The Mermaid Call

Alex Cotter's The Mermaid Call is a mystery for 10 year olds about a girl who lives above a mermaid shop and starts to wonder what really happened in the lake.

What happens

Vivien lives with her gran, Mimi, in Lake Splendour, a village that runs on mermaids. There's a Mermaid Festival every summer, mermaid bunting on the lampposts and even a turnip in the greengrocer's window that looks a bit like one. Her family's shop, Enchanted Tails, sells hundreds of them.

Her mum hasn't been home in three years. She's finally due back, and Vivien has planned the whole summer around her. Then Mum cancels. Again.

Vivien is sure it's because she isn't good enough. Her hair is too curly and her feet are too big, and she once overheard Mum saying she'd expected a daughter who looked more like her. That's a really sad little moment, and it hangs over everything.

Then Alice DeLacey walks into the shop, posh and pretty and crying. Her aunt drowned in the lake during a festival years ago, and nobody in her family will talk about it. Alice found her aunt's Mermaid Diary before her grandmother took it off her. Now she wants Vivien's help to get it back.

Reading it, you're right inside Vivien's head. She's funny and sharp in private (Eleni's new idol is "All-hail-Hero") but far too polite to say any of it out loud. Meanwhile her best friend is drifting off to join the older kids who want the Mermaid Crown stopped. It's very easy to feel for her.

Alice is a bit of a puzzle. She's exciting and bossy and quite snooty, and you're never sure whether Vivien should trust her. That's what keeps the pages turning.

It's worth knowing it isn't all festival fun. The book opens with Vivien trapped in a dark cave, a new friend lying very still beside her, before jumping back two weeks. The drowned aunt is backstory, but the lake is never far away. There's also a lot about feeling plain next to prettier girls, which some readers will find very close to home.

For a reader who likes a spooky edge and a heroine who notices everything, it's a great pick.

What to read next

If they want more from the same writer, The House on the Edge is in the library too. Faith is keeping her family going in an old house right on the edge of a cliff, while her little brother insists he hears something in the cellar at night.