The Mermaid’s Child

Malin grew up not knowing her mother except through the tales her father and grandmother told her; her grandmother never had good things to say, but her father claimed Malin’s mother was a mermaid. After her father’s death, Malin ends up apprenticed to a cruel barkeeper. When she’s given the chance to escape the town where she will always feel out of place, Malin takes it. From there, she travels all over the world with a variety of characters, ultimately in search of the magical creatures she believes are her family.

Jo Baker invites readers into a unique and fascinating world with The Mermaid’s Child. Malin’s journey is not easy for her, and at times the situations she gets into are painful for readers to experience. Malin’s struggle to understand herself is one with which anyone can identify. What really makes this book outstanding is Baker’s lyrical prose, her way of describing everything that Malin experiences so that readers can visualize, while also appealing strongly to the imagination; Malin’s world is both darker and brighter than our own world, more disturbing and more enthralling, more frightening and more beautiful. This is a novel worth getting lost in.