James Nicoll Reviews

2023’s The Siren, the Song, and the Spy is the second volume in Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea young-adult secondary-world fantasy series.

A survivor of a recent sea battle washes ashore on a Wariuta island beach. Koa and his sister Kaia do not know who the stranger is but they know what she is: one of the Colonizers with whom locals have had so much trouble. Prudent Kaia would prefer to kill the woman out of hand. Soft-hearted Koa dissuades Kaia. Instead, they haul the woman, Genevieve, back to Yunka.

There are consequences.

Read more ➤

Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s 2021 Squad is a horror coming-of-age graphic novel. Illustrations are by Lisa Sterle.

Becca has been dragged to upper-class Piedmont by her divorced mother. A moment of charity saves her from a pariah existence as a socially awkward stranger at her new school. Marley, to whom Becca handed a spare tampon, is a member of the school’s elite clique. Because Marley takes an immediate shine to Becca, Becca joins Amanda, Arianna, and Marley in their squad. 

It’s a dream come true, except for the serial killing. 

Read more ➤

Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s 2020 The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea is a secondary universe fantasy. 

Lady Evelyn Hasegawa’s betrothal to wealthy officer Finn Callum promises financial security to her debt-ridden aristocratic parents. This is an arranged marriage; she’s never met her groom, who lives at a distant imperial outpost in the Floating Islands. Evelyn must take a long sea voyage to join him, a voyage from which she will almost certainly never return. 

⸮But this is a sacrifice her parents are willing to make.⸮ 

Evelyn and a casket full of worldly goods are sent off on the good ship Dove. She’s anxious, of course: a new land, an unknown husband. She would be even more anxious if she knew that Dove is captained by a complete villain and crewed by people who are just as bad.

Read more ➤