Best of
Mermaids

2011

Madly & Wolfhardt


Michelle Leighton - 2011
    A traitor has set free eight Lore, the spirits of what humans know as fairy tales, and they are making their way to Slumber to awaken their descendants. The first spirit to arrive is that of Ulrich Wolfhardt, a man that was once obsessed with wolves and a young maiden he would follow through the woods. After a bite from a wolf, Wolfhardt’s obsession with the girl became an unnatural hunger and the young maiden’s grandmother cursed him with a fate worse than death. And now he’s back…with a vengeance and a bite that can infect others as well.Madly must learn the identity of Wolfhardt’s descendant and stop him before he kills again and spreads his curse across the earth. But the only person strong enough to help Madly is Jackson, the Sentinel who vowed to protect her and the one person capable of breaking her heart. Can Madly resist forbidden love long enough to save the world from Wolfhardt? Or will she have to sacrifice her heart and her destiny to save the ones she loves?

Between the Land and the Sea


Derrolyn Anderson - 2011
    Traveling the world with her scientist father, doted on by her wealthy and glamorous neighbor Evie, Marina’s life seems perfect.Everything changes in the summer of her sixteenth year when she is sent to live with her Aunt Abby and Cousin Cruz in the lovely seaside town of Aptos, California.Only a few weeks after arriving, sixteen year-old Marina has nearly drowned twice, enchanted the hottest guy in high school, and discovered a supernatural creature. If she can manage to survive some increasingly dangerous encounters with unpredictable mermaids, she might be able to unlock the mystery of her past and appease the mysterious forces that want something from her...And maybe even find true love along the way.

Tangled Tides


Karen Amanda Hooper - 2011
    Both sides believe Yara can save them by fulfilling a broken promise and opening the sealed gateway to their realm, but they are battling over how it should be done. The selkies want to take her life. The merfolk want something far more precious.Treygan, the stormy-eyed merman who turned Yara mer, will stop at nothing and sacrifice everything to protect his people--until he falls for Yara. The tides turn as Yara fights to save herself, hundreds of sea creatures, and the merman who has her heart. She could lose her soul in the process--or she might open the gateway to a love that's deeper than the oceans.

Mermaid and Other Water Spirit Tales From Around the World


Heidi Anne Heiner - 2011
    Our modern day perception of mermaids is primarily based upon the mermaids and merrows of northern Europe, especially Scandinavia, Scotland and Ireland, as well as the sirens of ancient Greece. However, water spirits of some type exist in almost every culture situated near bodies of water, be they oceans, lakes, rivers or even wells and springs. This collection gathers together examples of the earliest scholarship on mermaids and their folkloric relatives, including several articles about their history from ancient times to the nineteenth century when mermaids captured the public and literary imagination during the folklore renaissance of the 1800s. In addition to the articles, over 150 tales and ballads about mermaids and other water spirits from around the world are compiled into this one convenient anthology. The emphasis is on the European mermaid in her many guises, but stories from Africa, Asia, and the Americas are also included. Whether you are a mermaid enthusiast or a student of folklore, this anthology offers a diverse array of tales with a unifying theme that both entertains and educates, all gathered for the first time in one helpful collection.

Captive Mermaid


Melanie Lannoy - 2011
    She is being held captive by the government just for being what she is. What is she? She's a mermaid, the only one that has ever been caught by humans. When faced with an opourtunity for escape, she takes it. Unfortunitely her escape does not go as planned, but atleast there is still some hope when she gets help from someone special....

Turn The Tides Gently


Matt Wingett - 2011
    Is he going mad? Or is his encounter set to change his world in ways he never expected? This tale of transformation tells his compelling story with deftness of touch and warmth of heart. "...has a slightly hallucinatory, hugely evocative dreaminess..." Graham Hurley."...a great mermaid story." Hannah Mermaid aka Hannah Fraser."The story captures our heart..." Cynthia Rivers. Every nook and cranny of the island city of Portsmouth is filled with history, and Dave is more sensitive to it than anyone. Troubled by the death of his brother and rejection by his mother, he has withdrawn into a world of his own in which he hallucinates a safe and comforting past.But one night as he walks the island's shore, he encounters something that disturbs his dreamy world forever. Dave cannot quite tell whether this new vision has come to open new possibilities, or to upset his world completely.A tale woven with magic and delight, this short novella will hold you and entertain you as it takes you on an adventure around the island, and around the inside of one man's mind. From Matt Wingett, tv scriptwriter, hypnotist and copywriter.This book is a short novella, running to approx 13,000 words.

The Complete Seaborn


Chris Howard - 2011
    She's never seen an ocean, never heard the thunder of surf. She's an exile, betrayed by her own family, sent as far from the sea as they could arrange--somewhere in the middle of Nebraska.Everything changes the day she drowns in Red Bear Lake, and discovers she can't really drown. Not in the way everyone else can. Then a two-thousand year old king wakes inside her head and turns out to be a prodigy with mathematics. Kassandra cries for the first time in her life, and learns that her tears are doorways for calling things from the sea. With clues from summoned sea-demons and the voices in her head, Kassandra sets out to find out what the hell is going on...and discovers she's a prisoner, trapped between a murderous grandfather who controls an army of the drowned dead, river witches who spy on her through the plumbing, and Ms. Matrothy, the Girl's Department Director, who's been trying to kill her since she was four.SeabornCorina Lairsey has just clawed her way free from one controlling relationship when she finds herself in another-only this guy, Aleximor, has really gotten under her skin. Literally. A 400-year-old sorcerer who gathers the drowned dead off the ocean's floor for the King of the Seaborn, he's inside her head and is wearing her body like a wetsuit. Corina desperately schemes to regain control of her self, fighting against time as Aleximor trades pieces of her life away in exchange for power over the path between the worlds of the living and the dead . . . Kassandra is the King of the Seaborn's granddaughter. She comes from the sea, but has spent her whole life in exile on the surface, struggling to control frightening powers she barely understands. She declares war on her murderous grandfather and manipulates her family, friends, oceanic royalty, and the US Navy to aid her- but Aleximor intends to use Kass to carry out his revenge against the entire Seaborn royal line. And she's also fallen in love-one more struggle for an already troubled soul.Sea ThroneKassandra prepares for war against her grandfather, and is confronted on all sides. Nikasia, the daughter of the king's war-bard--who claims descent from Circe--seeks revenge for the murder of her father. A group of immortals bands together to take everything away, and Kassandra must take them on while holding her family together.

Siren's Serenade


Sheila Raye - 2011
    She must transform into a human-like siren long enough to enchant a mate with her song. Then she can return to the sea. If she fails, she’ll die.A playboy's desire...Peter McFey, hunky surf bum turned treasure hunter, has never turned down a sexy woman, but the sapphire-eyed siren wants to make him her pet.In the sensual battle between a mermaid’s instinct and a playboy’s desire, there is no winner. When the siren sings, her mate can hear nothing else.Enchantment will save her life but leave him...insane.

Siren Song


Kaitlin Bevis - 2011
    There is no uncertainty in my steps as I stride to the shore as the surf strikes mercilessly against the sand. I shiver as the breeze shifts my hair against my shoulders. The course grains of sand scrape my skin and slide slowly between my fingers as though siphoned through an hourglass.I stare at the sand, considering the seconds of my life silently slipping past my fingers. Should I savor these? No, I decide, tossing it away. My feet step through the sandy shower without hesitation.We were sixteen when we stood side by side on this shore, skirting the waves splashing our bare feet. The sand squished between our toes, and our feet got stuck if we stood too still. As the sun rose over the ocean waves, setting the sea sparkling in the light he seized my arm and pulled me close; with no money for a gift, he promised me the sea. The sand is so white that the light of the moon bounces off it, bathing the beach in a luminous glow. I silently step through the shore like a specter, a spirit, a shade, a shadow of my former self, and remember when a night like this was enough to make me believe in magic.It seemed so magical my nineteenth year. We stood on this shore and wed while friends and family beamed as we said our vows. Behind their sweet smiles, they took bets on whether I was pregnant. As the sun set, everybody lined up to cast their seashells into the ocean with a wish for our good fortune. His blue shell flew the furthest, only I saw it wash ashore. It was foolish of me to disregard such an omen. But then I was a fool.