The Wicked Deep

I am a voracious reader, but very few books are almost impossible for me to put down. This book was the exception! It had so many plot twists and turns it resembled a rollercoaster. I will endeavor to give a brief summary that will entice you to read the book, but not have any spoilers.

In 1822, the Swan sisters arivve in Sparrow, Oregon. Margureite, Aurora, and Hazel are beautiful, talented, and magnetic. They radiate charm. The three sisters also own a perfume shop. One night when they are tipsy at a tavern, Marguerite tells Aurora and Hazel, "they think we're witches!" She jokingly tells the men in the tavern that she will hex them all! Her hexes are unbelievable and ridiculous. She tells one man, "You will grow a beard made of sea snakes." She tells another man, "You will trip and fall on your way home tonight, hit your head, and see your future death." Also, she tells another man that "he will marry a mermaid and taste fish, no matter what you eat, for the rest of your life".

Calling yourself a witch when you aren't one is similiar to crying wolf. People may believe you are a witch even if you aren't one. Arthur Helm hit his head and swore he saw his death. Even though he didn't actually fall on his way home from the tavern. He was struck in the jar by his plow horse a week later. When Murray Coats marries a woman with long ribbons of wheat, people said she was once a mermaid he had caught in his fishing net.

On the summer solstice of 1823, the sisters are drowned as witches. But that is not the end of the Swan sisters. For the next two centuries, they come to Sparrow at the beginning of summer. They inhabit the bodies of the local girls and drown the men in Sparrow. They return to the sea on the summer solstice and the girls that they inhabited have no memories of their actions.

Penny Talbot, a seventeen-year-old girl who lives on Lumiere Island close to Sparrow, hates Swan season in spite of the tourism and money that it brings. Her father has disappeared. Her mother has become a recluse and retreated from life. She's just met a boy named Bo Carter who has offered to do much needed work on the island and her home. He claims that he is in Sparrow because it was the last town on the bus line and he has never heard of the Swan sisters. Is he telling the truth? She wants to protect him for the Swan sisters. Can she? Read the book and find out!