The Sirens

Hart (Weyward) delivers a high-voltage tale of family secrets, fantastical occurrences, and Australian history. Lucy, a university student in present-day New South Wales, wakes from a recurring dream about two sisters drowning to find she’s sleepwalked into her ex-lover Ben’s room and is trying to strangle him. Horrified by her actions, she flees to her older sister Jess’s house in the seaside town where their parents once lived, but Jess is nowhere to be found. The town is notorious for the mysterious recovery decades ago of a baby from a nearby cave and the unexplained deaths of several local men. Growing up, Lucy wondered why their parents were so reclusive and why Jess refuses to talk about the past. After Lucy recognizes images from her dreams in Jess’s paintings, she reads Jess’s diary in search of answers. A parallel narrative set in 1800 follows twin sisters Eliza and Mary, who struggle to survive the cruel conditions aboard a convict ship sailing from their native Ireland to Australia. As Hart connects Eliza and Mary’s story with Jess’s diary, Lucy’s dreams, and Lucy’s reason for attacking Ben, the narrative occasionally veers from entertaining to exhausting (story elements thrown into the mix include murder, sexual predators, mystical bodily transformations, otherworldly orphans, and mistaken identities). Still, there’s fun to be had with this spooky page-turner. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (Apr.)