The Mermaid of Black Conch

Winner of the 2020 Cost Book Award.

Winner of the 2020 Costa Novel Award.

Shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020

Features original music created for the audiobook.

March 1976: St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village on the island of Black Conch, at the start of the rainy season. A fisherman sings to himself in his pirogue, waiting for a catch but attracts a sea-dweller he doesn't expect. Aycayia, a beautiful young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid, has been swimming the Caribbean Sea for centuries. And she is entranced by this man David and his song.

'Monique Roffey is a unique talent and most daring and versatile of writers' — Bernardine Evaristo

‘Sensuous, beguiling, but without whimsy … a striking achievement.’ — The Sunday Times

‘Not your standard mermaid.’ – @MargaretAtwood