The Siren

Cass, Kiera. The Siren. 2016. 327p. ISBN 9780062391995. Available at FIC CAS on the library shelves.

Despite the Great Depression, Kahlen’s family is doing well financially. Her family ends up on a transatlantic ship. Feeling uneasy one day, Kahlen witnesses her father, mother, and brothers becoming entranced by a strange music coming from outside the ship, and, along with all of the ship’s passengers and crew, jump in the ocean, answering the call of beautiful sirens singing their death song. As Kahlen sinks, her will to survive is strong enough that the Ocean offers her a bargain: Sing for her for a hundred years, and then Kahlen will be released with no memories of what happened to lead a new life. Refuse the bargain, and drown with the rest of the passengers.

Kahlen accepts Ocean’s bargain and for the next eighty years serves her faithfully, sharing her feelings and emotions as well as luring strangers to their deaths. She cannot talk for a single word from her is enough to send a person to their watery death, and Ocean has warned all of her sirens that they cannot reveal their existence. But when she meets Akinli on a college campus in Miami, she realizes that she doesn’t always have to keep company with other sirens only. Though she loves her three siren sisters dearly, she longs for human companionship, and Akinli provides her with something she never thought she would experience as a siren. Complete and utter acceptance. Suddenly, Kahlen finds herself falling for this beautiful and loving boy, and she quickly develops a relationship despite the difficulties in communicating with him.

But loving a human is forbidden and Ocean will be upsets if she finds out. Kahlen breaks it off with Akinli, but following another shipwreck she runs away from her sisters and inadvertently finds him again, this time in a small town on the coast of Maine where he works as a fisherman. She hopelessly falls in love with him, and him with her. Kahlen cannot wait another twenty years to listen to her heart, but their lives are now in danger. What will be the cost of true love?

If you enjoyed this book, be sure to look at The Selection, also by Kiera Cass.