Genre: Fantasy

Publishing Info: April 14th 2003 by Firebird

Pages: 137

Star Rating: 4/5

Back Cover Summary:

Since the day her father’s fishing boat returned without him, Peri and her mother have mourned his loss. Her mother sinks into a deep depression and spends her days gazing out at the sea. Unable to control her anger and sadness any longer, Peri uses the small magic she knows to hex the sea. And suddenly into her drab life come the King’s sons-changelings with strange ties to the underwater kingdom-a young magician, and, finally, love. 

Patricia McKillip is one of my favourite authors and this book lived up to my expectations. It is written in her usual, beautiful style. She presents a captivating story about magic, anger and love. The story slowly unravels to reveal unexpected truths. It is a short novel which I actually really like about it. A lot of fantasy books seem to try and be as long as possible but this one is content with being its natural length, without adding things and diverging to try and make it longer. It is quite refreshing to read a short fantasy story.

The characters are well drawn out and I found myself very connected to them. I wanted to know what would happen and how things would work out for the characters.

The plot has a lot of substance for such a short book and you never really know what might happen next, making it a little bit of a mystery story. Although the novel is sometimes tinged with sadness it also ends on a positive note.

This is very much up to the standard of the other books of hers I have read. I would recommend this to anyone who likes fantasy. It is an enchanting read.