In this hauntingly romantic, queer fantasy debut from Shannon K. English, a young mermaid is forced to choose between her old life above the waves and her new life below them.

On land, Eppie will never be anything more than the outcast girl who kissed the grocer’s daughter. But beneath the water’s surface lies a future and a society she could never imagine. Stolen from the shore, she is transformed. Eppie is stronger, swifter—and hungrier. Human flesh smells like heaven on earth, and Eppie is ravenous.

Despite the horror of her new appetites, Eppie learns to love this strange second life. The mermaid colony is mesmerizing, and Eppie’s new sisters are fiercely loyal. When she meets Marie, a stunningly beautiful mermaid with a past as shadowed as her raven-black scales, Eppie finds she no longer needs to resist her deepest desires.

But dark sails are on the horizon. The mermaid hunters are coming, and Eppie must decide whether to protect her new, monstrous family or leave it all behind for a chance to live above the waves once again.