Seventeen-year-old Marei lives on Alabaster Island, a remote tropical isle inhabited by twenty-one families. Nobody under the age of eighteen has ever left to visit the mainland. The island and its strange customs are all that Marei and her friends know.
For years, Marei dreaded the Binding. On that day, each teen must write his or her choice of life mate. But with her childhood sweetheart drowned long ago, Marei has no boy in mind. And so she leaves her paper blank. This sets off a chain of events that ruptures the bedrock of her life and leads her to question the only home she’s ever had.
She encounters a mermaid, beings thought to have gone extinct. The mermaid tells Marei to leave the island and offers to help. When a handsome teen from the mainland becomes stranded after a supply drop, Marei falls in love. Her secret plan to flee becomes an obsession.
But the mermaid has a hidden agenda of her own. Now Marei must confront the shocking reality that lies beneath island life. The choices she makes threaten to upend her fate and that of her island community forever… but only if she can escape alive.
If you like Sarah J. Maas, Leigh Bardugo, Cassandra Clare, Dylan Farrow, Melissa Albert, Michelle Madow, Maggie Stiefvater, Shannon Hale, Kiera Cass, Kami Garcia, Carrie Anne Noble or Adrienne Young, you won't be able to put down the wildly addictive Mermaid Curse Series.
M.S. Kaminsky writes young adult urban fantasy and sci-fi with dashes of suspense, mystery and romance. His most recent release, The Mermaid Curse Series, reveals the enigmatic origin of mermaids in a gripping fantasy that spans generations of women.
When MSK is not writing he can be found with his husband attempting to tame the white water rapids of upstate New York or weeding in their garden. So far the rapids (and the weeds) are winning!
The ancient magics that pervade this island are very strong. In fact, they point to the origins of all forms. As a girl who walks between two worlds, Marei must come to terms with the great power that she has been given and learn how to wield it with wisdom.
Book Excerpt
Alabaster Island: The Mermaid Curse
We’d learned about mermaids during Assembly. Beings that followed the elemental path of water became Mermaid. The Ancient One corrupted them and forced them to do his evil work until there were none left. Beings that followed the path of fire became Phoenix. The force of their will destroyed them. Followers of wind became Spirit, now diffuse and unknowable. And beings who followed the path of Earth became Human and they came to rule the planet. But the Fifth Path, the Lemurians, were masters of Ether, the origin and key to all the forms.
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