From the 2023 Recommended Reading List: The Siren, the Song, and the Spy
Here’s a highlight from our 2023 Recommended Reading List: The Siren, the Song, and the Spy by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, out from Candlewick.
In this second vibrant fantasy from Maggie Tokuda-Hall, companion to her bestselling debut, The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea, a diverse resistance force fights to topple an empire in a story about freedom, identity, and decolonization.
By sinking a fleet of Imperial Warships, the Pirate Supreme and their resistance fighters have struck a massive blow against the Emperor. Now allies from across the empire are readying themselves, hoping against hope to bring about the end of the conquerors’ rule and the rebirth of the Sea. But trust and truth are hard to come by in this complex world of mermaids, spies, warriors, and aristocrats. Who will Genevieve—lavishly dressed but washed up, half-dead, on the Wariuta island shore—turn out to be? Is warrior Koa’s kindness toward her admirable, or is his sister Kaia’s sharp suspicion wiser? And back in the capital, will pirate-spy Alfie really betray the Imperials who have shown him affection, especially when a duplicitous senator reveals xe would like nothing better?
Meanwhile, the Sea is losing more and more of herself as her daughters continue to be brutally hunted, and the Empire continues to expand through profits made from their blood. The threads of time, a web of schemes, shifting loyalties, and blossoming identities converge in The Siren, The Song, and the Spy as unlikely young allies work to forge a new and better world.
Check out the Locus magazine interview with Maggie Tokuda-Hall!
Don’t forget to vote in the Locus Awards for your favorite titles from 2023 at the Locus Awards Poll & Survey.
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Maggie Tokuda-Hall was born in 1984 and grew up in California, living in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. She earned a BA in studio art from Scripps College in Claremont CA, and an MFA in writing from the University of San Francisco.
Her debut novel, queer YA fantasy The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea, appeared in (2020) and was selected for the Otherwise Award honor list; sequel The Siren, the Song, and the Spy is out now. Her first publication was picture book Also an Octopus (2016), illustrated by Benji Davies. Love in the Library, illustrated by Yas Imamura, came out in early 2022. She also writes graphic novels, including werewolf YA Squad (2021), with illustrations by Lisa Sterle, and the forthcoming The Worst Ronin (2024), illustrated by Faith Schaeffer.
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