Had a strange experience reading this; was convinced at points that I had read it before, yet other bits were unfamiliar. P and I finally worked this out; it must have been one of the BBC’s 12 noon books (slot now sadly ended) and I would have heard bits of it when home for lunch, but missed other bits when out. Good to work this out, it was really bugging me!
As for the book, I think it has been a bit over-hyped, a Carribean fisherman finds a mermaid who is then caught by some American tourists, who want to take her back to the US as a trophy. The Carribean guy rescues her, takes her home where she gradually transmutes into human form and they fall in love.
It transpires that she has been turned into a mermaid by some kind of jealous witchcraft. As the plot develops, she begins to realise that her destiny is to return to the sea, her tail and scales begin to grow again, the Americans return to claim her, love is impossible and she returns to the sea in the middle of a hurricane which devastates the island.
Quite readable, but I struggled to see the point of it.
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