Waves Breaking Over Ys

Dive into a mesmerizing tale of love, magic, and adventure as a mermaid defies her kind to find true love in a world where ancient folklore meets modern fantasy.

Men have always had a great many names for our kind, or so my grandmother told me. In the Inner Sea, around Pontus, in waters I have never laid eyes upon, they call us sirens. They fear our songs even as they long to hear such music as would touch their souls. In the eastern ocean, so far that tales of those waters are but legends even to us, they name us ninygo or in-eo. In the lands nigh to where I was born, they whisper of the fearsome fomorii of old, who dwell beneath the waves and rise during storms to devour the unwary. But in Cantref Gwaelod, our city beneath the North Sea, we called ourselves merrows.

We are no friends to Man, and our laws forbid us from revealing ourselves. So why then, do I have memories of a life among them I never led? I remember being the human princess, Dahut, I remember searching for my lost sister Rapunzel. I remember deals with the fae, Rumpelstiltskin. And most of all, I recall the grand city of Kêr-Ys, not as the sunken ruin I know, but as a thriving metropolis in the lowlands.

My memories of this past life demand I find the answers, even if I must defy my kind and risk everything to gain human legs. And the only one who can grant such a boon is the Kelpie …

—

This retelling of The Little Mermaid blends numerous folk and fairytales into a single narrative set in a Celtic-inspired mythic past.

Mermaids are not what you think.

Fierce predators that use humans for food, merrows do not go seeking true love on land. Yet one young mermaid may find more than she bargained for … if she can pay the price.