Published: 2020, Peepal Tree Genre: Fiction Themes: Islands of Central America, legend, ancient tribes, historic legacy My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ A thousand years before the story begins, the Mermaid of Black Conch was a young woman living with her tribe on a tiny island in the Caribbean Sea. She had yet to find a husband, and the other women in her village grew jealous of her as the sound of her voice and the sinuous movements of her dancing drew much attention from their men. These women conspired against her, and using a powerful curse, they turned her into a mermaid doomed to swim in the depths of the oceans for all time. She remained hidden for hundreds of years, but one day in 1976, drawn to the sound of a local fisherman strumming his guitar, she raised her barnacled, seaweed-clotted head from the sea. David Baptiste meant her no harm and returned to the same spot day after day to lure her back and gain her trust, but later he came to realise that ...