When We Believed in Mermaids: A Novel

Well, I didn’t find out until the bio at the end that Barbara O’Neal writes “women’s fiction”. If I had, I might not have read this. If the description had referred to it as a “romance”, I would have thought of those awful paperbacks that many women devour like chocolate candies, but which I can’t get past one paragraph of. I’m a man, and I thoroughly enjoyed this novel from start to finish. I’m always interested in learning about the mysterious operations of the female mind, and this book, thoroughly feminine in approach and style, contributed to my learning. Its greatest strengths are the explorations of life as never being black and white as much as our minds want to put everything into one or the other category, its use of switching POV back and forth between the two very different – and so much alike – sisters, its beautifully poetic and sense-involving descriptions. The sense of smell, so underused in fiction, is evoked and given the importance it deserves. The physical expression of emotions in the body is also well done. The surfing descriptions are , however, of the “you had to be there and have done this” nature. The story creates suspense and eagerness to go forward to find out how things are going to turn out. The weaknesses are only two, and I have encountered both before in fiction by women: 1) Descriptions of events from long ago - an adult narrator recalling their childhood and early teen years - described in intimate, specific detail as if they had just occurred moments ago. Describing an event from 20 years ago and referring to the slight movement of a shadow on someone’s face, or a drop of dew on a grass blade, or the movement of the sun behind a wispy cloud, and the exact clothes the people were wearing... I suppose some of that would be recallable if it were directly related to the event being described, like how many buttons it took to get off their shirt, but most is just tiny physical, environmental details that would not likely be remembered after so long. While they are nice to read, it is a flaw in believability. Slight SPOILER, you may want to skip this paragraph: The second weakness is a certain predictability about the main character and in this type of novel. She is so strongly bent in one direction that there’s no surprise in where she’s going to go. None at all. Along with that, while, thank God, not all women’s fiction involves romance, the ones that do can only have one ending. I haven’t written a book review in a long time, though I have been reading voraciously. This was excellent enough to talk about, and to let men know it isn’t only just for women. That said, if you’re looking for espionage thrillers, you wouldn’t be reading a review of a book called “When We Believed In Mermaids” anyway. Original, beautifully written and highly recommended.

When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal is an emotional and immersive novel that explores the complexities of family relationships, long-buried secrets, and personal healing. From the very first page, I was drawn in by O’Neal’s lyrical writing and the depth of the characters. The story follows two sisters whose lives have taken very different paths, and the mystery of a long-lost sibling brings them together in unexpected ways. O’Neal does an excellent job of balancing the past and present, slowly unraveling the secrets that have shaped the characters’ lives. The way the author handles the themes of grief, forgiveness, and reconnection makes the novel resonate on an emotional level. One of the highlights of this book is its vivid settings—whether in the sun-soaked beaches of New Zealand or the flashbacks to California, O’Neal’s descriptions are lush and transportive, adding to the overall atmosphere of the story. The plot moves at a steady pace, allowing the characters’ development to take center stage, which made their journeys feel authentic and relatable. For readers who enjoy stories about family dynamics, emotional growth, and a touch of mystery, When We Believed in Mermaids is a wonderful choice. It’s a poignant, heartwarming novel that leaves a lasting impression.

I wasn't expecting this book to be quite as dark as it became, although I'm really not sure why. An emotionally stable person doesn't fake their own death after all. The early glimpses we got of the sister's childhood, seemingly idyllic camps on the beach below their home, surfing and the presence of a beloved older sibling of course were not as they appeared on the surface and as the story develops we learn of neglect and abuse and suicide. As Kit travels to Auckland, chasing a glimpse of her sister's familiar face spotted on a TV newscast, we also meet Mari, living an idyllic suburban family life in NZ. Mari was Josie, Kit's sister once, long ago. I found the ease with which Kit tracked Josie down, once she had a city to work in, just a bit unbelievable. 1.5 million people live in Auckland, and asking around at surfing supply shops was not really feasible because surfing is big in the city. There are a lot of surfers in Auckland. As a New Zealander who grew up in Auckland I was very impressed with the lyrical description of the place. It made me a little homesick. I found the placing of the wonderful Sapphire House difficult. It's said to be in Mt Eden, and the views to the Waitakere ranges support that, but then it's on a cliff top above the sea and Mt Eden is not. But that's a minor quibble from a native. We learn that Mari's name is pronounced Mary, and as a Kiwi I just can't see it that way, especially in a NZ setting, the Maori pronunciation is automatic, and with the long A it should be Maarie. Again, a minor quibble from a local. There's two major subplots, one handled better than the other. One is a historical murder mystery related to the old house that Mari's husband has bought for her. I initially thought there would be parallels between that and the sister's story, but there wasn't and it didn't really go anywhere before being quickly wrapped up at the end. The other was Kit's romance with the unbelievably perfect flamenco singer Javier. It was a typical romance plotline and added a lot to showing how broken Kit was and I loved it, but it seemed a little unbelievable. Mari's husband Simon also seemed too good to be true. Of course, the whole book was leading to the reunion and it was as good and as bad as it could be. The fall out had the potential to be horrendous and I couldn't put the book down, reading late into the night to find out what happened, and thoroughly invested in the characters. The finale had me in tears with a solid emotional kick and a great HFN. This was my first book by this author, a great read and I'll be looking for more of her work.

I liked this novel – there are two main POV characters: Mari and Kit, both in their early 40’s. Mari is the mother of a pre-teen girl and happily married to Simon. Kit is not the marrying kind. As readers we hear from each POV in alternating chapters. We learn that Kit travels overseas looking for her missing sister Josie. Kit and her mother were both under the impression that Josie was dead but new information gives them second thoughts. Our first important reveal comes at the end of Chapter 4. Kit is at her destination but can’t seem to keep focused on her mission of looking for her sister. She is sidetracked (too distracted) by romance. She has flashbacks of her childhood and the time her sister was killed – or so she thought. Mari is working on a new major project. Via flashbacks we learn more and more about her childhood as well. At the 50% point in the book we get out next reveal about her. At the 60% we get another Mari reveal. More details of these reveals are provided as the story concludes. Well done. I didn’t know this book was “women’s fiction” until I read it. As a male, I still found the story well done and the plotting plausible. The romance part was 20% or so of the story and – while it fit the story’s ending – I could have done without it. The three key male characters in the story seemed to me to be “too good” (perhaps qualifying for sainthood) and were good-looking to boot! The two main female characters where attractive as well (don’t you just love it when only beautiful people populate your romance-prone fantasies?)

I had been eyeing When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal for months before my book club voted it for our monthly read in September. I was, obviously, not disappointed in the choice. O’Neal does a great job of setting the scene in this book and not making us wait for the point of the book to be revealed. Right from chapter one that suspense was building. Kit’s personality reminded me a lot of myself from the moment she started explaining herself. Guarded against people, easier to just be by yourself than worry about others, etc. I felt a kinship with her, although I hadn’t been through some of the terrible ordeals she had in her lifetime. When we jumped to New Zealand, I really liked the characters that came into the story. I loved the ties she made to those people and found myself hesitant, but cheering for them none the same. I really did not like Josie, or Mari even, at all. From flashbacks to stories Kit told, Josie was always just a little selfish and got upset when she wasn’t the focus. Mari reminded me of the same and I just never was able to shake it. I love how O’Neal made me feel things through her book. I enjoy when a book really reached in and grips a specific emotion in me and this one had me on a bit of a rollercoaster ride. While it wasn’t an action packed story, it flowed quickly and didn’t feel boring. I honestly felt the romance aspect of it was more prominent than the main story line of finding Josie. Not sure if that was the goal O’Neal had, but for me that took focus. Overall I enjoyed this book. I feel like the ending was a bit sudden and that disappointed me a bit, but in the grand scheme of things this book was good as a whole. This is a perfect read on a rainy day when you want to escape to nicer climates and read a little drama and romance. I’ll definitely be checking out more from Barbara O’Neal.

When We Believed in Mermaids is a story that digs deep into trauma and how people react to it. This is not an easy topic to explore, however it is necessary because of all of the traumatic events that occur in society. Some of the reactions in this story deal with alcoholism, drug abuse, and starting a new life by completely destroying an old one. This story is well written, and has come out during the MeToo movement, which makes it all the more essential reading. Trauma effects people in different ways, and can even effect the same person in different ways. The characters in this story are two sisters who are living their own separate lives after one has faked her own death. These two characters are flawed, however they are relatable in that they have their own separate personalities, and were able to overcome triald and tribulations to start their own lives. There are supporting characters in the story who are likable but flawed as well, and this is true to life. No one is perfect, and everyone has certain flaws that they have that makes them who they are, however this book digs deep as to why these characters are the way that they are. This story almost feels like nonfiction at times because of how realistic the caharcters are. The setting is beautiful as the charcters are surfers so there is a lot of ocean and waves in the story. I chose a 5 star rating for this because I have always been fascinated by character study and psychology, and this story is all about character psychoanalysis. It shows why people do what they do, and why they become who they become. I recommend this story to anyone who is interested in psychology and enjoys layers of depth from their characters. This is a highly enjoyable book that is a real oage turner.

Verdict: Interesting enough to finish it. Mildly recommend as long as you don’t mind a little bit of sappiness and drifting around in a story that should do better to keep to it’s central theme. What’s it about? Kit, an ER doctor in California, sees her sister Josie on the TV news from Auckland, New Zealand, where a club has caught fire. So? Her sister has been dead for fifteen years! (Great set-up to hook the reader.) Kit, emotionally torn from the sense of grief, loss, and anger, decides she must go to New Zealand and find/confront her sister. After arriving in New Zealand, Kit begins to live out her past (through flashbacks): days on the beach with her sister, surfing, a lost teenage boy unofficially adopted by the family, a father and mother with such a turbulent marriage that they ignore their children, and a “trauma that has haunted Kit and Josie their entire lives.” You also get to experience the same backstory from Josie as she lives a new life as Mari, fifteen years after she was supposedly killed in a terrorist bombing in Europe. Plenty to work with there. The story: The obvious expected question of the tale is not whether Kit will find Josie but what happens when she does. We are all traveling the path to get to this climatic moment in the story, but the path to get there is kind of like driving down Lombard Street in San Francisco-lots of curves to get from one point to another. The story is written in first person and in the present tense, e..g., “I eat my sandwich at the table…” vs. “I ate my sandwich at the table….” Each chapter rotates between Kit and Josie (whose name is now Mari in New Zealand) as the story weaves together their tumultuous past and fairly benign present. At first, it’s a bit easy to get confused, yet after a few switches and flashbacks, it flows well. The author likely chose the present tense due to the numerous flashbacks in the book (where she moves into past tense to subtly help the reader). It is also written with much flowery prose with a huge dose of adverb-induced descriptions of foods, atmosphere, ocean, weather, shops, Javier’s this and that…more on him soon. That will either play into the reader’s immersion or push away others…kind of a personal choice, i.e., either lovely, romantic, beautiful…or sappy maybe even cheesy at times, depending on your taste. Most of the time I enjoyed the style. What’s good about the book? The flashbacks are better than the present-day story, IMO. The descriptions of their childhood including the interaction with their parents, their unique attraction/love of their adopted older brother, and some of the tragic and traumatic incidents they faced were all well done–more interesting than the present-day story to find Josie/Marie. In the flashbacks, the sisters come alive with realistic emotions and react as you might expect. For instance, it’s easy to believe Kit (in her present state) to be a loner who either works or surfs (alone). The backstory reveals abandonment and a form of abuse by her parents that support this. Josie’s abandonment by her parents pushes her toward a much different path, one of drug addiction and sexual promiscuity. Her current world is much more mainstream-maybe overcompensation for her past. Without spoiling too much, the story shows how two sisters can overcome the difficulties of a dysfunctional family and environment…and survive or even grow later in their lives. In the end, it does include a healthy dose of forgiveness and redemption, leaving us with the satisfying ending most readers desire. What was not so good? The story idea starts off with a bang. Once Kit gets to New Zealand, rather than marching forward to find her sister, she gets caught in a love affair with Javier, a rather cardboard character who says little but touches Kit in variously well-described ways. The relationship seems a sideshow (one of those curves on Lombard Street) to the overall novel and gets in the way in the first third of the book. Maybe it’s someone for Kit to interact with during the scenes where she would have been alone. Javier is a singer/guitarist star of some sort who only seems to have to perform if he wants to and is hanging around New Zealand for no apparent purpose other than to show up in scenes in this book. Another distraction is an old house on an overlook that Mari’s husband (another uninteresting character) buys for her as a surprise. The house carries a secret related to a death/murder that happened long ago, one we are told about later in the story. There is also a great deal of time spent describing this house. The whole set-up has nothing to do with the main story. If it were left out, the main story would carry on without impact. Where the backstory is good, the sisters and their life and decisions in the present is a little harder to buy. Kit, a loner and someone who trusts almost no one, suddenly decides to let a stranger (Javier) into her life as soon as she arrives in New Zealand. She should be out looking for her sister, who she hasn’t seen in 15 years. Maybe the author was showing some hesitancy to face her sister, but I didn’t read it that way. Either way, IMO, she should have really struggled to let her guard down, given her past and present life. Josie (Mari in the present), who has had a troubled past, lives a perfect life with a perfect family. Above I related that to overcompensating. Still…it’s really stretches the ends of the spectrum. What was bad? Nothing. Bottom line: The story was a quick read, had some notable weaknesses, but it was entertaining enough and immersed you in another place. You DO want to know what happens when the sisters finally meet. And the ending works.

This is a big, emotional and encompassing book. It’s the kind of story that you settle into and feel like you’ve traveled somewhere afterward. Reading it is like embarking on a harrowing journey that is also deeply satisfying. It begins when Kit sees her sister on TV. This would be somewhat unremarkable, except that her sister, Josie, has been presumed dead for over a decade. Impulsively, Kit goes to New Zealand, certain that her long-lost sister is somehow, inexplicably there, and very-much alive. The bulk of the story is Kit’s search and the aftermath. O’Neal does an excellent job of weaving together the present and the past, interspersed with vivid flashbacks of the sister’s chaotic childhood, both magical wonder and staggering neglect. The reader sees disturbing snapshots of abuse, betrayal, drugs and violence. These elements indelibly shape the women that they will later become, asking how much do the events and experiences of life determine our identity and destiny? There is so much to like about this enveloping tale. Strong characters, a believable sibling bond and complicated relationship dynamics, all set against a lush backdrop of sunlight, weather, ocean and sky. There is romance as well, though it seemed too earnest and over-the-top, at times. Beyond that, this is a generous open-hearted book about love, forgiveness and human frailty.

Loved it! We'll written characters, good pace and unexpected twists.

I read this book in a day! I just couldn't put it down, I wanted to know more and more about the characters and was hoping all the time for the story to come good in the end. The way the places are described the ocean the smells of weather of food, I found myself totally absorbed in this incredible story. This book would make a fantastic holiday read, as it drags you in very quickly.

Love Barbara’s books, couldn’t put this down, she knows how to create good characters you believe in, the stories are different each time. Her descriptions of places bring them to life.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the tale of the two sisters, the introduction of the brother, the erratic relationship between their parents and the underlying essence of love. I read it cover to cover, and immersed myself in the story. Now that I have finished the book, I feel a sense of loss. The characters were believable and authentic, and like a true love story, it all comes together in the end 💝

Barbara in her unique poetic style reaches into our heart and soul with this extraordinary story of hurt, loss, love and redemption. Great !