Elijah's Mermaid

Reading through the other reviews here, it seems that many people had trouble getting into this book but found it better later on. Surprisingly, I felt the complete opposite. I'm on a bit of a historical fiction kick at the moment and at the beginning I loved Fox's detailed and atmospheric descriptions of 19th century London. The premise seemed great and the characters and their backgrounds were intriguing.

I loved everything about the twins, Elijah and Lily, their backgrounds, their relationships with each other and the other characters, and Lily was a good narrator. Augustus Lamb, Freddie Hall, Osbourne Black were also believable and interesting characters.

My biggest disappointment of the novel was Pearl, the second narrator. At first I quite liked her. She had her own voice, especially near the beginning when she was using a lot of brothel slang. However, this voice and the connection I had with her drifted away throughout the novel. Her only purpose seemed to be the nymph-girl, that everyone was obsessed with, or the victim. To me it felt like her character simply faded. Maybe this change was a direct result of what she went through, but if so, I feel like that could have made more clear or she should have regained her spark at certain points. I found myself, during the chapters narrated by Pearl, wishing that it was all narrated by Lily. Part of this might be due to how grim some of the events in Pearl's chapters are (such as how she was treated in the asylum), but I think mostly it was due to the fact that Pearl had less of a distinctive voice than Lily (or at least I felt that way).

My other issue with the novel, despite its great premise and Fox's obvious talent for story telling, was that a lot of the reveals, especially towards the end, felt contrived and unnecessary. Most the ending felt all too convenient and too easily wrapped up as well. Maybe I should be more content with the “happy” ending, but this seemed odd next to the darker parts of the novel.

This is an enjoyable read for those who love 19th century historical fiction by contemporary authors, but not one that I fell head over heels in love with. Ultimately though, Fox is clearly talented and there is a lot I like here, so I'll be interested in reading more of her work.