Oceanographer Luke McAllister
races to figure out why the ocean depth is changing off Florida's Treasure
Coast. But before he and his crew discover what’s transforming the deep, he
stumbles upon an even greater mystery. Leagues below the waves, he swear he
sees…a mermaid?
Anya isn’t allowed to get close
to humans. But when a golden-haired researcher gets too close to her island, she
can’t afford to stay away.
Together, this unlikely pair
will seek to discover what’s causing shifts in ocean floor. While their new
alliance is forbidden, Anya will risk everything to save her beloved ocean. The
only problem is, she’s not sure what’s really luring her in, her love of the
sea or the tempest Luke has stirred in her heart. Either way, Anya knows that
the dangers facing the sea are nothing compared to what will happen to her when
her father learns she’s broken the merfolks’ most sacred law.
Can Anya and Luke discover what
lurks at the heart of the deep before it's too late?
I
caught sight of his cut, thought a moment, and swam away. He floated there,
treading water and wondering what would happen next. At that point, his face
conveyed the pain in his side. I watched an intense sting replace what I knew
of the original burning sensation of a coral abrasion, and the open wound
spilled into the ocean at a steady pace.
Conceivably,
I had underestimated the severity of the cut. Maybe the coral cut deeper than I
thought. The blood clouded the water surrounding him, and now the problem
remained of how to take the injured man across the reef without doing further
damage. We still needed to cross at least two miles and climb a rocky beach. Or
did we?
Before
he had time to contemplate any other option, I approached him from below. I
swam up to him slowly, and he did nothing. He didn’t dive to meet me or attempt to swim
away. He hung vertically in the water, waiting.
He
must have felt me before he could clearly see me. The water shifted as I
neared, my physicality changing the flow of the ocean around me. He knew I was
there, but he didn’t
dive below. Was he afraid? Too hurt to move? Instead, he stayed still, moving
as little as possible, allowing my approach, and keeping the blood loss at a
minimum.
I moved below him and then up,
along his body, until my head emerged from the inky blue water and he stared
into my eyes. He let out a fast gasp and quickly sank below the surface.
- What is your favorite mermaid
story or myth?
Growing
up in New England, it seems all stories were about the ocean. I know it is
cliché, but I remember sitting on my grandmother’s porch, looking at the water,
and wondering if Marina, the “real” little mermaid was actually out there. I
guess she started it all for me.
- What was the inspiration for your
mermaid novella?
I
spend a lot of time down in Vero Beach, FL where my sister lives, and since it
is on the Treasure Coast there are plenty of stories about buried and found
treasure. I wanted to mix pirates with mermaids, and while I didn’t quite do
that here, this leads into the next book in my series, The Mark of the Mermaid, which does just that.
- Cast your characters. If your
novella was made into a movie, who would play your main characters?
Anya
would be a Drew Barrymore type, independent and a bit silly. I could see her
tripping in front of Luke and just laughing it off. Luke, well, I wrote him
with the surfer version of Matthew McConaughey in mind. Focused and fun, at
home in the water, and cut!
- What was most challenging thing
writing about mermaids?
The
challenge was determining how much time to put them on land. It isn’t easy to
offer mermaid human interaction in the middle of the ocean, so you need a
plausible world where they walk on land.
- Ursula or Ariel?
Ariel’s
curiosity, but not her “sell my soul” naiveté.
- What else should we know about
your novella?
It’s
my first! I have plenty more in the works, but I’m busy reveling in this one
right now.
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