Leading this offbeat novel is Simon Watson, a librarian who lives in his childhood home – a dilapidated clifftop house on the coast of America.
Simon has the unusual talent of being able to survive underwater for up to 10 minutes – a skill taught to him by his circus-mermaid mother, who in a cruel twist of fate drowned when Simon was a child. When a very old handwritten book is unexpectedly delivered to his home, Simon discovers a link to his ancestry and a series of coincidences – or maybe a curse – affecting the women in his lineage.
This causes him to speculate that his troubled sister Enola may be in danger, so he embarks on a race against time to understand the book’s puzzle and keep Enola safe.
It’s a strangely entertaining read, but one that does need concentration to fully connect the two stories.
Simon’s story is interspersed with that of an 18th-century travelling carnival along with its performers – a mute wild boy, a tarot card reader, and the beautiful, unsettling mermaid Evangeline.
