For far too long these sailor-drowning, ship-sinking sea sirens have been portrayed as happy, peaceful creatures who want nothing more than to fall in love with a prince and live happily ever after. Undertow is an unconventional twist on one of the oldest mythological creatures known to man.
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And now an excerpt from Undertow:
The room reminded Zoe of an oversized English conservatory, filled with deep sea plants that swayed gently in the gentle currents that seeped into the room. There were sponges, a variety of corals and sea weeds. Among these crawled sea slugs, starfish, crabs, lobsters and other sea creatures. Nestled among the garden there were statues, cannons and figureheads, but the centrepiece belonged to a massive black grand piano. The black lacquered wood shone even in the muted lights, upon a plinth at the centre of the garden.
“It’s beautiful,” Zoe breathed. Nox smiled as he began to lead her upwards to the piano before settling behind it. Zoe perched beside him on the stool.
“I love it, too. I come in here a lot, just to play and be alone. I think music is like therapy for me. It helps me make sense of the crazy world I‘m in, or at least drowns it out for a while.”
“Play something for me,” Zoe pleaded.
Nox fumbled a couple of notes then began to play. Zoe shut her eyes as he began to sing, his voice dragging her into a dizzying depth, the sounds of the piano carrying magically underwater. Zoe could feel him move beside her as he threw himself heart and soul into the song. Zoe could feel herself being dragged into that place along with him. Nox’s voice sounded a lot like Josiah’s, but his voice had a deeper, more resonant sound. The effect on Zoe was the same; she found herself being swept away by his music.
When Nox finished he placed his arm around her waist. This time Zoe couldn’t repress the shiver which came partially from his cold touch but also from every nerve ending tingling after listening to him sing. Nox must have noticed her reaction, because he looked down at her, bit his lip and shifted away, his face falling dramatically. Zoe watched as he rested his hands on the top of the piano, twisting the silver ring on his thumb with a pained look on his face.
“I’m sorry. It’s not ‒” Zoe tried to explain.
“No. No, it’s not you. It’s me. This. Us. It’s wrong,” Nox’s voice whispered in her mind. “You shouldn’t be forced into it like this. I want to be with you, but not like this.”
Its weird right but as an author I could tell you about my characters inside out and yet when people ask me to talk about myself I go all quiet. Anyways, here I go.
I am a child of ‘91 born in Jandowae, a tiny little town out past Dalby. When I was five my parents decided to pack everything up and move to Tonga in the South Pacific after Dad visited there and mum fell in love with the place after reading a book about it. So I grew up in a third world country, fluent in a second language by the time I was eight and lived amongst the locals who I was friends with.
When I was thirteen my father passed away and due to the fact that the government refused to pay my mum a pension over there like they did my father, we were forced to move back to Australia.
As for my writing career, I started writing progressively longer short stories in Grade 5 where one teacher noted on my report card that ‘I had unique ideas and an unusual talent’. By Grade 7 I had completed my first novel a post-apocalyptic fiction where cats are the highest life form and live basically as we do and follows the lives of a litter of cats, the characters based on a litter of cats belonging to my neighbour. I continued writing different things from horsey stories to Phantom of the Opera fan-fiction right through my teenage years, nothing serious, mostly just a lot of scribbling.
In Grade 12 I realized that if I was going to be serious about being a writer I needed to finish stories, not just have a lot of random scribbles to my name. So forgoing all my assignments I finished my second book called Dynamite which is an Australiana tale about a racehorse. Two years later I went on holidays to Fiji, came home and three months later Undertow was completed. In the middle there I wrote a Tolkien-esque fantasy epic called The Dark Assassin with my now ex-boyfriend. The year after that I completed Hazardous, which will be my next published title.
As for my writing career, I started writing progressively longer short stories in Grade 5 where one teacher noted on my report card that ‘I had unique ideas and an unusual talent’. By Grade 7 I had completed my first novel a post-apocalyptic fiction where cats are the highest life form and live basically as we do and follows the lives of a litter of cats, the characters based on a litter of cats belonging to my neighbour. I continued writing different things from horsey stories to Phantom of the Opera fan-fiction right through my teenage years, nothing serious, mostly just a lot of scribbling.
In Grade 12 I realized that if I was going to be serious about being a writer I needed to finish stories, not just have a lot of random scribbles to my name. So forgoing all my assignments I finished my second book called Dynamite which is an Australiana tale about a racehorse. Two years later I went on holidays to Fiji, came home and three months later Undertow was completed. In the middle there I wrote a Tolkien-esque fantasy epic called The Dark Assassin with my now ex-boyfriend. The year after that I completed Hazardous, which will be my next published title.
Kiri R. Newton's Website
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