Genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi Well booklovers, following my posts about my top unread books of last year, it made me really want to dive right in, so I started with The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda Hall. It was a beautiful book (not to mention a gorgeous cover!) and felt like a fairy tale. It’s classed as YA, but I whole-heartedly recommend it, no matter what your age. Sometimes YA books can feel a bit too… YA, but this one didn’t at all – it was just a wonderful story. It’s also LGBTQ+ friendly! This is a standalone book. In a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic, a desperate orphan turned pirate and a rebellious imperial lady find a connection on the high seas. Aboard the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl takes on the identity of Florian the man to earn the respect and protection of the crew. For Flora, former starving urchin, the brutal life of a pirate is about survival: don’t trust, don’t stick out, and don’t feel. But on this voyage, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is headed to an arranged marriage she dreads. Flora…