The Tail of Emily Windsnap, by Liz Kessler

Emily has always wanted swimming lessons, but her mother is terribly afraid of the water and has always been against it. Until now. Finally, Emily has worked her magic and persuaded her mum to let her go swimming with school. When she first slides into the water it’s a wonderful feeling - like she belongs – she glides through the pool as if she’d been swimming all her life. But then something terrible happens: her legs seize up, she can’t move, she can’t swim. What is happening?

At first Emily can barely believe it was real: her legs became a tail. Like a mermaid! When she sneaks out later that night to test her theory, she has to believe it. How can this be? And how can she stop people from finding out? Because surely they’d all think she was a freak and then take her away.

Drawn inexorably to the water, though, late at night when her mum’s asleep Emily begins to explore the underwater world and there she meets a new friend, Shona Silfkin, who takes her further into the ocean to the home of the mermaids, introducing Emily to mermaid histories and legends. As she becomes familiar with this new world, Emily and Shona uncover a hidden family secret, and the origins of Emily’s tail – her father, locked away in a mer prison, just because he fell in love with Emily’s mother. Can Emily find her father? Can she make her mother remember? Can she find a way to make her family whole again?

With The Tail of Emily Windsnap, Liz Kessler has written a magical adventure, twisting fairytale and siren myths into a new form that’s already enthralled plenty of readers and will inevitably enthrall many more in the years to come. The creepy Mr Beeston and the King of the Ocean, Neptune, stand in Emily’s way, but as with all well-written baddies, they’re a mix of good intentions gone wrong. The question is: how far are they willing to go to preserve the status quo?

Enjoyable, the perfect blend of magic and reality, and with a heroine it’s impossible not to believe in. Where will her adventures take her next?