Stealing the WindMermen of Ea, book 1
- Narrated by: Michael Stellman
- Series: Mermen of Ea, Book 1
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
- Release date: 05-21-15
- Language: English
- Publisher: Dreamspinner Press LLC
Taren Laxley has never known anything but life as a slave. When a lusty pirate kidnaps him and holds him prisoner on his ship, Taren embraces the chance to realize his dream of a seagoing life. Not only does the pirate captain offer him freedom in exchange for three years of labor and sexual servitude, but the pleasures Taren finds when he joins the captain and first mate in bed far surpass his greatest fantasies.
Then, during a storm, Taren dives overboard to save another sailor and is lost at sea. He's rescued by Ian Dunaidh, the enigmatic and seemingly ageless captain of a rival ship, the Phantom, and Taren feels an overwhelming attraction to Ian that Ian appears to share. Soon Taren learns a secret that will change his life forever: Ian and his people are Ea, shape-shifting merfolk...and Taren is one of them, too.
Bound to each other by a fierce passion neither can explain or deny, Taren and Ian are soon embroiled in a war and forced to fight for a future - not only for themselves but for all their kind.
©2013 Shira Anthony (P)2015 Dreamspinner Press
Buy links: Dreamspinner |
Amazon Audio | Audible | iTunes
"An intriguing tale of Mermen"
This is the first book of the series and you do need to read them in order as each picks up where the other left off. High fantasy isn’t one of my favorite genres though I love a good well-written one from time to time especially if the subject is myths. This an absolutely amazing take on merfolk.
Taren is a young human boy that knows nothing of merfolk except that they are myths and stories. The only father he ever knew was his first owner Mr. Laxley. He learned his love of the sea from working for him. To his dismay, he was sold to the innkeeper to settle a gambling debt and kidnaped from there by a pirate.
Rider was no ordinary evil pirate. He told Taren that he was to serve him for three years then he could choose his freedom or a job on The Sea Witch. It wasn’t long before he knew he would never leave Rider or his lover, Bastian. Not willingly.
This was a very intriguing first book of a series. I loved how the author worked the title into the story. Jam-packed with interesting information, intriguing characters, and a cool new world. As I mentioned above I don’t read a lot of high fantasy stories. The main reason is the worlds and names are usually umpteen syllables and hard to pronounce. That wasn’t the case here. The words were simple the names were unique easy to pronounce and fitting of each character. The descriptions painted a mural in your mind. I could see each sexy man, picture the ship, smell the sea or the nasty prisons, feel the torture.
I will warn you here that there were a few scary scenes that included some torture. Where they are pretty explicit they move the story forward and the minute details such as background noise and things that happen during the scene are important as it shows character growth.
The love scenes are the same. Though they are not over the top explicit, they are hot, sexy, and breathtaking. This book there is a threesome. The sex does not dominate the story and some are off the page. What is on the page is well written and sooo sexy!
I loved this story with all the twists and turns and couldn’t wait to sink into the next book. Luckily I had it waiting!
Michael Stellman gave each character just enough lilt and personality to make the story shine even more. I highly recommend this series to help make your chores or commutes go faster.
If you like myths, action, well-written new worlds, Mermen, twists, pirates, threesomes, and some hot Man-sex this is for you!
Shira Anthony was a professional opera singer in her last incarnation, performing roles in such operas as Tosca, i Pagliacci, and La Traviata, among others. She’s given up TV for evenings spent with her laptop, and she never goes anywhere without a pile of unread M/M romance on her Kindle. You can hear Shira singing "Vissi d'arte" from Puccini's Tosca by clicking here: Shira's Singing
Shira loves a great happily-ever-after and never writes a story without one. She's happy to write what her muse tells her, whether it's fantasy, sci fi, paranormal, or contemporary romance. She particularly loves writing series, because she thinks of her characters as old friends and she wants to visit them even after their stories are told.
In real life, Shira sang professionally for 14 years, and she currently works as a public sector attorney advocating for children. She's happy to have made writing her second full-time job, even if it means she rarely has time to watch TV or go to the movies. Shira writes about the things she knows and loves, whether it's music and musicians, the ocean, or the places she's lived or traveled to. She spent her middle school years living in France, and tries to visit as often as she can.
Shira and her husband spend as many weekends as they can aboard their 36' catamaran sailboat, Land's Zen, at the Carolina Coast. Not only has sailing inspired her to write about pirates and mermen, her sailboat is her favorite place to write. And although the only mermen she's found to date are in her own imagination, she keeps a sharp lookout for them when she's on the water.
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Thanks for the good review. I love Shira's work, including this story in ebook, so good to see it works in audio, too. - Purple Reader,
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Thank you for the review. I've been planning to give this one a read but I just might have to give the audio a listen.
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