“It took her a journey across the ocean to learn what she knew of love and fear and hate, but the essence of it came to her in an instant, as she succumbed to the churning black depths of the deep sea.”Coralline is a shy mermaid in the Atlantic Ocean whose idyllic life is ruined by an oil spill that gravely sickens her little brother. Desperate to save him, she embarks on a quest to find a … quest to find a legendary elixir.
She encounters a human man, Izar, who’s left his life on land behind to find a cure for his dying father. He doesn’t tell her that his family runs Ocean Dominion, an enemy corporation whose ships plunder her waters daily.
Fate pushes the two of them together, even though their worlds are at odds. Accompanied by a colorful troupe of animals, Coralline and Izar travel through coral reefs and seabed cities, trailed by murderous adversaries and warring ships. Their secrets threaten to tear them apart, while a growing attraction adds to the danger. Ultimately, each of them faces an impossible choice. Should Coralline remain with the world she knows, including her fiance, or should she relinquish everything for a stranger who might betray her? And Izar holds a secret of his own–one that might cause him to lose Coralline forever.
Magnificent and moving, set against a breathtaking ocean landscape, The Oyster Thief is an enthralling fantasy destined to become a classic.
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Sonia Faruqi had me at the word ‘mermaid.’ The Oyster Thief creates a lush, imaginary underwater world that somehow manages to reinforce the reality of the need for environmental awareness―it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read
The Oyster Thief is a wildly imaginative journey on land and in the ocean that will have you anxiously turning pages late into the night to discover the fate of Coralline and Izar―and the underwater world itself. Beautifully written and emotionally complex. Anyone who is a fan of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game will fall in love with this novel.
I love that this story is a mixture of genres. The above water world has elements of science fiction while the under water world is fantasy. There is adventure, humor, and romance. In addition there is a strong theme of ocean conservation which flows seamlessly throughout the story, never feeling overbearing or heavy handed.
Faruqi has created a beautiful, intricate and extremely well thought-out underwater world. Every time I started to wonder how something could work underwater, my question would be answered by some aspect of the story. This is a beautifully crafted story with characters that are diverse and engaging.
There’s something irresistible about a love triangle. Let’s face it, Bridget Jones, Twilight, Great Gatsby… none of them would have been the same without the love triangle. It’s usually one woman who is choosing between two suitors, and it’s no different in this book. But it is unusual in a love triangle to like both contenders equally. That’s how I felt here. Ecklon with his thoughtfulness and loyalty is just as appealing as Izar with his rough charm and ruthless ambition. Makes for a great read.
Sonia Faruqi has created an imaginative, fast-paced adventure with a strong theme of ocean conservation. Bravo! May many read, and heed, its message.
An unusual setting and not a bad story but the first 100 pages or so are somewhat tough to get through. There’s an awful lot of descriptive set up before the story starts but eventually it picks up the pace.
A delightful book that takes place in a world other than ours. Great escape and nicely written.
I’ve never read anything like this, and I’ve read a lot of books!
I can understand them being mermaids. But having a job in a pharmacy or being detectives just makes it a soap opera with fins
I am always a little wary of the fantasy genre – it is sometimes difficult for authors to sufficiently build a convincing world for their characters to inhabit. But, I LOVED Sonia Faruqi’s The Oyster Thief! Even in the first few chapters I was convinced that I was under water with Coralline, and I found myself imagining the vivid colours and captivating lives of the merpeople in Urchin Grove. The imagery is truly gorgeous, and I just couldn’t put the book down once I became engaged in Coralline’s life under the sea. Coralline is at once shy and strong, and I found that I relate to her and her connection with her family, and her desire to help people. The adventure element in The Oyster Thief reminded me of fairy tales with central quests, which made me nostalgic – simply put, this is a story unlike any other I’ve read before. It is truly a treasure that I would recommend to anyone who loves mermaids, adventure, romance, and most especially, the ocean!
Did not finish. The writing style was too juvenile for me. I’m all for fantasy, but was ridiculous. Read like a Disney movie.
There isn’t often a book that both successfully educates as well as entertains, however, The Oyster Thief managed to do both deftly. Taking place deep in the Atlantic Ocean, the novel depicts the life of Coralline, your typical directionless, inattentive, forgetful mermaid who is on the hunt for a life that’s less conventional than what is on track for. Spending her whole life in the underwater village of Urchin Grove, as picturesque as it may be, wasn’t what she wanted, and her job as an apothecary’s apprentice at The Irregular Remedy has her underpaid and vastly underappreciated. Coraline needed to get out, but when she finally does, it wasn’t as how she planned.
Living on land, Izar has a promising career as the son of the president of Ocean Dominance, a company that seeks only to exploit the ocean first for fish, then oil, and now for minerals. Based on his own inventions, Izar and his adopted family will soon become rich beyond their wildest dreams, and will truly live up to the name of their company as they become maritime masters. However, he too is unfulfilled, and things quickly take a turn for the worse. Worlds collide when tragedy strikes, and what happens next is an epic journey of a motley crew across the ocean filled with murder, intrigue, and action.
A story about love, guilt, and secrets, Faruqi paints a fascinating underwater world. Battling consumerism influenced by her mother, and complacency instilled by her father, Coralline turns inward for genuine understanding and love, realizing that she herself is a source of light.
Faruqi’s gripping plot, meticulous research, and unwavering attention to detail will pull in even the biggest of skeptics of a book about mermaids. During the many action scenes of the book, The Oyster Thief does an incredible job of developing tension both on the land and underwater. Faruqi seamlessly splices between both settings while simultaneously increasing suspense and advancing the plot. The characters and their relationships with each other are complex, relatable, and multi-dimensional, struggling with real issues and conflicting thoughts that someone in their position would face.
The Oyster Thief‘s foreboding tone depicts a world not too far from our own, a world where companies exploit the ocean as an inexhaustible source of food, oil, and minerals rather than a living eco-system in need of conservation. However, in some of Faruqi’s portentous prose she might have predicted the future, some companies are starting to mine the ocean depths of minerals.
For the environmentalist, it is apparent that Faruqi did extensive research when writing The Oyster Thief. While reading, it is easy to find little breadcrumbs of her exhaustive process, and she perfectly creates her own world while weaving in amazing biological facts about sharks, algae, coral, and other biological life. We are left with oceanic knowledge even in the final passages of the book, all while perfectly tieing it into the plot—
“The whale tail is different from the fish tail because, although whales entered the oceans many millions of years ago, they’re still outsiders…whales did not evolve from fish, but from mammals who left land for water, and so their tail continues to carry the up-and-down motion of their ancestral legs”
Love it.
I liked this book, the story, the setting and especially the characters. Wish I lived like that.