Lost Voices by Sarah Porter (The Lost Voices Trilogy: Book 1)

9/10

Lost Voices is a dark, heart-rending entwinement of the power of music and the ethereal beauty of mermaids, fleshed out by the cruel tendencies of a human heart.

If I had to pick one word to describe Sarah Porter’s brilliant creation, it would be, ‘beautiful!’ Painful, yes! Full of the untold darkness that could envelope any of us in our hours of despair, but the beautifully crafted first book of the Lost Voices trilogy is told in such a rich, despairing aqua tinged tone, it leaves you desperate for more.

Lost Voices is the story of Lucette Gray Korchak, a young girl living among the colourless cliffs of Alaska with a deranged uncle who finally goes over the edge and thrusts Luce into a deep, dark pit of despair, and as the girl struggles to save herself she finds that she has been washed into the ocean and changed… into a mermaid!

The previously lone girl now finds herself part of a pack, a whole gaggle of teenage mermaids who welcome her with open arms. The mermaids are ‘ruled’ by the mermaid with the most powerful voice, the icy and mysterious Catarina who plays an almost ‘blonde-prom-queen’ role in the novel until later, when her secrets start tumbling out. The mermaids follow a strict code, like the bushido of the samurai, called the timahk which prevents them from tearing at each other’s faces like normal, human teenage girls do. Luce believes she’s finally come home until she finds that the mermaid’s bitterness towards the humans that made them what they are, isn’t just skin deep. The mermaids have voices, and they use these voices to entice seafaring humans, just like the sirens of old. Luce’s mermaid sisters are involved in the murder of innocents and Luce is the girl with the perfect voice, a voice of power and purpose, a deadly weapon. What will she choose?

Regardless of Luce’s choice Porter has created a masterpiece. It is signature in the despair and darkness that seems to permeate YA literature today. However, such an act can be forgiven since there is a reason for all that darkness, not just because there happens to be a tall, brooding, hunky (insert supernatural being here) hanging around in the shadows!

I am waiting eagerly for the second and third books in this trilogy, eager to know what happens to the sunshiny Luce, survivor and mermaid. This is definitely something to pick up if you haven’t had anything good to read since Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Here’s to Sarah Porter, may you not disappoint!