Book Review: ‘Sea Witch’ by Sarah Henning

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning combines elements of fantasy with a fairytale inspired story that focuses on Ursula’s (renamed Evie in the book) origins from The Little Mermaid. This young adult story is filled with friendship, romance and betrayal.

Set in 19^th century Denmark, Evie is the daughter of the royal fisherman. Thanks to her mother’s bloodline, Evie has magic…only magic is feared and outlawed in the kingdom. She must keep her abilities secret even from her best friends, including Crown Prince Nik whom she has known since childhood.

The majority of the story takes places when Evie and Nik are sixteen years old. Evie’s world is rocked when a mysterious girl called Annemette turns up. The problem? This girl has an uncanny resemblance to her dead friend Anna. The pair bond and Evie discovers that Annemette has a secret too – she’s a mermaid who will die in four days unless she can convince Nik to fall in love with her.

Despite knowing that this was an Ursula origin story before I began reading, apart from the epilogue there was very little to indicate this novel’s fairytale connection. I actually consider this a good thing as it means Henning’s story is strong enough to stand on its own without relying on The Little Mermaid to support its plot.

This is my own personal preference but I wish the magical elements of the story had not been as subtle at times. Yes we know Evie has magic and yes we know Annemette is secretly a mermaid but these are often in the background which means much of the novel read more like historical fiction than fantasy.

That being said, the strength of the book is definitely its characters. All of the characters and the relationships between them come across as believable and realistic. I especially liked the strong connection between Evie and Nik who together show that a story about a girl/boy friendship can be just as strong and compelling as a story featuring a girl/boy romance.

Even though I knew story could only end one way, Evie’s journey from fisherman’s daughter to sea witch still kept me engaged throughout. Some of the twists were easy to guess but that didn’t stop this from being a good book overall. Sea Witch is actually the first in a duology with the epilogue implying that the second book will more closely follow the events of The Little Mermaid.

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