Congratulations to Monique Roffey for winning the Costa Book Of The Year Award 2020!

David, a lone Caribbean fisherman encounters a mermaid and is entranced. After she is brutally caught and about to be horribly exploited he rescues her and helps her recover. They fall in love and Aycayia begins to transform back to the young woman she was before she was cursed.

Everyone who meets Aycayia has their lives changed for good or bad as jealousies, old passions and historical tensions are revealed; but can the curse be broken?

With the help of kind islanders she begins to dream of her old life and the prospect of new love but the elemental forces that condemned Aycayia to a lonely exile in the sea have another fateful act to play.

A rich blend of myth, love story and history set in a lushly evoked Caribbean.
This book dazzles with appealing complexity of themes and ideas – using language playfully, Roffey brilliantly weaves them into an endearing, shocking story encompassing humour, horror and real humanity.

Original and delightful – a worthy prize winner.