It’s not easy being
someone’s fairy tale.
Leigh Hurley is making a
name for himself among thieves and criminals, even if it isn’t the life he
would’ve chosen. He shouldn’t have screwed over the Moretti brothers, though.
It landed him in the river with weights on his feet. But somehow he’s escaped
certain death. The last thing he remembers before waking on the riverbank is a
beautiful face and a soft kiss.
Then, Tolomeo turns up
naked at Leigh’s apartment.
Tolly comes from a race of
killers—merfolk who drown humans for fun. But Tolly is different, and when he
sees a human in trouble, he offers a kiss, granting the man the ability to
breathe underwater… and himself the ability to walk on land, at least until the
next full moon. The ancient laws state that if he is given a vow of love by the
one he kissed, he will be able to keep his legs. If not, he will be put to
death when he returns to the water.
But love is not something
Leigh offers easily… and Tolly has a secret of his own.
Cat gives this one 5 Meows with a 3 Purr
heat index...
Occasionally, you stumble
across a book that really takes you by surprise. That was this one for me. I
read the blurb and thought it sounded good so even though Amanda Meuwissen is a
new author to me I took a chance. I was looking for something new and original
and have not read a lot of merfolk stories so thought, 'why not'. Best decision
I made in a long time.
Coming up for Air is
gripping, suspenseful, charming, sexy and purely delightful.
I absolutely loved Tolly.
I loved all the characters and loved the storyline. It is original with shady
characters (mafia men and thieves), unsavory characters, twists, suspense, and
romance. Then toss in a sexy, sweet merman that is trying to keep his legs and
the man he loves, and you have a great nail-biting, page-turning read.
If you like any of that
and looking for something different in the fantasy realm this is for you... oh
yeah there is some violence, but that is expected from the mob world setting.
Excerpt…
Chapter
1
IF HIS life had gone
differently, maybe Leigh Hurley would have been an engineer working toward his
master’s in thermodynamics by now instead of sinking to the bottom of the
river.
At least he couldn’t tell
how filthy the water was since it was midnight and he was plummeting fast into
the dark depths, the glimmer of moonlight above him quickly disappearing. He
was a good swimmer, not that it mattered with twenty-pound weights attached to
his ankles. He had about two minutes before he passed out, and then it would be
curtains.
Fighting against the panic
clawing at his chest the same way his lungs begged for air, he forced his body
to curl downward in a frantic attempt to reach the weights. They were cinder
blocks attached with actual shackles. Under normal circumstances, he might have
been able to remove them using one of his lockpicks, but he couldn’t see. A
bitter mantra of “if only” followed his path downward like the bubbles of air
escaping as he tried to think of some other way, any way to get out of this.
If only he wasn’t a
criminal. If only he hadn’t been so damn opportunistic. If only he hadn’t
gotten caught.
It had been a smart plan.
The streets by the docks where Leigh lived were split in half between the
Moretti brothers and Arthur Sweeney, who might have been Irish to their
Italian, but that wasn’t the root of their animosity. Everything revolved
around power in Cove City. At the end of the night, what mattered was which
family had the most territory, like some old-fashioned trade of land equaling
wealth, which was always true, and Leigh owned nothing, not even the apartment
he could barely pay the rent on.
Since his best friend
was Alvin Sweeney, Arthur’s son, Leigh played for their side,
hoping to rise in the ranks on more than nepotism. Looking good to Sweeney
Senior meant making a splash on the scene, so Leigh had been working overtime
for months on small thefts that caused an increasing decline in how much the
Morettis brought in from their protection racket.
Leigh gave most of what he
stole to Sweeney, but some he returned to the neighboring mom-and-pop stores as
a good Samaritan, and a little he kept for himself. This made the Morettis look
weak, like they couldn’t protect their own. It was all about the long game and
how it would make things easier for Sweeney to claim those streets in the
months and years to come.
It would have worked, too,
if they hadn’t been waiting for Leigh tonight.
“Nobody crosses the
Morettis,” Leo, younger brother to Vincent and in charge of their muscle, had
said before his goons dropped Leigh over the side of the docks.
Now he was going to drown
with no one to remember him other than Alvin and maybe the handful of people in
his building who relied on his technical talents and didn’t care if he was a
runner for a mobster as long as their TVs and dishwashers worked.
It was such a waste,
pushing him to struggle harder to swim upward after he gave up on the shackles,
vainly trying to beat back fate, even though he knew he wasn’t strong enough
and barely made an inch of headway before he continued to sink.
Soon he’d disappear, another
good riddance that he doubted even his parole officer would miss for how often
she sighed and told him to make something of himself instead of falling back
into bad habits. But what was there to make of a life without privilege? Leigh
had no prospects, no family, no education, only honed skills of survival. He’d
been a thief since he could fit his hand inside a passing pocket. With his
record, even at only twenty-five, there was no hope for him in this city that
didn’t lean on Arthur Sweeney, and now he’d lost that opportunity too.
The water was cold even in
spring since this part of the river was wider. The docks wouldn’t see any
activity until morning, and not much then either at this location, though with
a few shortcuts, it wasn’t far to Leigh’s apartment. He’d die close to home, if
that meant anything. He just wished he’d been smarter, faster, and had another
chance to do things better.
Those two minutes had to
be up, because it was getting harder to fight, his mind sluggish and unable to
think of a solution to save him. He was even starting to hallucinate, maybe
dreaming, maybe already dead and fading away. A light shone in the blackness as
he hit bottom. More like a glimmer of bare skin, because he’d swear he saw a
face approaching as his mind grew hazier and his vision dimmed.
Somehow the face became
clearer, though, beautiful too, like something ethereal—flawless features,
concerned eyes, dark hair swaying in the water. If he was real, he would have
been the exact sort of man who would have made Leigh take notice. Maybe the man
was an angel, and Leigh’s passing wouldn’t be as painful or as terrifying as
he’d feared, despite his lungs burning with the struggle to breathe.
But he didn’t deserve an
angel. He wasn’t good in any sense of the word or worthy of heaven. He didn’t
believe in love, not even in saying the words, because that was more damaging
and hollower than being hated if it came from somewhere fake or turned into
rubbish along the way. His father had taught him that early, and life only
reaffirmed the dangers of love and trust over the years.
Scared as Leigh was, part
of him believed he had this coming, but the angel in the water didn’t snarl or
fade away. He came close enough that Leigh could make out every detail of his
face, including occasional freckles and a wide smile. Then the beautiful man
floated closer, looking back at Leigh in wonder, and captured his lips in a
cold kiss.
A song filled his mind
like when one got stuck in his head, playing distantly and sweet like he
imagined this man’s voice might be—lovely but understated, just a tune without
words.
Amanda Meuwissen is a
primarily gay romance writer, as well as Marketing Operations Manager for the
software company Outsell. She has a Bachelor of Arts in a personally designed
major from St. Olaf College in Creative Writing, and is an avid consumer of
fiction through film, prose, and video games. As author of the paranormal
romance trilogy The Incubus Saga, young adult novel Life as a Teenage
Vampire, the novelette The Collector, and superhero
duology Lovesick Gods and Lovesick Titans, Amanda
regularly attends local comic conventions for fun and to meet with fans, where
she will often be seen in costume as one of her favorite fictional characters.
She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband John and their cat Helga,
and can be found at www.amandameuwissen.com.
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The Truth as He Knows It
