No matter where in the world you are, I think the ocean plays a special role in your life. You might live thousands of miles from the nearest ocean, but once upon a time someone arrived at the coasts of your country and thought: 'Let's make a life here'.

In the early 1800's, USA was the destination to which you travelled in hope of finding a new life waiting for you. The Swan-sisters did exactly thins.

But what awaited them wasn't a new life, but a death in the roaring ocean. Bound on the bottom of the harbor, they come back to haunt Sparrow a couple of weeks each year; pulling the boys of sparrow down under the waves. Disguising themselves as three girls living in the small town of Sparrow.

Tourists come from all corners of the US, but Bo isn't one of them. He is as different form the tourists as Penny Talbot is from the other Sparrow-girls. In a spur of craziness, Penny Talbot brings Bo to Lumiere Island where she lives with her mother. Penny hopes to protect Bo from the gazes of the Swan-sisters.

The magic slowly seeps into the lives of both Penny and Bo as reading tea leaves, forgetful cakes, and the singing of the oceans fills their minds. But that's not the same as saying, magic rules the book. The kind of magic in The Wicked Deep feels more like modern witchcraft than the kind of magic one might meet in a classic fantasy novel. I didn't mind this at all.

And although this only played a minor role in the book, the underlying music of the waves crashing into shore filled me with a silent kind of magic that lays hidden deep inside our minds. But no matter how captivated, I was by the setting I didn't feel, I ever got to know the characters as well as I wanted to.