Discover Celebrated

Holytide has become Electra’s favorite night of the year…until last year, when the man she loves broke her heart.

Electra has become the most celebrated queen in mer history.

I knew as I wrote Awakened that Electra would have her own story to tell someday. A story of how this fierce warrior, who made the ultimate sacrifice for her people, would find love.

I knew, as I wrote Arden’s Awakening ceremony, who that love would eventually be. And I grinned a bit maniacally, realizing most people wouldn’t have a clue…because while we meet him, Electra never does in that first book.

Electra, Queen of the Sunken Kingdom

A Holytide Tradition…

For eighty-five years now, Electra has been celebrating Holytide with the royals from Daryatla, alternating each year whether they meet in their palace or hers. It has always been her favorite night–first, as a child, when her older brother would sneak her out of whichever holiday party they’d been commanded to attend, to tell her the real reason they celebrate, despite how faithless the court has become. He told her of the virgin birth, the shepherds, the choir of angels. Eventually, she would help tell the story. And they’d wonder, as they watched the jellyfish dance through the red and green lights, what it would have been like to be there. Though Librus is long gone, Electra still sneaks out at midnight on Holy Eve…and she wonders.

And for the last forty years, she’s had company.

He will never return to the sea.

Ryder Mallow was Awakened ninety years ago, alongside his queen. And in the decades since, he’s become like a brother to Arden and Seidon, like an uncle to their children. As High Guardian of the Barrier Banks, he knows exactly where he belongs—in Daryatla, with his mother’s people. Not among the mer who made his childhood miserable every time he visited his cruel-hearted father. Given his feelings about the mer, it’s a wonder he ever became friends with Electra, during the midnight contemplations on Holy Eve that he discovered by accident forty years ago. But it has become their annual tradition.

High Guardian Ryder Mallow

And bit by bit, Holytide by Holytide, they’ve fallen in love…
until last year, when she asked him to do the one thing he swore he never would.

But this year, as the royals come together to celebrate
the holy season under the sea,
other guests throw everything into turmoil…

No one knows much about the mysterious Calm Water mer, who make their home in the sea on the other side of the continent, near Soltierra. Until recently, they were just a loose collection of patriarchal tribes.

But they’ve crowned a king.

Koa, Tide-Bearer of the Alliance of the Seven Tides.
And he comes with his brother, Aro, Shield of the Tide.

They are warriors who could strike fear into any heart.
Is it really an alliance they’re seeking?