The Sirens

A Novel

By: Emilia Hart

Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik

A spellbinding novel about sisters separated by centuries, but bound together by the sea, from the author of the runaway New York Times bestseller Weyward

2019: Lucy awakens from a dream to find her hands around her ex-lover’s throat. Horrified, she flees to her older sister’s house on the Australian coast, hoping she can help explain the strangely vivid nightmare that preceded the attack—but Jess is nowhere to be found.

As Lucy awaits her return, the rumors surrounding Jess’s strange small town start to emerge. Numerous men have gone missing at sea, spread over decades. A tiny baby was found hidden in a cave. And sailors tell of hearing women’s voices on the waves. Desperate for answers, Lucy finds and begins to read her sister’s adolescent diary.

1999: Jess is a lonely sixteen-year-old in a rural town in the middle of the continent. Diagnosed with a rare allergy to water, she has always felt different, until her young, charming art teacher takes an interest in her drawings, seeing a power and maturity in them—and in her—that no one else has.

1800: Twin sisters Mary and Eliza have been torn from their loving father in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship bound for Australia. For their entire lives, they’ve feared the ocean, as their mother tragically drowned when they were just girls. Yet as the boat bears them further and further from all they know, they begin to notice changes in their bodies that they can’t explain, and they feel the sea beginning to call to them…

A breathtaking tale of female resilience and the bonds of sisterhood across time and space, The Sirens captures the power of dreams, and the mystery and magic of the sea.

©2025 Emilia Hart (P)2025 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Full of allure and brimming with undercurrents of buried secrets... The Sirens is beautifully written and utterly compelling." —Evie Woods, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop

"The Sirens is an absolutely immersive, utterly captivating puzzle box of a novel, both gripping and heart-wrenching. Hart is a gorgeously emotive storyteller." —Ellery Lloyd, New York Times bestselling author

"Evocative and compelling, The Sirens is a deeply layered mystery, and a luminous ode to the sea and sisterhood. Written with Emila Hart's assured and shimmering prose, the story is as hopeful as it is heart-wrenching." —Lucy Clarke, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Girls

"I absolutely adored this powerful, beguiling novel, steeped in magic, mystery and the wild forces of the ocean. A testament to the unbreakable bond of sisterhood and the eerie echoes of history, it weaved its way into my heart and lingered long after the last page. So vivid, Emilia Hart must have saltwater running through her veins." —Lizzie Pook, author of Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter

"Emilia Hart takes the reader on a mythical journey through time, evoking ancient tales of the sea and female bonds that are tested but never broken. The Sirens surprises and delights and allows us as readers to imagine a world where myth and reality collide. A beautiful and propulsive story full of love and intrigue. A remarkable read!" —Amanda Peters, bestselling author of The Berry Pickers