The Holiday Mermaid, a fantasy romance from Alice Renaud

Please help us welcome Alice Renaud back to the blog this week. Alice is here this week to share her fantasy romance, The Holiday Mermaid included in the Desire Me Again anthology. Welcome, Alice! We are all excited to hear more about your story and the anthology.

Alice Renaud – The Holiday Mermaid, a story in Desire Me Again, an anthology by BVS

2020 was a year like no other. For a time it looked as though 2021 would be a new start, unfortunately, in the UK, we went back into lockdown just before Christmas and haven’t come out yet. It looks like it will be a long slog back to normality. Thank God for books and stories!

I thought that with all this time on my hands, I would get a lot of writing done, but I actually struggled to focus on my WIP during the first two lockdowns, in spring and November. I found it easier to write short stories. I love writing shorts, because they’re a great way to experiment with different genres and styles, and stretch myself as a writer. In the spring of 2020 I wrote my first sci-fi romance, “Space Cowboy Blues,” which is included in the BVS anthology “Cowboy Desire,” out soon. It features a space cowboy, a beautiful alien and blue unicorns, and is based on a dream I had during the first lockdown. Then last November I wrote my first menage/gay romance, with a witch, a mermaid and a warlock in Las Vegas. It will hopefully be out in another BVS anthology later this year. I enjoyed writing that story very much. It features my favorite hero, a powerful half-fae warlock called Ariel, who will be a key character in my new series “Conjuring Love,” about time travelling wizards and witches.

The Holiday Mermaid is also a short story, and one that is close to my heart. It is part of my Sea of Love series about shape shifting mermaids and mermen. Each book in the series is set at a different time of year. A Merman’s Choice takes place in spring, Music for a Merman is a summer story, Mermaids Marry in Green, my latest release, is set during the fall. The Holiday Mermaid is my winter story, and it is also a second chance romance. I tried to capture my memories of winter by the sea, when I was growing up in Brittany, France. People always think of the seaside in summer, but winter can also be a magical time of year, when all the tourists have gone and the locals have the beaches and ocean to themselves. I hope you enjoy it!

About Desire Me Again:

The hopeless romantic believes that a soulmate exists for each of us. That there is one person who makes us feel how good it is to love them. For some couples, things trigger them to push that love away. They find out too late they’ve lost true-love. Sometimes genuine love deserves a second-chance at the happy ending that eluded them the first time.

Desire Me Again is an eclectic assortment of short stories exploring a second-chance at love. The collection is as diverse as the authors who wrote them. Here’s a chance to read the work of talented writers you may not have read before. Within these pages, there are blends of tender, often moving and thought-provoking stories.

About The Holiday Mermaid:

The Holiday Mermaid, a fantasy romance by Alice Renaud: Adam fell for surfer girl Rowena the second he saw her. But just as their summer fling was becoming serious, she left him without any explanation. Now, in December, she’s back… and Adam discovers that she’s a shape-shifting mermaid, from a Clan that hates humans. Can he love her as she is? Can she brave her family to be with Adam for good, not just for the holidays?

Desire Me Again Buy Links:

Excerpt The Holiday Mermaid:

 The salty wind hit Adam in the face as soon as he stepped outside. The rain had paused its relentless hammering, but the iron-grey sky lay low on the deserted beach.

Not quite deserted. A woman was sitting on her own by the sea. Adam strained to see through the mist and spray.  She wore a dark wetsuit, and her long black hair streamed in the wind like a banner. A surfer? But who was mad enough to surf at this time of year?

She wasn’t moving. A tendril of concern snaked into his mind. What if she were injured? She’d get hypothermia if she remained sitting there. He’d better go check on her.

He walked out of his garden and down the stone steps that led to the beach. “Hi there! Are you OK?” he called.

She turned her head. It was Rowena.

Shock hit Adam like a ten foot wave. He stopped, winded. For months he’d prayed that she’d come back. Now that she had, he didn’t know what to think or feel. He stumbled towards her as if he were in a dream, or a nightmare. Why was she here? Had she been on her way to see him, and lost her nerve? Hope and fear played tug-of-war in his chest. Had she only returned to say goodbye?

Rowena turned away and hung her head down, as if ashamed to look at him. Perhaps she had come back to apologise for her behaviour. His sternum ached with the effort of containing his emotions. He forced himself to sound calm and polite. “Hi, Rowena.”

She didn’t answer, only hunched her shoulders even more, as if trying to hide. Was she afraid of him? No matter what she’d done, he’d never hurt her. He gulped some air and came closer. Damn it, he was an adult. He should be able to have a civilised conversation with an ex-girlfriend.

Her neck was so white and slender under the tangled black hair. Adam’s palms itched, as if they yearned for the feel of her satiny skin. The wetsuit clung to her every curve. His gaze glided down her back, to her bottom… the bottom he’d loved to squeeze, nip and kiss…

But a black appendage now lay over the cleft of her buttocks. A foot-long, flexible appendage… What a strange thing to have on a wetsuit.

Adam gasped as the realization dawned. Astonishment wiped out all other emotions. “Is that a… tail?” She couldn’t have grown a tail. This was demented.

Rowena made a strangled sound, like a sob. She was hugging herself, and now Adam saw what he should have seen earlier. He’d been distracted by his feelings, and he hadn’t believed what his eyes were telling him. What he’d thought was a wetsuit was her own skin, thick, glossy and black, like a porpoise. From the neck up she was human, but below she was… He walked around her and stared, numb with shock, at her long black legs that ended in webbed feet. Her hands, clutching her smooth black sides, were webbed too.

Rowena glanced up at him, her eyes full of anguish. “Yes. I am a mermaid.”

About the Author:

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 and third books, “Music for a Merman,” and “Mermaids Marry in Green,” are out now. Alice has also contributed short stories for the BVS anthologies “Mystic Desire” and “Desire Me Again,” both available now, and “Cowboy Desire,” coming soon! Alice loves reading and writing stories, and sharing them with anyone who’s interested.

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8 Comments

  5. Yes, a great blog. I love Alice’s stories, I never get tired of reading her work. And Desire me again is a great collection of stories. The new cowboy anthology is out soon and I can’t wait.

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