The Siren, the Song, and the Spy, the companion novel to Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s first book in this fantasy world, The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea, is about loss and attempted redemption, about the atrocities wrought by empires, and about the cyclical horrors that humanity inflicts on itself and the environment.
It is also—buffered by Tokuda-Hall’s emotive prose—a compelling tale about a handful of characters trying to topple a brutal, oppressive empire while trying to stay alive. The book is told from multiple points of view, but the four main ones are Genevieve, a young woman indoctrinated by the Empire who realizes that the force she thought was just for most of her life is, in fact, the opposite; Koa and Kaia, siblings of the Wariuta people, islanders with hyena familiars who have yet to be yoked by the Empire; and Alfie, a young man who is aiding the pirates rebelling against the Empire by working undercover in the palace.
Those of you who’ve read Tokuda-Hall’s first book will no doubt recognize some of these names. Many more characters from The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea also show up, including Florian and Evelyn. This companion book, however (the marketing is clear and correct that this is not a direct sequel), fares well on its own, with Tokuda-Hall relaying the key points a new reader needs to know without getting bogged down in recapping the first novel.
In The Siren, the Song, and the Spy, we start with Genevieve, half-dead after the events from the first book, washing up on the island where Koa and Kaia’s people live. Genevieve is still enmeshed in the Empire’s ways, even after the pacifist Koa goes out of his way to ensure her safety. Abominable acts by the Empire, however, cause them to work together to bring the colonizers down, something that Alfie is also trying to do from inside the palace. In Genevieve’s case, a Siren lets her drink her blood, which gives Genevieve a vision of the one living dragon who remains sleeping at the bottom of the sea. That dragon, to some, would be the ultimate weapon to bring the Empire down.
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The Siren, the Song, and the Spy
It’s a tough balancing act to richly develop characters while also moving the plot forward at a compelling pace. Tokuda-Hall manages to deftly do both while also expanding the world we saw in the first book. One of the ways she does so is via a reveal with one of the point-of-view characters that I won’t spoil here, which provides nuance and complexity to more than one person in this world.
And while there are several points of view portrayed in The Siren, the Song, and the Spy (some could argue too many, though I found the number to be more than manageable) Genevieve’s journey is arguably the core of the novel. Her struggles trying to reconcile who she was, who the Empire made her, and who she is trying to be now is a heartrending one, and surprisingly relatable.
Tokuda-Hall’s portrayal of Genevieve is just one example of how the author is such a deft writer, able to convey her characters’ perspectives with dimension and vividness that puts her in the top tier of prose authors in the genre. At one point in the story, for example, Genevieve wonders how another character “was a completely different person and exactly the same person at once,” a juxtaposition that many have no doubt experienced in their lives, whether with themselves or with those they knew (or once knew).
The book, however, still is an ensemble cast, with other characters playing prominent roles (and sharing their struggles and pain) as the story unfolds. So much so, in fact, that perhaps the most impressive part of The Siren, the Song, and the Spy is that it’s able to pack in so much story, worldbuilding, and character development in just over 300 pages.
Without getting into spoilers, the book has a definitive, violent, and emotionally painful ending that still manages to leave a flicker of hope. There is, in short, a comeuppance for the many sins humanity has wrought against one another and also against the environment. And while individuals have their own personal redemptions in the book, the outlook Tokuda-Hall paints for humanity in this world is grim—the atrocities committed by the Empire have happened before, and they will happen again. One can’t help but see reflections here to our own world circumstances, and I’ve no doubt that Tokuda-Hall had that in mind when writing the story.
This grim statement, however, belies the hope and perseverance conveyed by characters like Koa, Kaia, and yes, even Alfie and Genevieve. The world is full of hardship and horrors, some of which we inflict, inadvertently or not, on ourselves and others. And yet, after destruction and pain there is regrowth, the building of something new.
The characters at the end of The Siren, the Song, and the Spy still find joy, whether grasped from living a life of their choosing on the ocean, rebuilding a village, or cooking a delicious meal for others. Someone who is broken can knit themselves back together, making them—as Genevieve realizes earlier on the book—both different and the same from how they were before. What’s less optimistic in The Siren, the Song, and the Spy, however, is whether humanity as a whole can learn that lesson—in the world of the book or in ours.
The Siren, the Song, and the Spy is published by Candlewick Press.
Vanessa Armstrong is a writer with bylines at The LA Times, SYFY WIRE, StarTrek.com and other publications. She lives in Los Angeles with her dog Penny and her husband Jon, and she loves books more than most things. You can find more of her work on her website or follow her on Twitter @vfarmstrong.
