Swimming down memory lane with mermaids...
With my Daughters of Arianne series re-releasing on July 31 as self-pub titles with beautiful new covers, I was looking through some of the blogs I did when the first book, A Mermaid's Kiss: A Daughters of Arianne Series Novel, initially released in 2008. I came upon one (originally posted as a Dear Reader feature for Berkley) which was a lovely memory of how I came up with the opening scene. I’m sharing that with you below, for those who aren’t aware how I stumbled upon a mermaid heroine/angel hero story and would appreciate the background, and/or how these things can form in an author’s mind. There are also some interesting insights about this series compared to the Vampire Queen series, that I had forgotten and rediscovered myself…
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I’ve always wanted the chance to be a mermaid. I lived at the coast for 18 years, and of course love the water. So it’s not unexpected that I would write a love story between a mermaid and an angel. The story was born one afternoon when I was floating in the surf, staring up at a sky darkening with storm clouds. I knew I would soon bow to that absurd human instinct to leave the water to seek shelter during rain – I didn’t want to get wet, you know (lol).
However, as the sun disappeared, I lingered, because I felt that spark that tells me a story is hovering close, ready to explode in my mind like a fireworks display -- scenes, characters, snippets of conversation – if I stayed just long enough. And right on time, I watched the cloud cover become a battle in the sky. An angel, cut off from his Legion, fighting a force of true darkness, red-eyed creatures from a dimension of despair. While truly magnificent, there is a weariness to our angel, something more than being outnumbered weighing down his sword arm. An opponent swings a battle axe, cleaving one wing from his shoulder, and the angel is falling out of the sky, down miles and miles, until he will splash into the ocean.
There an unsuspecting mermaid will find and rescue him, from the pursuit of enemies so dangerous it would fill him with fear for her foolishness, if he was sensible enough to stop her from interfering.
So begins the story of Jonah and Anna. I wasn’t surprised to discover the sensual story of A Mermaid’s Kiss inside of me. However, since my last two books have been dark, erotic vampire novels, it might be surprising to some that I would write a romance featuring a golden-haired mermaid with an innocent, pure soul, and a warrior angel who needs to find his faith again.
Over the course of my writing career, I’ve written a wide spectrum of characters…dark to light, older, younger, contemporary, historical, paranormal. While that seems diverse material, I don’t question the muse. Instead, I’ve realized there’s one continuous thread between all of my work – reaching into the deepest layers of my characters and discovering what they need to overcome in order to grasp the type of unconditional love we all crave in some way.
“Mine,” Jonah said softly. “Mine forever.”
He was going to shatter her, with an explosion of happiness too enormous to contain. Anna knew his choice of words had been deliberate. In the caves, at the beginning, when she had lain next to him in those first few hours, he’d heard her. When she thought him unconscious, she’d laid her hand upon his chest and thought it. Perhaps even said it.
Mine forever.
A fantasy, now a wish come true. He was giving the gift to her, letting her know she finally belonged with someone, to someone. As he belonged to her.
The fascinating part of writing my stories is finding that craving in every single character, no matter how different they are from the ones in the last book. And since fiction does give you a certain license, each of them is the type of being that will go to extraordinary lengths to embrace it. Lyssa, my vampire queen, is certainly different from Anna, my young, innocent mermaid who clings to hope despite being born under a death sentence. Jonah, my all powerful Legion Commander, second only to Michael in the heavenly armies, is a far cry from Jacob, the wandering Renaissance player and misplaced knight who vows to serve as Lyssa’s human servant, no matter what she demands of him.
But both of my heroes need their heroines, and vice versa, to give their life meaning. In Jonah’s case, it’s key to saving the very universe. In Jacob’s case, it’s key to saving Lyssa’s life and bringing her the type of happiness she’s never had, not in her 1000 year lifespan.
Therefore, you could say that love stories have the potential to reflect the microcosm or the macrocosm – day-to-day struggles for happiness, or a conflict outcome that could decide the fate of millions. It all comes down to the hearts of the major players, and nothing influences our hearts quite like those we love.
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Okay, back to present day. Coming up with an idea like this for an opener or a key scene around which to build the rest of the story, as fun as it sounds, isn’t all that unusual. It’s the way a lot of writers do it. But one thing I find VERY cool is how the muse will foreshadow later books for me in earlier books. For instance, in If Wishes Were Horses, which considerably pre-dated the Daughters of Arianne series, this paragraph was included in a scene where Sarah, the town sheriff, pulls up in front of the “For Her” erotica shop belonging to the sexy, enigmatic Wiccan priest, Justin Herne:
She pulled into a parking space. As she got out and walked toward the front door, she passed a side courtyard which could be accessed from the parking area through a trellis of wisteria. It was cobbled in stone, and had a wishing pond and a fountain as the centerpiece. The water poured over a bronze sculpture of a long-haired mermaid and a winged man, an angel. They clasped one another in an intimate embrace. One of the angel’s wings was wrapped around the mermaid’s bare back, his other hand cupping her breast. Her fingers tangled in his shoulder length hair.
Someone was trying to tell me something, right?
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If you’d like some pretty pictures/teasers about the Daughters of Arianne trilogy, go to their board on my Pinterest page. And don’t forget, during the preorder phase (up until July 31), the books are available at a discount, $8.97 for all three full lengths ($2.99 each) versus the usual $4.99/book cost. Excerpts, blurbs and buy links all available here. Full trilogy at Amazon here.
P.S. – That more complicated blog post I mentioned a couple weeks ago? I’m still working on it. The topic has proven a bit trickier than expected, but I hope it will interest you when I get it worked out. It’s about the issue of erotica vs erotic romance vs porn, particularly in the perceptions of those an erotic romance author calls friends, family, co-workers, etc. Yeah, a lot of us talk about this issue, but something a friend said to me not long ago gave me a new take on it. Looking forward to sharing it with you. There, now that I’ve mentioned it, I HAVE to make it the next blog post. No more procrastinating, lol. Tune in soon…
