In Which Randi Reviews Tempest Unleashed

I know it's been a while since there has been any actual book reviewing going on here at le blog, so I'm here to finally put the book back in merbooks blog.


I just finished Tempest Unleashed by Tracy Deebs. This is the sequel to Tempest Rising as you probably already know.
I wasn't the biggest fan of Rising, although I liked it pretty well. I thought it was too focused on romance and didn't spend enough time in the ocean to be considered urban fantasy.
Tempest Unleashed certainly surpasses it's prequel in terms of general awesome.


I really enjoyed the character development, and again, the best thing about these books is Tempest's surprising humanity. Usually when a character kills a something, be it bad or good,  they don't think about it too much, which is illogical especially in teens. But Tempest's compassion for others and human vulnerabilities are amazing in such an un-human world. But here we see Tempest less selfish and bratty, and more willing to take on the roles required of her if she is to be queen. It's fantastic.

I also ended up liking Mark a lot more than I ever did in Tempest Rising. Again, Deeb's excellent character development kicks in and we finally understand any sort of initial fascination these two had for each other.

On the other hand, Kona is less of a favorite after this book. He becomes clingy and aggressive, not without ground to do so, but still, it's annoying.

The story is wonderful, exciting, and keeps moving after the slow start in Tempest. It's very fast and makes the four hundred ish pages go by really fast. The new characters introduced or further worked upon are interesting.

There's a very grand sweeping scale of an epic fantasy, and it's beautifully written. This is a story that I have loved getting lost in.

-Randi

We're On (The Back) Of A Book!!!!

Hey y'all! Long time, I know, things are busy.
But guess what? The lovely and talented Zoraida Cordova has just told us that there will be a blurb from the MerBooks blog on the back of the forthcoming sequel the The Vicious Deep, which is called The Savage Blue. No word yet on what blurb it'll be, or which review they'll use (Garrett and I both wrote one for the blog), but that's still REALLY EXCITING!
So keep your eyes peeled, because there will be much fangirling.

Review and Interview

Just popping in to let all you mer-fans know about a couple of recent happenings over at The Parsons' Rant:

1. There is a two-part interview with Robert W. Cabell - author of All The Mermaids In The Sea and A Mermaid Christmas. Both of these books were part of our Christmas Give-away. The first part of the interview is at howardparsons.info/interview-robert-w-cabell-part-i and the second part of the interview is at howardparsons.info/interview-robert-w-cabell-part-ii.
2. There is a review of the second installment of Adrianna Stepiano's Memoir of a Mermaid series - When, At Last, She Could See. Go read it at howardparsons.info/review-when-at-last-she-could-see.

Finally, we still have a number of books remaining from the Christmas Give-Away. These books are looking for good homes and are absolutely free - including shipping. Swim on over to the Merry Mermaid Christmas Clearance Centre to claim a copy as your very own.

Revised Mermaid Playlist!

Sidenote: HAPPY NEW YEAR! May your 2013 go swimmingly :)

Anyway, a while back here on our illustrious blog, Garrett and I both posted a playlist we had worked on featuring songs that we had used to help with writing our mer-novels. Well, it's been a good year and a half, if not two so I'll post a couple songs released in that time that have helped me tremendously.

1. Never Let Me Go by Florence + The Machine. I even posted here on the blog when the video came out. Seriously, there is nothing more evocative of the sea than this Florence song in particular, even though all of them have a sort of ocean tinged feel. The percussion sounds like the tides rushing in and out, and the lyrics are sort of a romanticized overwhelming experience that no other artist has replicated for us.

2. Year of the Tiger by St. Vincent. St. Vincent, a.k.a. Annie Clark, has been doing cool music for quite a while now. While this one is not explicitly related to an oceanic quality, it has this really weird floating feel to it that helped me out when writing my current mer-novel. There's a really magic quality to Annie's voice, so a lot of her songs could be considered helpful in this area. Another good one for your writing is Dilettante, both of which are featured on St. Vincent's third album, Strange Mercy. For even further listening, try Rosalyn, which was a team up between Annie and Bon Iver.

3. SHERlocked by David Arnold and Michael Price, from the Sherlock Series 2 Soundtrack. Admittedly, I'm a very big fan of pretty much most British TV. Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, The Hour, Wallander, you name it, I probably watch it. Anyway, Sherlock is a stand-out modern adaptation of, surprise, Arthur Conan Doyle's classic detective stories. Anyway, this theme from the soundtrack is for "A Scandal in Belgravia", which is based on the original "Scandal in Bohemia". The theme is used for dominatrix Irene Adler, professionally known as "The Woman". It's very moving and romantic. It's very mournful and has that sea-like quality to it. I also like writing to soundtrack because I'll get less distracted with singing along. So two  birds with one stone here.

4. Supernaturally by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Chance are that you have probably not heard of this super awesome rock/soul/punkish/goth band. That can be fixed. If you have heard of them, than you probably did so when their song "O Children" was featured in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, as the song Harry and Hermione dance to in the film. Supernaturally is a rocking, poetic, dark, and beguiling tune that is anthem-esque, loud, brash, and utterly perfect for a story with any sort of supernatural resonance. Especially good for chase scenes.

5. Lover of the Light by Mumford and Sons. This song finally found a home on the band's sophomore effort, Babel, after often being performed live. It's a beautiful song, with lots of catharsis and build up, tension and release. I used this song to write a very big even in one of my novels and it's one of my favorite chunks of writing I have written thus far.  Seriously, not to be missed. Also, this whole album is what  got me through this first semester of freshman year. Their cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" is another good writing tune.

6.Skyfall by Adele. I know, I know, we'll not discuss my love for British secret agents (and their sometimes ridiculously cute quartermasters) here, but this song is great for writing. Very mysterious, and very fun to listen to. Also, if like me you enjoy writing noir secret agent mermaid stories, this is right up your alley. AND on top of that, go see Skyfall if you haven't, it lives up to the hype.

Well, that's it so far. I'm sure we'll update it again  next year around this time. Music is such a big part of writing for me, and I hope this helps out a couple of you. I'd love to see other suggestions in the comments!

-Randi

Merry Christmas From All Of Us!

Well it's been quite the year, huh? I just want to speak for all of us here who run the blog and say we  are so thankful for each and every one of you guys. Every comment feels like a victory and it's really cool that so many people share in the same weird obsession as we do.
So whatever you're celebrating today, Merry Christmas, and I hope that you all call your families, eat lots of sweets, and watch a good movie, Christmas or not (I'm just about to go downstairs and start watching Doctor Who with my family). Thank you for being such cool followers, and I hope you got one of Howard's cool books from his giveaway.

So because I, unlike Howard, do not have a multitude of books to give away yet (seriously guys, go get some!) and it's nice and stormy over here in Alabama, and I just watched the film a couple days ago, here's part of the soundtrack from Julie Taymor's adaptation of The Tempest, where the lovely Ben Whishaw sings a passage regularly quoted in mermaid literature.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYiNHot6Z3s
Merry Christmas everyone!


-Randi

The end of the Merry Mermaid Christmas Give-away

Mildred: Our Merry Mermaid Christmas Mascot  -  by Heather Rigney

All good things must come to an end and I'm sorry to say that this applies to our Christmas Give-away too. I have certainly enjoyed playing Santa Claus, running the give-away and chatting with both the winners and the losers. If you didn't win or didn't get a chance to enter, remember that the Merry Mermaid Christmas Clearance Centre on The Parsons' Rant  is still open and will remain open until our inventory is exhausted. We are offering these books on a first-come/first-served basis.

We do have a couple of winners who have yet to claim their prizes:

• Sarah from sarahcatchingbooks.blogspot.com won All The Mermaids In The Sea back on Dec, 7th
• Laura Almeida also won a copy of All The Mermaids In The Sea back on Dec, 18th

If you happen to know either of these ladies, please tell them that I am waiting for their mailing addresses.

Speaking of winners, Victoria won the Christmas Eve give-away of Everblue by Brenda Pandos.

Roll Credits

I would like to thank - in no particular order - the following people:

• Robert Cabell and his publisher, Gazebo Books, for donating 12 copies of both All The Mermaids In The Sea and A Mermaid Christmas
• Paige Bleu for donating e-copies of Finding Summerland
• Adriana Stepiano for donating - along with fancy, hand-painted book-marks - 5 copies of When, At Last, He Found Me
• Emm Cole for donating a copy of Merminia and mailing that copy to Moscow, Russia.
• Kimberly Llewellyn for donating a copy of Siren Call
• Mayda Schaefer for donating copies of Awaiting Destiny
• Brenda Pandos for donating a copy of both Everblue and Evergreen
• Heather Rigney, author and artist, for creating Mildred, The Merry Mermaid Christmas Mascot
• Garrett, GC, and all the other contributors here on The Merblog for allowing me to host the give-away. You can now have your blog back.

Finally, there has been a bit of controversy as complaints from certain quarters have come in complaining of sexism. We have failed to mention Mermen anywhere in our give-away. After all, where do you think little mermaids come from?

So, in the interest of fairness, we will end the give-away with a token Merman. (I wish I had those abs!)

Book Review: Finding Summerland by Paige Bleu

Over the past 18 months, it has been my pleasure and privilege to read a number of extraordinary Young Adult novels; so many that I've run short on superlative adjectives and am now forced to recycle a few. Needless to say, there are quite a few gifted authors out there and this reviewer believes that he's just found another one. 

Paige Bleu has embarqued on an ambitions 5 book series (!!!) which will tell the story of Wesley Rochester - the misfit middle child of a well-to-do Texas family - and Olivia, the strange otherworldly girl he meets during spring break at the family's beach house in Corpus Christie.
This contribution to The Merblog is a tease for you to read the entire review on The Parsons Rant. I am less concerned about drawing people to my site than I am about blowing the other contributors off of the front page here with my 1200-word review. Thus, I am inviting one and all to surf over to The Parsons' Rant for my review of Finding Summerland.