Our Bloody Pearl
This adult fantasy novel featuring a nonbinary disabled protagonist is a voyage of laughter and danger where friendships and love abound and sirens are sure to steal—or eat—your heart.
After a year of voiceless captivity, a bloodthirsty siren fights to return home while avoiding the lure of a suspiciously friendly and eccentric pirate captain.
The ocean is uncontrollable and dangerous. But to the sirens who swim the warm island waters, it’s a home more than worth protecting from the humans and their steam-propelled ships. Between their hypnotic voices and the strength of their powerful tails, sirens have little to fear.
That is, until the ruthless pirate captain, Kian, creates a device to cancel out their songs.
Perle was the first siren captured, and while all since have either been sold or killed, Kian still keeps them prisoner. Though their song is muted and their tail paralyzed, Perle’s hope for escape rekindles as another pirating vessel seizes Kian’s ship. This new captain seems different, with his brilliant smile and his promises that Kian will never again be Perle’s master. But he’s still a human, and a captor in his own way. The compassion he and his rag-tag human family show can’t be sincere… or can it?
Soon it becomes clear that Kian will hunt Perle relentlessly, taking down any siren in her path. As the tides turn, Perle must decide whether to run from Kian forever, or ride the forming wave into battle, hoping their newfound human companions will fight with them.
Content Warnings
Mild gore due to carnivorous sirens, sensations of drowning, occurrences of PTSD, implied rape in a character’s backstory (not shown or described), short segments of emotional and physical abuse from the villain.
Representation
Main character, Perle: nonbinary, PTSD, paraplegic, implied to be asexual, possibly aromantic.
Love interest, Dejean: asexual, panromantic, vaguely a biracial person of color.
Other majorly featured characters: (Murielle) vaguely a person of color, homosexual, (Simone) trans woman, vitiligo, vaguely a person of color, bisexual.
* characters labeled as “vaguely a person of color” are described as being non-white, but are never distigued enough to be understood as a specific race occuring in our world.