Happy Friday and welcome to my stop on the A Song Below Water blog tour!! Read on for an excerpt, plus find out more about the book and author, follow along with the rest of the tour and enter a giveaway for a print copy of A Song Below Water!!
A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow Published on June 2, 2020 by Tor Teen
Genres: YA, Fantasy
Pages: 288
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Tavia is already at odds with the world, forced to keep her siren identity under wraps in a society that wants to keep her kind under lock and key. Nevermind she's also stuck in Portland, Oregon, a city with only a handful of black folk and even fewer of those with magical powers. At least she has her bestie Effie by her side as they tackle high school drama, family secrets, and unrequited crushes.
But everything changes in the aftermath of a siren murder trial that rocks the nation; the girls’ favorite Internet fashion icon reveals she's also a siren, and the news rips through their community. Tensions escalate when Effie starts being haunted by demons from her past, and Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice during a police stop. No secret seems safe anymore—soon Portland won’t be either.
CHAPTER ONE: TAVIA PART TWO
The community center receptionist did me a solid and let me accompany my sister, Effie, free of charge, since we’re here for Effie’s conditioning, and I never get in the water. I always hang way back so the girl doesn’t think I’m trying to sneak a swim, so when I find I’ve gotten close to the pool’s edge, I pin my arms behind my back — no one dives with their hands behind them! — and take a break to watch Effie for a while.
Beneath the water, she’s got her feet hooked together, one leg behind the other so tight that not even the water can get between them. This is how she swims when she wants to go fast, when she’s done her breathing exercises, and her underwater twirls and arches and hypnotizing glide. She doesn’t look like a mermaid now. For one, she’s abandoned the dramatic dolphin kick that her audience so loves. Right now, she looks like something sleeker. Something that cuts the water instead of dancing in it.
Every time I see her slip into character, I believe. And I wish I were something else.
To clarify, Effie’s not a real mermaid, she just plays one on TV. By which of course I mean at the Renaissance faires. (Obviously, play-sister means we’re not actually related by blood either, but “real” doesn’t apply to family.) With her tail on and with the way she swims — and if you ignore basically everything known about mermaids — it isn’t hard to believe she’s legit. Every time I see her slip into character, I believe. And I wish I were something else.
Anything else.
Copyright © 2020 by Bethany C. Morrow
Bethany C. Morrow is a recovering expat splitting her time between Montreal, Quebec, and upstate New York – yet another foreign place. A California native, Bethany graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a BA in Sociology (but took notable detours in the Film and Theatre departments). Following undergrad, she studied Clinical Psychological Research at the University of Wales, Bangor, in Great Britain before returning to North America to focus on her literary work.
Though sociology and forensic psychology will always be among her passions, writing has been a lifelong endeavor. Whether in novels for the YA or adult market, novellas, short stories, stage plays, television pilots or short film scripts, Bethany’s speculative literary fiction uses a focus on character and language to engage with, comment on and investigate worlds not unlike our own.
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Are you adding this book to your #TBR? It’s been on mine for months, and I’m so excited to read it! Let me know if you’re adding it in the comments and have a splendiferous day!
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