Mermaid

For lovers of Coco Mellor's Blue Sisters and the Oscar-nominated Sentimental Value, Mermaid is a piercing, multi-generational saga of shared tragedy, the jagged edges of sisterhood, and the secrets that surface when the past refuses to stay submerged. They were the girls who didn't drown. In 1983, seven-year-old May and her older sister, Kate, sat in the back of their mother's car watching the murky churn and roil of the San Francisco Bay. And then they were in its freezing depths. They were the "poor motherless girls" who made it—swimming up and out of the water to become survivors, forever defined by their mother's inconceivable act. And as they grow, the ripples of that day become a tide. May is a woman quietly haunted, clinging to a life of safe, solid ground. Kate has become a storm—volatile, self-destructive, and then...missing. As May searches for her sister, she must confront the wreckage of their shared childhood and the hidden truth of her mother's final act. Navigating the panic of Kate's disappearance, May finds an unexpected anchor when Buddy—her high school sweetheart—returns to town years after a severe firefighting injury shattered his identity and their engagement. As they tentatively path a way back to one another, can a second-chance romance bloom between them? Lyrical, raw, joyfully wry, and achingly sad, Mermaid explores the resilience of the sisterly bond, what it means to decide to live, and the courage it takes to forgive those who could not stay.