Fresh Find: A Merman’s Choice
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It’s an honour to feature this guest post by Alice Renaud today, as she tells me about the book that started her Sea of Love series. Keep an eye out for book 3 in the series, Mermaids Marry in Green, coming out later this year!
A Merman’s Choice: Book 1 in the Sea of Love series
By Alice Renaud
It started with a dream. An aquatic vampire was chasing a girl underwater. She was terrified. She was close to drowning, and she thought that the creature would kill her. But instead, he saved her life.
At the time I had that dream, I was determined to write contemporary romance stories with alpha male billionaires/sheikhs/princes and virginal heroines. I had no room for an aquatic vampire. After three failed attempts however, I realized that I didn’t really want to write contemporary romance, and that I didn’t like alpha types that much. I really wanted to write a fantasy story. So the vampire resurfaced. He didn’t quite fit the story I wanted to write though, so I took away his fangs and bloodthirsty nature.
He became Yann, a young shape shifting merman. His people have lived incognito alongside humans for centuries. Their existence must remain a secret, and they are forbidden from revealing their true nature to humans. They are forbidden from befriending humans… dating humans… marrying humans. But Yann saw a young woman drown when he was a boy, and has sworn that he will never again let a human perish. So one summer he rescues a blonde swimmer in distress, Alex. This gesture changes his life for ever, and sets his people on a new path.
“A Merman’s Choice” is filled with the landscapes and atmosphere of Brittany, in Western France, where I grew up, and Wales, my mother’s country, where I spent most of my childhood holidays. But it is also a story about family expectations, intergenerational conflict, and the difficulties young people face when they defy the traditions of their community.
They say you should write what you want to write, not what you think you should write. It was true in my case. Unlike my billionaire sheikhs and princes, the merman found a publisher, Black Velvet Seductions (BVS) and my first book, “A Merman’s Choice” was released in January 2019.
After Yann came the story of Rob, another shape shifting merman who works as a cop among humans in “Music for a Merman”. Rob’s father is the most traditional of all the elders, but when Rob has to arrest a sexy eco-warrior, he falls prey to a powerful attraction… so powerful that he will risk everything for the woman he loves.
The third book, “Mermaids Marry in Green”, focuses on a feisty mermaid, Caltha, because why should the boys have all the fun? She’s busy ruling the three mermen Clans, but a handsome warlock turns up and asks her to come with him to London to capture a water monster… of course she can’t say no. And if you saw him, you wouldn’t say no either! The last story is “The Holiday Mermaid”, a seasonal short story included in the “second chance at love” romance anthology “Desire Me Again” by Black Velvet Seductions, which will be out this fall. Do mermaids celebrate Christmas? You’ll have to read to find out!
A Merman’s Choice by Alice Renaud
For centuries the shape-shifting mermen of the Morvann Islands have lived incognito among humans. But one of them, Yann, has developed some bad habits. Like rescuing humans, even when doing so risks revealing his true nature. When he fishes Alex out of the sea, he doesn’t expect her to reappear eight months later, and turn his life upside down by asking him to be her guide.
Alex is determined to fulfil a promise to her dying grandmother, by gathering pictures and stories of the Morvanns. But she soon discovers that, on these remote Welsh islands, legends have a habit of becoming true!
Over the course of a few days, Yann and Alex grow close. But some mermen hate humans. Their hostility, and Yann’s secret, threaten to tear the couple apart just as they are discovering that they are soul mates. Can Yann overcome the obstacles in his path and make the right choice?
Excerpt
The girl wasn’t swimming any more. Yann’s sonar gave him a clear picture of her distress. She was flailing. Sinking.
Fear punched him between the ribs. Just a few minutes earlier, she’d been splashing in the shallows, laughing and humming to herself. That music had rippled around him, brightening his journey. Now the sea was snuffing that light out. No! He wouldn’t let it happen. His webbed hands and feet churned the water, and he shot towards her like a torpedo.
Not this one, sea. Not this time.
She came in sight, slim and lovely, with long bronzed limbs and hair the colour of sunshine. But her eyes were closed, her movements slow, hesitant, as if she were falling asleep. His fear hardened into cold, sharp dread. He poured all his energy into the last powerful strokes. He’d almost reached her, when his eye caught the shadow, beyond the crystal surface, out there in the dry world. He sent a sound wave. It came back with an image, and the icy blade inside him twisted: two-legged shapes on the beach. Humans!
If they saw him, they’d know him for what he was. His people’s secret, kept for thousands of years, would be out.
The girl’s head vanished under the waves. To hell with that. He couldn’t let her drown.
He grabbed her and dragged her back to the surface. She thrashed in his arms and coughed up seawater. Intense relief swept through him as he hugged her to his chest. He’d sworn he’d never again swim by and let a human drown, and he’d kept his promise. If the young woman’s eyes remained closed, he might even get away with it. He wanted her to breathe, not scream in horror at the sight of his dark grey face.
He looked up. The shapes on the beach had gone. Another miracle, or perhaps he’d only imagined them. What if they came back? A fresh stab of anxiety propelled him through the surf. He lay the girl down on the sand, cushioning her head on his arm. Her round breasts, encased in the turquoise bikini top, rose and fell in a regular rhythm, but her skin felt clammy under his hands. He scanned the beach in vain for something to cover her with, and saw the motorbike. A sleek, sporty number, well camouflaged among the grass-covered dunes.
Shit. He retracted the webs between his fingers and toes, but his body would take at least twenty minutes to shift from the aquatic shape to the human form. And even when it did, what would the humans think, if they found him naked next to an unconscious girl?
About Alice Renaud
Alice lives in London, UK, with her husband and son. By day she’s a compliance manager for a pharmaceutical company. By night she writes fantasy romance about shape shifting mermen, water monsters and time-travelling witches. Her first book, “A Merman’s Choice,” was published in January 2019 by Black Velvet Seductions. It is the first book in a fantasy romance trilogy inspired by the landscapes and legends of Brittany and Wales. The second book, “Music for a Merman,” is out now and the third, “Mermaids Marry in Green” will be released later this year. Alice has also written a short story, “The Sweetest Magic of All,” included in the BVS “Mystic Desire” anthology, out now. Alice loves reading and writing stories, and sharing them with anyone who’s interested!