The Mermaid’s Apprentice is a young adult fantasy novel that follows Mabel Sinclair as she tries to rescue her brother and follows Antonio Cortez as he attempts to finish his required time in the navy before opening his tailor shop. It is a fun story about mermaids and pirates that is part of Palmer’s world of Pippington.
Mabel is the youngest child from a wealthy family and watches as her selfish older brother gets turned into a toad and kidnapped by a mermaid. Mabel follows and is soon immersed in a world she never imagined. After a year of being a pirate, she returns home, breaks the spell on her brother, and is immediately swept up in her old life that she hated. She forms a lie in which she claims to have eloped with a random sailor, Antonio Cortez, she had met at sea. Her brother remembers nothing from when he was a toad, and Mabel has a photo of herself with the sailor, so her family believes her. Unfortunately, the lie takes on a life of its own and Antonio gets word that he has a wife. With a secret society blackmailing her, mermaids helping her, and a fashion world to conquer, Mabel must try to survive while fixing the mess she has created.
This is a fun, light story with a sweet romance. I especially enjoyed the world-building, the pirates she befriends, and the integration of sewing and fashion throughout. I did feel like this novel’s plot was resolved multiple chapters before the end of the book, but the ending is sweet and without the rough cliffhangers that often plague indie books.
The Mermaid’s Apprentice is the first book of a series and Palmer has not completed the next one just yet. I have spoken to Palmer and was shown that much of the series is completed and in the editing stage. It looks like it will be an enjoyable series to follow. It is a cozy fantasy novel that is full of the young adult tropes and themes that we come to enjoy in such novels. It’s kind of like a romantic comedy at sea.
The novel is clean with no sex, violence, swearing, or dark elements. It would be fine for readers in middle school and up who like clean romance. The ideal market, though, is high school and older. I might give some of Palmer’s other books a try in the future. We’ll see.
You can follow her on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/L.-Palmer/author/B00V7MT2R2?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
Her website is: https://lpalmerchronicles.com/
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