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Tides (Chapter 1): A Novel
When highschool senior Melody Brookes, a motherless home body, is awarded a mysterious swimming scholarship to a Seattle University, she takes her luck where she can find it and leaves her close-knitt family for the unknown, unaware of what lurks beneath the glossy surface of the scholarship is a lure for maturing mermaids from Pearl Undine, a calculating heiress of an ancient merfolk aristocracy, set to train shedding merfolk for hermetic life in the deep sea and ship them out into the veiling waters for good.
Upon Melody’s arrival in Seattle as an innocent girl of eighteen, she finds herself enraptured by her new friends. The artistic, enigmatic sea-punks, including mystic Opal from Australia, competitive Ula from Hawaii, and the athletic and flamboyant Kai, who cannot seem to commit to a boyfriend he really likes. Dizzied by city life, Melody struggles to find a balance between school, work and her harrowing loneliness as she longs for her family and home, fighting off a depression that squats over her like the oceanic fog flying in from the Pacific ocean. She catches a second wind when her rent is up and she is invited to live with the sea-punks in the glamorous mansion of a generous familial relation to Kai, Pearl Undine.
However, she begins to realize that the strange behavior of her new acquaintances is more inhuman than unnatural. Yet finding out they are mermaids, and she is one of them, is only the chip off the iceberg. Now she must give up the one thing keeping her afloat on life's unrelenting her obsessive love for the charming and ambitious Dean Skallapro and, perhaps of more importance, the possibility of returning home to her estranged family forever.
It is then Melody knows she must defy her own kind, bend the rules of tradition and steer the wheel of fate herself to save the ones she loves and create a life of her own. Witnessing the slaughtering of whales or the caging of snakes may prove that fate always reigns supreme, but Melody is little to accept this and uses sheer will to face destiny and shape her own future, even if it means personal sacrifice or the use of forbidden crafts. A suspenseful tale of love, family, power and destiny, Tides brings to the surface a young woman of incredible tenacity and intuition who is thrust into the nets of treasonous scandal and devastating magic at the hands of those meant to guide her and will survive by doing only what her heart tells her.
Spanning an extra rainy seasonal year in tune with mermaid lore, my characters reveal to be human first, mythical creatures second, giving mermaids a whole new insight. Troy Terwilliger is originally from West Palm Beach, Florida, where he resided until his junior year of high school. His professional pursuits led him to explore the origins of a German piece of art work titled Melusine by Rudolf Julius Benno Hübner. This piece inspired him to voraciously explore the depths of mermaid culture, which paralleled his studies in creative writing and children’s literature. Tides, came to him in part from a detailed dream, but also through the growth and transition that accompanies the major changes we endure in life. Terwilliger currently resides in Eugene, Oregon, and is a frequent traveler to Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and the sunshine state of Florida.
Follow him on social media
troyterwilliger
Also follow his Tides inspired playlist on Spotify to jam away to mermaid lullabies by artist such as Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and
Upon Melody’s arrival in Seattle as an innocent girl of eighteen, she finds herself enraptured by her new friends. The artistic, enigmatic sea-punks, including mystic Opal from Australia, competitive Ula from Hawaii, and the athletic and flamboyant Kai, who cannot seem to commit to a boyfriend he really likes. Dizzied by city life, Melody struggles to find a balance between school, work and her harrowing loneliness as she longs for her family and home, fighting off a depression that squats over her like the oceanic fog flying in from the Pacific ocean. She catches a second wind when her rent is up and she is invited to live with the sea-punks in the glamorous mansion of a generous familial relation to Kai, Pearl Undine.
However, she begins to realize that the strange behavior of her new acquaintances is more inhuman than unnatural. Yet finding out they are mermaids, and she is one of them, is only the chip off the iceberg. Now she must give up the one thing keeping her afloat on life's unrelenting her obsessive love for the charming and ambitious Dean Skallapro and, perhaps of more importance, the possibility of returning home to her estranged family forever.
It is then Melody knows she must defy her own kind, bend the rules of tradition and steer the wheel of fate herself to save the ones she loves and create a life of her own. Witnessing the slaughtering of whales or the caging of snakes may prove that fate always reigns supreme, but Melody is little to accept this and uses sheer will to face destiny and shape her own future, even if it means personal sacrifice or the use of forbidden crafts. A suspenseful tale of love, family, power and destiny, Tides brings to the surface a young woman of incredible tenacity and intuition who is thrust into the nets of treasonous scandal and devastating magic at the hands of those meant to guide her and will survive by doing only what her heart tells her.
Spanning an extra rainy seasonal year in tune with mermaid lore, my characters reveal to be human first, mythical creatures second, giving mermaids a whole new insight. Troy Terwilliger is originally from West Palm Beach, Florida, where he resided until his junior year of high school. His professional pursuits led him to explore the origins of a German piece of art work titled Melusine by Rudolf Julius Benno Hübner. This piece inspired him to voraciously explore the depths of mermaid culture, which paralleled his studies in creative writing and children’s literature. Tides, came to him in part from a detailed dream, but also through the growth and transition that accompanies the major changes we endure in life. Terwilliger currently resides in Eugene, Oregon, and is a frequent traveler to Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and the sunshine state of Florida.
Follow him on social media
troyterwilliger
Also follow his Tides inspired playlist on Spotify to jam away to mermaid lullabies by artist such as Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande and
27 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 10, 2016
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