Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for The Mermaid and the Unicorns by L.T. Getty. This book tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. On my stop, I have an excerpt from the book as well as a great guest post from the author. There's also the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card. Be sure to visit the other stops on the tour for more content. Enjoy!
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Author: L.T. Getty
Publisher: Black Unicorn Books
Publication Date: August 31st 2021
Print Length: 220 pages
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy Adventure
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Daphne’s a typical mermaid, and at least according to her, that’s a problem. She’s courageous and has a beautiful singing voice, but lacks the power of an elemental, the ability to command water with the sound of her voice. Jealous of her best friend, she makes a deal with a sea-witch, only to be betrayed, in place of her beautiful tail and flukes Daphne’s left beached with a pair of human legs. The spell keeping Daphne looking human will become permanent, unless Daphne can hunt down and bring the scheming Lorelei a unicorn horn before the next full moon.
Unable to reach her friends and family for help, Daphne doesn’t know how to walk, much less where to find a unicorn or how to catch one. Even if she’s successful, Daphne’s still not sure if she can trust Lorelei and her pint-sized kraken to keep their end of the bargain and let her return to the sea.
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EXCERPT:
"You'll see lots as you travel from place to place," Daphne told the small dolphin. "Come, your mother won't forgive me if I let you roam from the pod."
Why hurry? Echor asked as he swam, spinning around different plants and sponges that grew along the rocks, before focusing in on a vibrant snail. It was not a very old reef, though it was well inhabited by many vividly-colored, small fish. The young dolphin seemed to take pleasure in disturbing them and watching them scurry into their small hiding crevices and among the anemones. You're so lucky that you get to stay in your town all the time. This part of the sea is so beautiful!
"I think it would be neat to see so much of the ocean," Daphne said, thinking of her small town of Thranda. Unlike the dolphins, who often travelled long distances in a single day, most merfolk lived in towns unless they left their communities to hunt or travel to another community. She had known members of his family since she was a little mermaid, and only got to see them a few times a year when they passed through her home to feed in a nearby bay. She heard a series of warnings behind her—the other dolphins had detected something with their echolocation. Unless it was something exceptionally large, they should have been safe within the pod, but Echor was very young. "Echor, let's return to your family." The young dolphin had wandered off while Daphne had turned her head, chasing a seal that had left her bob, trying to swim away from Echor.
"Echor!" Daphne called, swimming after him. She caught up to him, then looked over her shoulder as she heard a familiar sound. An orca! Daphne suppressed a shudder. It was large, but far enough away for her to find a hiding space. Still, killer whales almost always travelled in groups. The killer whale dove when he spotted her. She knew the others would want to help, but they were no match for an orca. He swam quickly towards her and Echor. Daphne knew she would be hard pressed to out-swim the large creature.
Hide! the orca told her.
Daphne then saw the immense shadow and wooden keel of a ship following the orca. The killer whale dove deep, though the water was too clear and shallow to truly hide his massive form. A harpoon followed him, missed, and was quickly pulled back to the surface by a rope. Another harpoon plunged into the water, and then another. The rough waters churned green and grey in the ship's wake, and Echor's warning chatter only told her that there was another human vessel. It came from Daphne's left, and it dragged a net behind it.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
L.T. Getty is a rural paramedic from Manitoba. She enjoys writing science fiction and fantasy and generally being creative.
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GUEST POST:
- What do you love most about the Fantasy Genre?
I’m going to lump mythology and folklore into the category of fantasy for the sake of simplicity and, in my opinion, fantasy therefore is our oldest form of fiction, unless you want to count parables, and even those often feature some aspect of the fantastic, even if it’s rather mundane (talking animals, for instance, think The Tortoise and the Hare).
When I took my first creative writing course at University, I often found myself at odds with the more literary types, with fantasy being dismissed as genre, and with few exceptions fantasy being a lesser form of writing. We didn’t always butt heads over everything but I remember asking a question and being met with more vehemence than usual. “I find that science fiction doesn’t always get things right, but it sometimes isn’t far off from what technology is being created. If I don’t look far enough into the future, I’m going to be left behind before my book is out. How do you keep your work from getting dated?” I asked.
“You can’t help that. All work will be a reflection of its time. Genre fiction is no different,” was the general consensus.
I will concede a point: we as authors are a product of our time, and unless you’re fabulously wealthy and famous and your fanbase will defend anything, you are writing for an audience at some point, and have to consider market trends and audience expectations. Shakespeare did it; I’m willing to bet the vast majority of playwrights and writers did it throughout history too.
Modern fiction in particular, I find is often very character driven and often introspective as compared to classic fiction and very old tales. My favourite novel, Til We Have Faces by CS Lewis, is a retelling of a classic Greek Myth from Psyche’s sister’s perspective. Margaret Atwood retold The Odysee from Penelope’s POV in her Penelopiad, and I want to go to Broadway and see Hadestown, a reimagining of the Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice with a depression-era aesthetic and jazz music. In general, I don’t mind seeing retellings done with a unique vision, unless they’re adapting someone else’s work, then I’m going to be a whole lot more persnickity. (I’m looking at you, Amazon’s Wheel of Time).
But, if you were to ask me when certain movies were released, unless there’s a very obvious hint, say a performance by an artist who was really popular at the time, if people are in historical dress, I probably would be uncertain exactly when movies like Gladiator were made. Clearly some choices like hairstyles, clothing, and music may be topical to that year or decade – but I can watch and enjoy a film made by people who are now all deceased and understand what’s going on in that story.
I referenced Gladiator above, so clearly stories that are profound and can be watched decades after they were filmed are not unique to fantasy, and I think many stories are classics that are important to stay in the time they were created for; for instance, I would have a hard time imagining Anne of Green Gables set anywhere but Prince Edward Island in the late 19th century. But because fantasy can be fleshed out ad nauseum or, be that faraway place that you know sort of never really existed, that I don’t have to know anything about about old middle eastern culture to be in awe of the tales of Sinbad the Sailor. I’m okay with this retelling yet another Cinderella because there’s another version I like better, and that’s the one I will compare all other adaptations (often unfairly) to.
Odds are, you have never been tasked with an impossible quest to destroy a talisman, lest the forces of hell be unleashed upon the earth. You may be facing odds that are too typical and still seem just as impossible; you can relate to a little hobbit, not in physically walking across the country but wishing that such an evil never came upon you in that time, and that someone better and stronger than you was chosen for something so overwhelmingly terrible. You may have found a means to better your circumstances, and arrogance was your downfall – you flew a little too close to the sun, Icarus. You did the work, but in the time of trial your faith was tested and you floundered; don’t look back Orpheus, or you’ll lose her forever.
At the end of the day, these stories have stayed with us for generations, and the ones that stuck with us from childhood held a meaning we didn’t always understand and sometimes still have a hard way of articulating. I’m not saying fantasy is unique to telling stories that are the most profound or that it is the best, but fantasy is in a unique position to use metaphors or simplify complicated ideas, so that when that cultural context is lost certain truths are self-evident to children, and can have deeper meaning for adults as well.
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GIVEAWAY:
L.T. Getty will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. Good luck!
(All the Ups and Downs is not responsible for this giveaway, its entries, or the prize. Goddess Fish Promotions and the author assume all responsibility over this giveaway.)
