Song of the Sea: A Little Mermaid Retelling (The Singer Tales) by Deborah Grace White

Sometimes the death of your greatest dream is only the beginning… Princess Estelle has never been happy in her father’s underwater empire, although she’s ready to do her duty—marry at fifteen and pass her three hundred years in service to family and empire. But when she’s finally allowed to ascend to the surface and catches sight of a handsome human prince, a different—and altogether dangerous—dream starts to grow in her heart. Demetrius is a merman with one ambition—to earn a place in the emperor’s royal guard. Emotion plays no role in his duty, and Princess Estelle is not strictly under his care. So why does it make him so uncomfortable to see her pain, and why does he allow himself to get caught up in her desperate bargain to win the human prince? Only, once on land, Estelle finds that neither her plans nor her heart are as much in her control as she thought. Prince Farrin’s dramatic disappearance should shatter her world. Instead, it’s the beginning of a whole new life—one that’s both simpler and happier than the opulence of her underwater palace. But when the prince returns, it’s time to pay the price for her happiness. The bargain she made now threatens to consume both land and sea—and even with Demetrius’s help, the cost of saving her world may be too terrible to be paid. Read more