Guest Post with Christina Henry ~ JeanBookNerd

CHRISTINA HENRY is the author of the CHRONICLES OF ALICE duology, ALICE and RED QUEEN, a dark and twisted take on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as well as LOST BOY: THE TRUE STORY OF CAPTAIN HOOK, an origin story of Captain Hook from Peter Pan.

She is also the author of the national bestselling BLACK WINGS series (BLACK WINGS, BLACK NIGHT, BLACK HOWL, BLACK LAMENT, BLACK CITY, BLACK HEART and BLACK SPRING) featuring Agent of Death Madeline Black and her popcorn-loving gargoyle Beezle.

ALICE was chosen as one of Amazon’s Best Books of the Year in Science Fiction and Fantasy for 2015. It was also a Goodreads Choice Award nominee in Horror and one of Barnes & Noble’s Bestselling Science Fiction and Fantasy novels of 2015.

She enjoys running long distances, reading anything she can get her hands on and watching movies with samurai, zombies and/or subtitles in her spare time. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son.

TEN QUOTES FROM THE MERMAID BY CHRISTINA HENRY.

Once there was a fisherman, a lonely man who lived on a cold and rocky coast and was never able to convince any woman to come away and live in that forbidding place with him. He loved the sea more than any person and so was never able to take a wife, for women see what is in men’s hearts more clearly than men would wish.
But her eyes had seen inside him the way that women’s eyes do, and his loneliness snaked into her, and she was sorry for it, for that loneliness caught her more surely than the net.
She loved him almost as much as she loved the sea, and so they were well matched, for he loved the sea almost as much as he loved her.
Freedom was far more intoxicating than safety could ever be.
The ocean has a rhythm, but it has no heart.
This fear made her slightly ashamed, for she’d always been brave, but it was easier to be brave when you had nothing to lose.
She came from the sea, and humans would always sense the strangeness in her even if they didn’t know why she made them shift uneasily, or why they didn’t want to spend too long looking directly into her eyes.
“Until I became human, nobody ever told me there was something wrong with my body.”
He knew then, without any other proof, that she was a mermaid, a real mermaid, and far from wanting her in Barnum’s tank, he wanted her to return to the ocean or to her cottage on the rocks or just go anywhere but there, for Barnum would take all of her magic and twist it out of her until the enchantment was gone, and Levi was afraid for her, so afraid.
“My heart keeps its own secrets, and they don’t belong to you or anyone else just because you’ve seen me with a fish tail.”

From the author of Lost Boy comes a historical fairy tale about a mermaid who leaves the sea for love and later finds herself in P.T. Barnum's American Museum as the real Fiji mermaid. However, leaving the museum may be harder than leaving the sea ever was.

Once there was a mermaid who longed to know of more than her ocean home and her people. One day a fisherman trapped her in his net but couldn't bear to keep her. But his eyes were lonely and caught her more surely than the net, and so she evoked a magic that allowed her to walk upon the shore. The mermaid, Amelia, became his wife, and they lived on a cliff above the ocean for ever so many years, until one day the fisherman rowed out to sea and did not return.

P. T. Barnum was looking for marvelous attractions for his American Museum, and he'd heard a rumor of a mermaid who lived on a cliff by the sea. He wanted to make his fortune, and an attraction like Amelia was just the ticket.

Amelia agreed to play the mermaid for Barnum, and she believes she can leave any time she likes. But Barnum has never given up a money-making scheme in his life, and he's determined to hold on to his mermaid.

Praise for THE MERMAID

"Beautifully written and daringly conceived, The Mermaid is a fabulous story, in both senses of that word. It's full of magic and passion and courage, set against a convincing historical backdrop in which women, much less mermaids, have only the power they seize for themselves. Henry's spare, muscular prose is a delight. I loved this novel." —Louisa Morgan, author of The Secret History of Witches

"There is a current of longing that runs through The Mermaid: longing for the sea, for truth, for love. It is irresistible and will sweep you away." —Ellen Herrick, author of The Sparrow Sisters

"In her latest novel, The Mermaid, Christina Henry weaves a captivating tale of an intriguing young woman who finds herself in the world of the greatest showman, PT Barnum. Original and magical, this is a novel to dive into and savour." —Hazel Gaynor, New York Times bestselling author of The Cottingley Secret

You can purchase The Mermaid at the following Retailers: