One woman's passionate quest for the elusive, mysterious mermaid through the centuries and across cultures.

From the seas of antiquity to the city streets of today, A Mermaid's Tale explores the myth and meanings of the mermaid. Beginning with Melusina, the bathing mermaid par excellence, Amanda Adams goes on to describe the seductive sirens and their honeyed songs, the powerful Arctic sea goddess Sedna, and the long-haired rusalki of Russian lore, among other legendary mermaids. As she tells their stories, she also expresses a love of the mermaid that surely no sea-bound sailor could ever match.

Grounded in cultural anthropology, folklore studies, and intellectual rigor, A Mermaid's Tale also draws on literature, poetry, and mythology for its insights. It is a book filled with enchantment, telling mermaid stories with depth and detail as it describes Adams's swim through the ocean of her own life in search of the unusual, the beautiful, and the perfectly extraordinary.