What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

This book was in a British library before about 2006.

It was in the first person and I remember the narrator had very pale eyes

A group of schoolgirls, who I think were about sixteen, if I remember correctly one of them turned sixteen on the trip, but I may have that wrong, went on a trip to the coast.

*spoiler*There was a big storm and one of the girls, who I'm pretty sure was called Jasmine gets swept into the storm and dies.

I think there was an epilogue which features the main character going back to that coast, with her little daughter call Jasmine

Was this book about the trip and what all they did/saw on it? Or was there something else that the book was about primarily? Was there a "real" mermaid--if not, how did the title play into the book?

The book was primarily about the trip, I believe. I don't think there was a real mermaid, it wasn't a fantasy at all, I think the mermaid thing was more metaphorical.

Elsa, are you still looking for this?

Is it Where Mermaids Sing by Brian Keaney?

No response from Elsa but I agree that is the right book. Moving to Solved.

There is a GR review plus someone on another site wrote:

"This novel begins with Alice driving her young daughter to the place where she ‘stopped being a child’, a beach in Cornwall. Through a long flashback, the reader finds out that it was there that Jasmine, one of Alice’s best friends, was swept out to sea during a storm. For Alice, this tragedy is incomprehensible. Why was Jasmine, who was afraid of heights, standing on the top of a cliff? Why did the accident so strangely mirror the melancholy poem Jasmine had written about mermaids and drowning? Did it have anything to do with the marijuana they had experimented with hours earlier? Was it related to the fact that Jasmine saw Alice kissing Matt just minutes before?"