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4.0 

The Changeling Sea

By Patricia A. McKillip
The Changeling Sea by Patricia A. McKillip digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

World Fantasy Award winner Patricia A. McKillip tells "an enchanting fantasy that is tinged with realism and romance." (School Library Journal)

Since the day her father's fishing boat returned without him, Peri and her mother have mourned his loss. Her mother sinks into a deep depression and spends her days gazing out at the sea. Unable to control her anger and sadness any longer, Peri uses the small magic she knows to hex the sea. And suddenly into her drab life come the King's sons—changelings with strange ties to the underwater kingdom—a young magician, and, finally, love.


"McKillip is a master storyteller; her tale rings true as if it were being told from memory."—Kirkus Reviews, pointer review

134 Reviews

4.0
“This book could have been 5 stars if it wasn't for the ending. The story is about a girl named Periwinkle, Peri for short, that works at an inn cleaning the floors with two other girls. Peri hates the sea ever since her father's fishing boat returned without him and her mother spends her days looking out the window and talking about a city below the sea. Feeling like she lost both parents, Peri uses the small magic she learned from a witch to hex the sea. There is a prince, a magician and sea creatures in this story that revolves around an inn, the sea, love and greed. The writing is beautiful as always and the characters are great. I immediately got attached to Peri, who is 15 years old, and also liked her work colleagues that were surprisingly interesting despite being sort of minor characters. The prince was really interesting, the sea dragon was really sweet and funny and I also liked the magician. I loved the plot of common people dealing with magical creatures that suddenly show up and how the fishermen and the workers at the inn are trying to deal with this situation by hiring a magician. I liked the commentary about greed around these characters too since they are after a gold chain that is on the neck of a sea creature. The mystery around the king's son and his connection to the sea was really enjoyable and tragic and I really liked the moments between Peri and Kir. This book really reads like a fairy tale and it doesn't have the dark moments present in "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld", but it still has some surprises and really strong characters and themes. My only problem with this story was the last page. I really liked the implication of moving on, but I was not a fan of the execution. This happened especially because all of the time I was picturing a certain character as being really really old. So, you can imagine my shock at that scene even though that looking back didn't exactly came out of nowhere. I just hope that character is a minor too since I don't remember the age being mentioned or any of the physical descriptions. I also thought a certain character that went missing at the start of the book would show up again and now I wonder if there are any hints about what actually happened early on in the text or if it was just left as a mystery. Overall, I really enjoyed this book but that scene really caught me off guard. Edit: A friend read this book recently and cleared up what was making me feel a bit uncomfortable. I still keep thinking about this book too so I am changing my rating to 5 stars instead of 4.”
“A very sweet tender story about yearning and heartbreak set in a seaside town. Very beautiful prose!”

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