Sea Witch Books in Order

The Sea Witch books take the bones of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid and look at them from a colder, stranger angle. Instead of staying with the mermaid who wants a prince, Sarah Henning turns toward the girls around that story, especially the one history would remember as the sea witch. The result is a duology that feels romantic, eerie, and a little sad in the best fairy-tale way.

The first book, Sea Witch, centers on Evie, a fisherman's daughter living in a small coastal kingdom where magic is feared and difference gets noticed fast. She is grieving her friend Anna, carrying guilt, and trying to hold on to her friendship with Crown Prince Nik as they grow older and the world becomes less forgiving. When a mysterious girl from the sea arrives and stirs up old memories, Evie is pulled into questions of love, loyalty, magic, and what people are willing to trade for a chance at happiness.

Here, every bargain comes with teeth.

What makes the series work is not just the mermaid hook, but the way Henning builds mood. The shore, the cold water, the superstition, and the sense of being watched all matter. Evie is an outsider on land and never fully safe at sea, so the setting keeps pressing on the story. Magic is powerful, but it is also costly, and that cost shapes almost every important choice in the books.

The sequel, Sea Witch Rising, widens the lens. It follows both the sea witch and the mermaid world left behind, especially the sister who refuses to let the original fairy-tale bargain end quietly. That shift gives the second book a stronger undersea focus and brings sisterhood to the front beside romance. Land and water start pulling against each other more openly, and the stakes move from private heartbreak to the fate of whole communities.

Nobody gets an easy happily ever after.

Tone matters a lot here. These are not bubbly beach mermaid stories. They are atmospheric retellings about grief, identity, class, desire, and the danger of wanting to be chosen. If you like fairy tales that keep the longing but sharpen the edges, the Sea Witch duology is built for that mood. Expect yearning, secret magic, uneasy tenderness, and the slow sense that every wish is going to ask for something back.