The sirens are hybrid creatures, a mishmash between women and birds similar to herpes. However, those vile creatures, the sirens, were beautiful and charming but did not always have that shape. They were beautiful nymphs when born daughters of the God River.
Moreover, they were part of the procession that followed Persephone, the goddess of spring. However, after Hades, the God of the underworld, decided to abduct Persephone, the nymphs were punished by the goddess Demeter.
So, the youngsters were transformed into women birds, which became known as sirens. They started to live on the rocks of the Italian island of Capri. Their melodious singing attracted the sailors of the boats that passed by it. Seduced by that, the men led their boats directly against the reefs, which caused severe damage to the hulls. After the collision, the ships and their crews were swallowed into the depths of the blue ocean.
Sirens have a rich history in mythology and folklore, mainly Greek mythology. Reading books about sirens lets you know these ancient tales and explore their origins, symbolism, and cultural significance. Also, they provide opportunities to immerse yourself in imaginative and magical underwater worlds filled with vibrant settings and fascinating creatures.
7 Books About Sirens (Mermaid Fiction & Myth)
The sirens’ singing was irresistible, but there are two stories of people who escaped their enchantments. Jason and the Argonauts encountered the creatures in one of these but could escape. The other is Odysseus. The curious hero wanted to hear the famous singing of the sirens.
To do that, he was tied to the ship’s mast so that he could not be thrown into the sea, and his crew plugged their ears with wax. The mermaids we know today owe much of their fame to the sirens of ancient times. Now I am going to talk about seven books about Sirens. Let’s go!
1. To Kill a Kingdom
To Kill a Kingdom has been getting hype and buzz because of the subject. It is a dual-perspective fantasy story. The central perspective is Lira, who is a siren princess. She is very lethal and dangerous and has 17 different hearts of 17 princes accumulated over her lifetime. Our other perspective is an Elian, a prince, and a siren hunter. He is very good at what he does, and his main goal in life is to rid the entire world of all sirens is also a pirate.
Elian finds peace and comfort in the ocean with his crew and ship. He finds it’s much better than the court life and feels stifled by his responsibilities as Prince. These two characters’ stories intertwine one’s Lira has royally pissed off her mother, the Iron Queen. She is cursed to become a human to become a segment again, and she has to get the heart of Prince.
She is stranded in the middle of the ocean, and Elian is the one that comes to her rescue. The story’s execution was about pirates and sirens, and all that stuff was lacking. You see many different places as Lira in Elian is on their journey. The relationship that develops between them is a lot of fun.
Author: Alexandra Christo
Average Rating: 4.4/5
Category: Fairy Tales & Folklore Adaptations, Mermaid Fiction
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | MP3 CD
2. The Siren
The Siren is a fictional book about sirens, which, if you don’t know what sirens are there, these figures in Greek mythology where they’re these mermaid things. They’re insanely beautiful women with lovely singing voices, and they will sing to lure sailors to them. So then the boat ends up crashing, and they all end up dying. So this plays on that, about a girl named Kahlen. She was part of a shipwreck, and that’s how the ocean recruited her to the sirens.
Kahlen has to serve a one-hundred-year sentence as a siren before she can be free, and she can live the rest of her life without even remembering that she was a siren. She’s at 80 years when she meets a boy. There’s romance, which forbids a siren to fall in love with a human.
So it complicates things a bit. There’s one character in this book with a normal name, Elizabeth. Padma was the most interesting character because she had a lot of backstories. They tried to give a backstory to the other two girls. It is one of the best books about sirens I have ever read.
Author: Kiera Cass
Average Rating: 4.5/5
Category: Fairy Tale & Folklore Adaptations, Paranormal Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
3. Lies Beneath
Lies Beneath explores revenge, redemption, love, and the struggle between duty and personal desires. The story starts with Color getting a call from Calder White’s sisters and needing him to come home. They want to fulfill their revenge plan that they have been planning ever since the death of their mother by a member of the Hancock family. He runs home to the sisters, and they follow the Hancock family to their new home, which is backed by water.
Also, it’s a perfect opportunity for them to start enacting their revenge plan. Calder’s goal is to get closer to Jason Hancock’s daughter to get in good with the family. They blame Hancock for their mother’s death and have followed him around for years tracking the family. Now that they’re moving closer to the water. It’s a perfect opportunity for them to set their plan in motion. Hancock has a massive fear of the water, so to try to get closer to Hancock, Calder seduces the daughter.
As a merman is a seduction, Calder is good at this part of his appeal. The Hancock family is not strangers to stories about more people. Lily, the daughter that he starts to do, sings. We got the whole mermaid theme twist and haven’t taken a play into the story. It was part of the plot that he had to seduce her, and she wasn’t some dummy following along.
She was brilliant and intuitive. Lili is pretty clever with her family’s history and the past, and his sisters are very deceptive girls. They want to see their plan unravel, which is getting them a little anxious, and they’re ready to follow through with their plan. So, it leads that anticipation and thriller aspect into the story of what will happen next.
Author: Anne Greenwood Brown
Average Rating: 4.4/5
Category: Myth & Paranormal Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Audio CD
4. Lost Voices
Lost Voices follows the story of a girl named Luce. She has recently lost both of her parents, living with her uncle. One night her uncle gets very drunk, trying to rape her. Luce wakes up the following day to discover she’s been turned into a mermaid.
Very quickly, she gets taken in by this tribe of other mermaids in the area led by Catarina. They learn quickly that the other mermaids in this group are there because they have also had horrible experiences and hold this terrible grudge against the human race.
The mermaids try to avenge the terrible things the humans did to them by trying to get rid of as many humans as possible. They do this by singing to huge ships, luring them to caves, sinking them, and then drowning everybody on those ships so there are no survivors. The boat crashed into a rock, and the people are now surging. It’s horrible, considering this is the first book in a trilogy.
Author: Sarah Porter
Average Rating: 4.4/5
Category: Mythology & Fantasy, Mermaids
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | MP3 CD
5. Sea Witch
You’ll love this one if you’re into the villain back story type of books. This is a re-imagining of Ursula’s story, which is so fun. She’s a little mermaid. Sea Witch is a story about loss, love, friendship, and revenge. The main character, Ursula, had a hard life. She’s a low-born girl who is best friends with the prince, and she lost her mother at a very young age. Her mother passed away, trying to save her and being friends with the prince. There’s a lot of talk around the town that she’s using him to get a better standing and be more popular.
One day both of them are on this ship for a party. A storm rolls in, and he falls overboard and is saved by a mermaid. This girl was saving the prince. She swears that this person looks like one of her friends who had drowned years before. She ends up befriending this girl and convinces herself that it’s not her friend that died. It’s another girl that looks similar and acts very similar. It’s weird for this girl who ends up coming clean with Evie and telling her that she’s a mermaid, and she has three days to make the prince fall in love with her.
Everyone agrees to help this girl who has become a new friend, not knowing that a more sinister plan is underway. You won’t see how the connection is and how this girl turns into Ursula because she is so levelheaded. It was interesting to see somebody so normal and level-headed and see how they get turned into a villain, even though they’re not a villain. But everybody else sees them as the bad guy.
Author: Sarah Henning
Average Rating: 4.5/5
Category: Mermaid Fiction, Fantasy Romance
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
6. Daughter of the Siren Queen
Daughter of the Siren Queen is the second book of the Daughter of the Pirate King series. The first book gives a little history of Alosa, her family, and her background. In this one, we learn more about who she is, but we know more about her father. We meet her mother, the siren queen, and find out that her father has been holding her captive for years, and she has not known that.
Finally, when Alosa gets aboard her father’s ship, she’s always wondered why he hasn’t been sorry. There’s a plan in the background, but she’s always wondered why her father is immune to her.
Alosa starts wondering when she has two guys from the first book captive on her ship, and she’s questioning them about all the stuff that’s going on. One of them describes why you can’t sing to your father. So she sneaks into her father’s ship and that room and finds her mother behind a secret wall. Suddenly, her father realizes that she’s gone, and he starts following her sins out of all his ships, and they start running.
Author: Tricia Levenseller
Average Rating: 4.6/5
Category: Fiction on Self Esteem & Self Image, Pirate Action & Adventure
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
7. Deep Blue
The first book in the “Waterfire Saga” series, “Deep Blue” follows the adventures of six mermaids. It is a middle-grade romance book about sirens, girl power, and friendship. We are centered around a princess who dreams about the world’s end and is destined to bring together these five other ladies. Together, they are going to stop this crazy monster. There’s magic, and they’re special like we’ve seen that before. The crazy twist is it’s all underwater, but the world is fantastic.
The story is about a mermaid named Serafina. She and her best friend, Neela, seek out who destroys their city and try to stop it. Then they meet different mermaids along the way, and then they all form six. They’re all descendants, and it’s a group. All six of our ladies introduced to this book are unique.
Author: Jennifer Donnelly
Average Rating: 4.6/5
Category: Coming of Age Fiction, Mythology & Fantasy
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
Non Fiction Books About Sirens
Sirens primarily exist in mythology and folklore rather than real-life phenomena. However, some books explore sirens’ origins, symbolism, and cultural significance. Here are a couple of non-fiction books that touch upon sirens and related topics:
Sirens: Symbols of Seduction by Meri Lao: This book focuses on the symbolism and historical portrayal of sirens throughout different cultures and periods. It explores the allure and power attributed to sirens and examines their representation in art, literature, and popular culture.
Sirens: The Mythical Creatures of the Sea by Kelsey Oseid: This beautifully illustrated book visually explores various mythical creatures associated with the sea, including sirens. It provides information about these creatures’ origins, legends, and cultural interpretations, blending mythology, and scientific facts.
Books About Sirens For Kids
The Singing Mermaid by Julia Donaldson: In this delightful picture book, a mermaid with a beautiful singing voice joins the circus. Still, she soon realizes that life in captivity isn’t what she imagined. It’s a story of friendship, freedom, and following your dreams.
Siren Song – My Life in Music by Seymour Simon: This non-fiction book explores the world of music and the power of sirens in mythology. It provides an engaging introduction to sirens and their significance in different cultures.
Sirens and Sea Monsters – A Yarn Yarn by Lari Don: This book is part of the “Yarns” series and features captivating tales of sirens and sea monsters worldwide. It introduces young readers to different myths and legends about these enchanting creatures.
The Secret of the Sirens by Julia Golding: This middle-grade fantasy adventure follows the story of a young girl who discovers a magical world beneath the sea filled with sirens, mermaids, and a dangerous plot. It’s a story of bravery, friendship, and uncovering hidden truths.
Mermaids and Sirens – A Calm Coloring Book by Jade Summer: This coloring book is filled with beautiful illustrations of mermaids and sirens. It provides a creative activity for kids who are interested in sirens.
These books provide a sense of escapism, allowing you to transport yourself to enchanting worlds and embark on exciting journeys. They offer entertainment that engages your imagination and provides a break from everyday life.
More Mythological Books:
Mythical Mermaid Romance Books
Seafaring Pirates Romance Books
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