Shadow in the Sea by Sheila A. Nielson
Publication date: July 15th 2015Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
When sixteen-year-old Sadelyn Hanson washes up on the shores of Windwaithe Island, her beauty and the strange marks on her wrist make superstitious locals suspect she is a mermaid. Feigning amnesia, Sade hides a far worse secret: she was sailing to her own murder trial when she was thrown overboard by the real killer, the cunning and cruel Captain Westwood.
Sade’s quiet effort to rebuild her life on the island is threatened when she meets an actual young merman. Unable to speak his language, Sade still longs for the warm companionship he offers, despite the locals’ dire legends about merfolk and their dark magic. But her confused feelings for the impossible boy become the least of her problems when Captain Westwood’s ship docks at Windwaithe. With nowhere to escape, Sade must trust in the one person who doesn’t fear the merfolk. A woman who had dealings with them herself—years ago.
Excerpt:
Sssssadelyn,
sang the silky soft voice.
I
stumbled my way through shadow and moonlight. Heedless of everything
but the sound of Araedyn’s whispers calling out to me from the edge
of the sea, I hurried onward.
“Araedyn,”
I cried urgently into the night. “I’m here!”
I
don’t know how much time passed as I flew down toward the beach.
When I finally felt the soft sand give way beneath my boots, and
heard the roar of the ocean fill my ears, I knew I was almost there.
I
pelted down into the water, all my fear of the ocean swallowed up for
the moment in the wild delight of once again seeing the young merman
I’d come to love.
The
ocean’s waves swept over my shoes and ankles, splashing my face and
body with its salted ice spray. I stopped dead in my tracks as a dark
silhouette rose up out of the inky black waves to greet me.
Bright
moonlight shone down, illuminating the figure’s still glistening
features from above. It was a face as beautiful and cold as green
emeralds shimmering within the settings of a priceless necklace.
Araedyn’s
mother!
I
recoiled in horror, trying to back quickly away from her and make my
escape.
“Stop.”
She
spoke the word with calm command. The power of her irresistible voice
instantly made the muscles in my legs go weak beneath me. Before I
knew what was happening, I’d crashed to my knees in the surf,
gasping against the icy shock of the water. The welt along my wrist
burned, rushing to fill my body with unnatural heat, fortifying me
against the cold. I shuddered in response as the mermaid moved up the
beach, using the strength of her arms and tail to pull herself up
into the shallows on her stomach. I silently returned her unfaltering
gaze.
As
she moved in closer to me, the marks upon my wrist turned scalding
hot. I cried out clutching at my skin, digging against the pain with
my nails. The mermaid stopped her advance and immediately drew back a
bit, leveraging herself into a half-sitting position, with her tail
trailing in the waves behind her.
Q&A:
Your newest book, Shadow in the Sea is a follow-up to the mermaid novel, Forbidden Sea, published by Scholastic Press. Do you have to read Forbidden Sea first in order to enjoy Shadow in the Sea?
Shadow in the Sea is more of a companion novel rather than a
true sequel to Forbidden Sea. I knew this book would be the
first time visiting Windwaithe Island for many readers—so I wrote
Shadow in the Sea as a stand-alone. If readers decide they
like Shadow in the Sea, they can always go back and read
Forbidden Sea to find out what happened before.
Why mermaids? Or should I say, mermaids and mermen—since one of the main characters in Shadow in the Sea is a handsome merprince.
I was first
introduced to Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairytale, The
Little Mermaid, as a child. My family had an illustrated version of
the story and I used to look at the pictures in it again and again. I
hated the whole lose-the-guy-and-turn-into-sea-foam-ending—so I
would imagine my own mermaid stories to go along with the pictures.
Ones with much better endings.
After I became a
children’s librarian, I noticed that many girls who came in asked
for mermaid books. We didn’t have a lot of them so the kids left
looking very disappointed. I thought to myself, Someone needs to
write more mermaid stories. That’s when I realized that person
could be me. When I finally got around to writing my mermaid stories,
I found myself revisiting some of the things I’d first imagined
about mermaids back in my elementary school days.
Do you think there are real mermaids out there in the ocean somewhere?
You would be
surprised how often I get asked that question. I, myself, am a
complete skeptic, though, nothing would make me happier than to be
proven wrong. I will say this—while doing my research for Shadow
in the Sea I discovered there are a lot of people who strongly
believe in mermaids—both in present day and historically. In fact,
the Orkney Islands have an extensive history when it comes to mermaid
sightings. (Try Googling “Deerness Mermaid” sometime and see what
you find!)
What part of Shadow in the Sea did you enjoy writing most?
The Sea Prince,
Araedyn, was the most complicated (and enjoyable) character to write
in Shadow in the Sea. Because he speaks only merlanguage, I
had to find other ways to communicate his story and personality to
the main character, and the reader. As an author, I know a great many
private details about my characters. Some of this information can’t
be fit into the final story. In the first book, Forbidden Sea,
I didn’t have time to flesh out Prince Araedyn the way I wanted to.
Shadow in the Sea finally gave me a chance to bring the
mysterious merprince front and center, the way I’d been dying to
from the start.
Are any of your characters based on real people?
An author writes
what she knows, so bits and pieces of real people do sneak in here
and there. However, there is only one character in Shadow in the
Sea who is completely based on reality. Dartemore, the horse. My
grandfather owned an animal just like him while I was growing up. He
was a one man horse who adored my grandpa and hated everyone else. If
he could have slept at the end of my grandfather’s bed like a dog,
he would have. When grandpa rode the horse, he lifted up his feet and
let his tail fly high. When I got on him he tried to kill me. Every.
Single. Time.
Fictional characters often find themselves in situations they’re not sure they can get out of. Have you ever found yourself in a situation like that? What did you do?
I almost drowned
when I was young. I was swimming in a lake all alone. (A really
stupid thing to do!) I felt something swim into my legs under
the water—either a good sized fish or a water snake—I ‘m not
sure which. I panicked, started thrashing around, and quickly went
under. I remember looking down through the water and realizing that I
couldn’t see the bottom because it was so dark and deep. Luckily, I
was able to calm down enough to stop flailing and float back up to
the surface before it was too late. I’ve had a phobia of fish and
deep water ever since. This made writing about merfolk who live
fathoms beneath the surface of the ocean an interesting experience.
There were times I had to take a break from writing because I would
start to feel like I couldn’t breathe.
Have you written a book you love that you have not been able to get published?
A
couple of years ago, I wrote a paranormal romance story about a
haunted doll museum. It was much scarier and darker than anything
else I’ve ever written. It was so creepy one member of my writer’s
group decided they didn’t want to finish it. That book is one of my
favorites despite the fact that it may never be published.
What would Sadelyn, Shadow in the Sea’s protagonist, think about you if she could meet you?
After everything
I put her through in this story--she would probably refuse to even
speak to me. Sade would forgive me in time, but then find some sneaky
way to let me know she didn’t approve of my methods of entertaining
readers at her expense.
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