Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep

Liz Kessler's Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep is a mermaid adventure for 10 year olds set on a secret island right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.

What happens

Emily is twelve, and she's just moved somewhere beautiful. Her new home is an old wooden ship called Fortuna, lodged at a tilt in the white sand of a bay. Its whole lower floor is underwater, so you can swim around downstairs.

That matters, because Emily's legs turn into a tail whenever she's in the water. Back in her old seaside town that was a secret she had to keep from everyone. On Allpoints Island, merfolk and humans live side by side and nobody needs to hide.

So everything should be perfect. Then, on her very first swim, a current grabs her and drags her towards the edge of the Triangle. One of Neptune's guards had started to tell her what lies below the island. "The biggest, scariest..." he began, and then a grown-up cut him off.

Her best friend Shona arrives, and two local mergirls, Althea and Marina, offer to show them round. There's a mermaid school in a glittering cave, with lessons in Beauty and Deportment and Shipwreck Studies (no more long division!).

The trouble is that Emily turns out to be the only half-and-half on the island. The others have been swimming all their lives, and a few months ago she'd never even been in the water. Who hasn't felt like the new kid one step behind everybody else?

So when Althea points out a lagoon the island children are forbidden to enter, and says Emily's too new to get told off, you can guess what happens.

Every so often the story hands over to Mandy Rushton, the girl who made Emily's life a misery back home. Her parents bicker, her family is about to lose its home on the pier, and then her mum wins a cruise to Bermuda. It's funny reading a bully from the inside, and a bit sad too.

It's worth knowing that the opening is quite spooky. There are stories of ships found deserted in the Triangle, one with skeletons on deck, and that pull towards the deep is properly frightening. If your reader enjoys a shiver, it's just right.

This is the second Emily Windsnap book and it picks up where the first one ends, so start with The Tail of Emily Windsnap if you can.

What to read next

If they love the part where Emily longs to belong among the mermaids, try The Mermaid's Sister by Holly Webb. Mia feels alone at court in a magical Venice, and every night she dreams of mergirls who swim just out of reach.