Shorelines

When proud mermaid Muireann flees her climate-ravaged ocean in search of hope on land, she confronts human cruelty and body-shaming as she struggles to find her true home and voice. Caught between a dying ocean and a divided world, she must grapple between the sea that made her and the surface that might break her – in this stunning verse novel that reimagines The Little Mermaid.

Muireann is a mermaid – fierce, curious and proud of the body that keeps her warm beneath the waves. But life in the ocean is becoming impossible. The merfolk are at war with the human ramifications of climate change: food is scarce, and her twin sister has been killed in a mass-fishing net. With her mother lost in grief and her world falling apart, Muireann longs to escape to the surface to find some answers. But the human world isn’t the haven she hoped for. It’s colder, crueller – and here, her large body is seen not as strength, but as something to be ashamed of.

In this beautiful novel-in-verse, Muireann must find her voice and fight for where she belongs – whether that be beneath the waves, or above them.

Ruth Ennis (she/they) is a writer from Kildare, Ireland. She studied English and Drama at University College Dublin and Children’s Literature at Trinity College Dublin. She has written poetry, short stories and essays for several publications. Her work has been published in The Irish Writer’s Handbook (published by Books Ireland) and I Am The Wind (published by Little Island). She usually is working with books in some capacity.