Book Review: Sea Witch by Sarah Henning

Title: Sea Witch
Author: Sarah Henning
Genre: Fantasy YA
Format: Paperback
Length: 368 pages
Series: Sea Witch #1
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: 31st July 2018

My Rating: ★★★ (3 stars)

Goodreads | Storygraph

Synopsis:

Everyone knows what happens in the end. A mermaid, a prince, a true love’s kiss. But before that young siren’s tale, there were three friends. One feared, one royal, and one already dead.

Ever since her best friend, Anna, drowned, Evie has been an outcast in her small fishing town. A freak. A curse. A witch.

A girl with an uncanny resemblance to Anna appears offshore and, though the girl denies it, Evie is convinced that her best friend actually survived. That her own magic wasn’t so powerless after all. And, as the two girls catch the eyes—and hearts—of two charming princes, Evie believes that she might finally have a chance at her own happily ever after.

But her new friend has secrets of her own. She can’t stay in Havnestad, or on two legs, unless Evie finds a way to help her. Now Evie will do anything to save her friend’s humanity, along with her prince’s heart—harnessing the power of her magic, her ocean, and her love until she discovers, too late, the truth of her bargain.

My Review:

Not gonna lie, I picked this book because the cover is gorgeous.

The Sea Witch is a retelling of The Little Mermaid. It focuses on Evelyn, a human witch who becomes Ursula.

The story is narrated by Evelyn, with a third person narrating the flashback scenes. Annemette is a mermaid, who bears a striking resemblance to Evie’s best friend Anna; who drowned at sea. The girls spend the novel with the two crown princes’ Iker and Nik. I liked Nik and thought he was a great character. However, Iker seemed to have a personality transplant in the last 25% of the novel and it threw me off; I was confused at his sudden change.

One thing that I did enjoy about this is that it was woven into Danish history; where witches were hunted and killed. The research that Henning did and the love for the sea are evident in the story.

Sea Witch is a story that weaves Danish history with a fantastical re-telling. I wanted to love this story, the concept of the novel is well thought out, however, I found the story to be slow and felt that nothing really happened until the last 70% of the novel. This book wasn’t for me, but if you don’t mind slow plots and want to read an origin story then this may be the book for you.