If you have been craving a queer bipoc dark epic fantasy that is a twist on the Little Mermaid with loads of political themes, intrigue and dialogue, this is the book for you!!! We have Mer people, land people (Men), a pre-existing sapphic romantic relationship, a brash and unapologetic main character, a reimagining of Ursula, lots of swagger, and neopronouns! At times the pacing feels a bit off and you might spend some time grappling with the settings (kinda modern but kinda not?). It's almost steampunk in a way but not sure if it's exactly that. It's something different, fresh and interesting. I would recommend!!

The main character is named Yemaya, the same name of a well known goddess (one of the most powerful Orishas, sometimes referred to as Queen of the Sea) of Yoruba and Santería relgion and traditions (and likely others I'm not aware of). In Year of the Mer, Yemi (for short) is considered a god/princess, in line to take over the throne from her mother. Yemi is impulsive and brash at first, but this of course sets us up for some great character development across the books as she is challenged at many stages. However, the arc might not go as you expect and I loved that.

There are a lot of topics that are woven into this story and often that characters discuss things at length. The dialogue in scenes stretches for what seems longer than average. So, if you are someone who enjoys a lot of dialogue, you would like this book! For me, it was a bit too stretch in multiple places of the book which throws off the pacing, making it feel slower.

This is a DARK fantasy and I really enjoyed where the author took it and how the Mer and Men folk were written. This book has a lot to say! It was contemplative, bold, and unapologetic. Definitely a recommend if you are looking for something fresh, biting, and unique.

Lastly, the test of what I really thought of the book, I pre-ordered myself a physical copy from my local indie bookstore. And psssssst, the Broken Binding is doing a special edition for this one too.

p.s. READ ALL OF THE AUTHORS NOTES, LETTERS, ACKNOWLEGEMENTS - trust me!

I LOVE to see women/femme characters take power for themselves in stories without shame and without apologizing. Unfortunately, I can predict (and have already seen many reviews that say...) some reviewers will find this character "unlikeable", "insufferable", etc. I hate to see this because this is what happens to so many women in reality who are confident, abitious, and take power back or for themselves. I found Yemi to be a great character to follow and there are so many interesting conversations along her journey. As the end of book 1 nears, there is a relevation that Yemi has regarding her upbring and power that I found incredible relevant and relatable to the stories of many women in our world.

THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD!!!

Although I DID forget how diabolical Sara Hashem's endings were and what she did to us in The Jasad Crown...DIABOLICAL. I reread the last few pages a couple of times and then stared at my ceiling for a few minutes. UNbelievable.

If you knew me, a high school romance horror book is not something I would have picked up BUT because it was Sara Hashem I did, and I'm SO glad I did. To say that I loved this book means a lot. I would read anything written by this author and she is top of the auto-buy author list.

Bullet points for those short on time:

YA Supernatural Horror
Main First-Person POV, Minor Third-Person POV
High school seniors
Egyptian family lore and history
Slow burn cis het romance (low on the chili pepper scale)
Generational curses

Summary:

The story centers around Mina, a 17-year-old small-town Southern-Californian homecoming queen that is being haunted/hunted by something that followed her home after a visit to her aunt in Egypt/Masr. If she is left alone with someone, the THING possesses them and then tries to kill her...so you can imagine she loses her friends and current boyfriend pretty quickly, becoming a loner. Finding that fellow school loner, Jesse, is immune to the possession, she enlists his help to figure out what's happening. Even as Mina discovers Jesse has plenty of secrets of his own, the two try to find more about Mina's family history (including her mother's mysterious death) and how she might stay alive and get rid of the haunt before senior year is over.

Thoughts:

The order and layering of timelines in this book is fantastic. Each chapter uncovers more secrets and family lore until everything is completely unravelling and there's nothing we can do about it except face the truth...face what the ancestors have done and how we pay for it now.

Where No Shadow Stays asks a deeper question than what happens when a homecoming queen and bad boy loner come together to solve a mystery and fight a dangerous entity. It asks, if you could thrive at the expense of others, would you willingly choose to? Would you knowingly throw others under the bus so you could survive another day? Would you feed them to the beast so that you may live and live well? And how that trancends and builds over generations so that an entire group of people is reliant on sacrificing another group of people for gains...and also sometimes how desperate things must be in certain cases for people to make that choice in the first place. Or that shadows often seek out the easiest prey...and is there really a choice after all?

"They make us mortal so they could be everlasting"

It's timely and brilliant. Subtle in some ways and not in others.

There's also a poignant discussion around straddling two identities or worlds or heritages/histories, how racism and xenophobia shows up in many places including schools. Students being treated differently by teachers for example. There's a beautiful quote I can't not share here from this book:

"We aren't spare parts of an identity or uneven pieces struggling to fit everywhere they're placed. We will never be fully one or the other, but we can be something third. Something new and special and just as whole as those who came before us."

Another part of this book I adored was seeing Mina grow, even in the short time this book covers, into a version of herself that she thinks she might like better than a previous identity she grieved.

On the YA category:

Keep in mind this book is YA about seniors in high school. They are going to be a bit immature or not as mature as you would expect to find in books marketed to the adult category. That being said, I would read more YA if more YA books were written like this. There is a level of maturity to the writing style that doesn't annoy me at all. When I have read YA in the past, often authors write kids who are incredibly immature and childish in a really annoying way. This isn't that. So, if you have been put off YA in the past, I would encourage you to give this book a chance!

Last words:

This is one of those books that will haunt my heart for a long time to come. I HIGHLY recommend it but don't say I didn't warn you...

Thank you to Holiday House for the ARC copy for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Release date: March 31, 2026

Content Warnings

Child death, death of parent, murder, hauntings, possession, violence, mild sexual content

About the Author

This is Sara's YA debut. If you like fantasy, check out her duology, The Scorched Throne for another amazing read!!