain chapters because I had no idea whose point of view this was meant to be from. There was no sense of clear perspective from the third person narrator. One minute it felt like you were in the head of Iker, and then Nik, with no clear distinction between them. This impacted my enjoyment of the story because it wasn’t coherent, and it interrupted the fairly decent flow of the present tense.

Furthermore, several moments in this book I was hooked! I was like oh my god, yes, the book is getting good now! Some reveals, some twists, had me on the edge of my seat, desperately turning the page…

Only to be let down in the end. The plot reveals led no where but disappointment. It faded to melodrama. The characters personalities and established views went out the window. Dramatic love reveals. I mean, it was entertaining, but more of a oh my god that’s hilariously bad, rather than a WOW, what a brilliantly executed ending.

So sadly this one was a miss for me.

When I think of The Little Mermaid I think of the Disney version, and I think we can all agree that Ursula is Disney’s most fabulous villain (with the best villain song), but I have to admit it’s not my favourite fairy tale so retellings never really pull me in the way a retelling of Beauty and the Beast might.

When Sea Witch came along though, a villain origin story set in the original tale’s home of Denmark and drawing on Denmark’s dark history of witch hunts, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy.

Set in 19th century Denmark, Sea Witch follows Evie, a witch who must hide what she can do or face the brutal consequences, and her friendship with the prince, Nik. As children, Evie, Nik and their friend Anna always played together, but four years previously they lost Anna to the sea in a dare gone wrong. Then Nik is rescued from drowning by a girl from the waves who looks just like Anna; a girl who needs Evie’s help to win Nik’s love before it’s too late.

Ultimately I liked Sea Witch, but for the sake of ending on a high note I’m going to get what I wasn’t so keen on out of the way first.

Considering it was marketed as a villain origin story and considering its setting, I thought Sea Witch would be a lot darker than it ultimately was. The history of witch-hunting in Denmark is harrowing. In fact it’s Denmark’s fascination with witchcraft that influenced James VI of Scotland and I of England; when he visited the country to collect his bride, Anne of Denmark, he became obsessed with the idea of witches. He brought those ideas back to Scotland and many people died as a result.

There are glimpses of that in this book; Evie talks about how the festivals they celebrate burn effigies of what are essentially her ancestors on the bonfire, but it never went far enough for me. I never really felt like Evie was in danger because she only ever told me she was, but I never saw an example of what might happen to her if she were caught.

The blurb also mentions that Evie is an outcast but, again, I didn’t completely feel that. There are moments when she’s made to feel unwelcome, but we see so little of the people of Evie’s own social class that I never got a sense of how they felt about her. Being of a lower class it’s understandable that the upper classes who associate with the royal family feel as though she’s rising above her station, but so much more could have been done with this.

Evie spends the majority of her time with people from the upper classes and it’s a pet peeve of mine in witch stories. They always seem to take place at court when the majority of people accused of witchcraft were commoners, and I just didn’t need yet another book about royals, y’know? Obviously there is a prince in the original story, but if you’re going to retell it anyway why not include a boy who isn’t royalty for a change?

In fact Sea Witch felt like it could never decide if it wanted to be historical fiction or fantasy. Can it be both? Of course! But if you’re going to write historical fiction with hints of fantasy, I need to believe this book is set in the time and place you’re telling me it’s set in and I never quite felt that. Characters batted around phrases like ‘No worries’ and ‘when we were kids’ which I found really jarring. I am a history nerd, though, so I can completely understand that people who aren’t as into it as I am probably wouldn’t find that a problem.

All that aside, I did like this book! I loved Henning’s writing style; this was such a quick read, and the things she did include about Danish culture and folklore were interesting and helped me feel grounded in the setting she created.

Evie is a really sweet protagonist, too, and I liked her relationship with Nik. She could be a little naive from time to time but her naivety comes from a place of honesty, not stupidity, so any mistakes she made or the people she trusted when we know she shouldn’t have made sense.

Most of all, though, I liked the narrative choices Henning made. Is the plot a huge surprise? Not really, but it’s done well enough that it doesn’t matter if you can guess what’s coming. Personally I loved the ending; it’s rather bittersweet, but I appreciate the brave choices Henning made when, this being a retelling, she easily could have wrapped everything up in a happy, neat little bow.

I don’t think I’ll be reading the recently released sequel, I’m happy for this book to remain a standalone, but I’m definitely interested in reading more from Sarah Henning in future!

Oh dear! I was hoping that this would be an interesting look at a Sea Witch origin story. Unfortunately what I got was a disjointed and utterly predictable story that jumped around all over the place with little to no set up. Every beat was obvious and incredibly stereotypical of the genre, in all of the worst ways. I did like the friendship
between Evie and Nick, but other than that, this one had little to recommend it I'm afraid.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thank you for providing a copy of this book for review however I was unable to open the file for this document unfortunately! Apologies.

Mesmerising fairytale retold from the point of view of the villain of the Little Mermaid story. Although the setting and the characters are magic, the emotions are very relatable.

I don’t delve into the world of YA Fantasy as much as I’d like to these days, but I’m so glad I happened across this novel. It’s different to some fantasies I’ve read in that it’s not set in the UK or the US which is quite refreshing in itself. I would have liked to see a bit more world building in a sense, but I still love this book as the first in its series.

It’s slightly cliche in the sense that it’s got all the usual YA tropes – royalty, girl who’s in with the royalty but still an outcast, etc – but I’m an absolute sucker for these tropes. Who doesn’t love a good ball? Drama? Magic? This book has all of them. The only thing it’s really missing is a happy ending, but we’re getting used to our protagonists not getting what they deserve.

I would definitely recommend this novel for people who are looking for YA Fantasy that’s a bit different but not too far out of the norm. I would suggest not getting attached to the characters though – they all come with their own surprises, and not necessarily the good kind.

I used to love The Little Mermaid and when I heard about a story following Ursula, I was quite excited. Unfortunately, the wording of the text was in parts slightly more complicated than it needed to be. This book was slower paced than I thought it would be. However, I do appreciate the focus on Ursula.

I finished this book hoping it would get better. I was sold on the story as it is how ursela becomes the sea witch and I love the little mermaid, however I found this strange and a very slow read. It concentrated solely on a relationship triangle with little intrigue and wasn't particularly magical or touched on anything resembling what it promised until the last chapter, extremely disappointed

This book was one of my most anticipated releases of last year. The Little Mermaid is one of my favourite fairy tales (and my favourite Disney movie). So a sea witch origin story? Hell yes! I pre ordered as well and was so excited when my review request was approved.

Only…I can’t say I was overtly impressed. It was almost 70% of the book before anything resembling The Little Mermaid cropped up into the story and the first half was slow and kind of boring. The setting was beautiful – inspired by the original tale not the Disneyfied version, the Danish kingdom by the sea sounds absolutely beautiful.

The heroine, Evie, is interesting as she is not the most likeable of characters. She’s kind of blunt at times, an outcast. Her mother is out of the picture (can’t remember why) and her father is away a lot working on the fishing boats. Evie lives with the local witch, and is learning her magic. And sneaking glances at magic she’s not supposed to know.

Already looked down upon because of where she stays, she also feels the stigma of the death of her childhood best friend Anna. They were both playing in the sea, something happened, Evie survived, Anna did not. Evie also has developed a close friendship with the Crown Prince and his handsome cousin, all are about the same age. Many of the nobles don’t like this, another reason Evie is frowned up on.

Yet despite this she keeps a strong outlook and doesn’t let people’s disdain of her stop her from being friends with the Prince and hanging out with him and his cousin whenever she can. She’s also not opposed to using magic she’s not supposed to.

The first half of the book focuses on how Evie deals with day to day life, her friendship with the two princes, the upcoming festival. The hints of her darker nature just showing through. It is beautifully written, but it is very very slow. And despite showing hints of a strong character, Evie spends a fair bit of time mooning over the Prince’s cousin who she may or may not have feelings for. The dude is a known player yet seems to give her special treatment more than any other girls he’s supposedly courted.

When a strange new girl arrives in town looking almost identical to Anna, Evie’s world is thrown. She’s convinced the girl IS Anna, but the girl is firm she is not. She and the girl develop a close friendship and Evie learns the girl’s secret – she is in fact, a mermaid and needs to find her true love in order to stay on land and keep her legs. This new girl also develops a close friendship with Evie’s prince and his cousin. The cousin is convinced there’s something not right about this girl.

The girl has some unusual magic of her own, Evie is determined to help the girl, she failed one friend she won’t fail another. But things start unravelling as the girl’s history and secrets are slowly revealed and truths are learned. Things take a drastic turn and change for Evie in ways she never imagined.

The latter half of the book was much more fast paced, but as I said earlier it’s almost 70% before the pace finally picks up and things start happening – fast. It almost seems rushed. The characters of Evie and the mysterious new girl were quite well fleshed out, but the two princes just felt like generic YA love interest characters. One nice and friendly with good honourable intentions, the other a charmer with a not so good reputation. It’s been done a hundred times.

There was enough of an interesting narrative to want to know what was going on – but it was still a little bit disappointing.

It appears there is a sequel, I can’t honestly say I am that interested in continuing this story, though I would definitely read something else written by this author.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK Children’s books for approving my request to view the title.

I cannot express enough how much I love this story. It has a line that I just keep coming back to, it haunts my dreams! 'The sea is a fickle witch' - so simple, yet somehow it really resonates.

A talented author, I cannot wait to see what she writes next!

As soon as I saw this book I was interested to see how this little mermaid retelling faired.
The setting of 18th Century Denmark made the scene very atmospheric and magical.
I was quickly pulled in to the story but then at times found it a bit of a struggle to stay engaged which I think was due to the characterisation.
I did enjoy the twist though.
A tale of the sea, mermaids, friendship, love and betrayal.
My thanks go to the author, publishers and Netgalley for providing this arc in return for a honest review.

2.5 stars

Evie has magic like the other women in her family, but magic is forbidden.
She tries to use her magic to help people but it wasn't enough to stop her best friend Anna from drowning.
Years after the accident, a girl appears in the town who looks just like Anna. Evie befriends the girl, Annemette, and as they grow closer she finds out the real reason Annemette is there.
The girls spend time with Nik, the prince and a close friend of Evie's, and his cousin, Iker.
Is there more to Annette than meets the eye?
Can Evie have a future with Iker?

I'm a fan of fairytale retellings so when I saw Sea Witch on NetGalley I instantly requested it.
I didn't mind Evie as a character and felt a bit sorry for her. There weren't really any characters that stood out for me.
The plot was okay. It look a long time to get going for me and it was only at the end that I thought there were some good twists.
The writing style wasn't one of my favourites and I struggled at times to stay interested. I contemplated DNFing this once or twice.
I'm disappointed that I didn't enjoy this more.

Overall this was an okay but disappointing read.