Tempest Unleashed Hits the Shelves on Tuesday

Yay!  I'm so excited!  Tempest Unleashed hits the shelves on Tuesday!!!!  It's about time as it feels like I've been waiting for this release date forever.  In honor of it, I'll be posting a snippet from it every day this week-- along with giving away a prize pack of fun goodies every day.  All you have to do is leave a comment to be entered to win!

So, with no further ado, my first snippet from Tempest Unleashed:

So, I asked Mahina as casually as I could.  What am I going to be dealing with here? S

She paused, a forkful of sea lettuce halfway to her mouth.  With Tiamat?

            No, with the climate in Australia.  It was my turn to roll my eyes.  Of course with Tiamat.  I’ve already met the Lusca, I said, referring to the huge sea monster thing that had ripped my mother apart almost a year ago.  But what other creatures does she have lying in wait?

            I don’t really know.  Mahina thought for a minute.  There are stories, of course, but nothing that I know for certain to be real.  A lot of the stories are just mythology, after all.

            I refrained from mentioning that both Tiamat and the Lusca were considered mythological, and therefore fake, creatures by most of the world.  The fact that we knew the truth didn’t make their existence any more believable to most of the population.

            That’s okay.  I still want to know, even if they are fake.  Better to be prepared, you know?

            Oh.  Right.  She paused, took a deep breath, looked around, as if just saying their names out loud was enough to draw them to us.  It wasn’t, of course, but when a huge shark came out of nowhere and swam so close that its tail actually flicked against me as it went by, I almost reconsidered my stance on that.

            Kona was always defending sharks, always telling me that I had nothing to fear from them.  But the last time I’d swum with them—when my tail had been bleeding—had almost been my last experience with them.  It was hard to forget nearly being eaten by a great white.

            Well, it’s not like I have a lot of up-close-and-personal knowledge of Tiamat, but I can tell you what I’ve heard, Mahina began reluctantly.  The Lusca is never far from her- you saw that.  But she has other creatures that work for her as well.  The shark-men, the Bunyip, Ceto and Scylla, and, of course,  the Leviathan.

            She looked at me expectantly, but I couldn’t respond.  It was like everything she said after shark-men was in Greek.  What’s the Leviathan? I asked.  They called whales leviathans, maybe she had a huge whale that did her bidding?  But how menacing could a whale be?  Most of them ate plankton, for God’s sake.

            The Leviathan is a sea monster, kind of like the Lusca.  But it’s more of a dragon.  He’s the most powerful creature in the ocean, or so everyone says.

            So, why does he listen to Tiamat? 

            Oh, I don’t think he actually listens to her.  More like they have a mutually beneficial relationship.  If she brings him out for this, then it’s because they’re both going to get something from it.  She snorted.  Then again, if she brings him out of this, we might as well forget about rescuing Kona now.  Everything in all of the oceans knows you don’t mess with the Leviathan.

            Terrific. I blew out a long breath.  And the rest of those things you talked about?

            She sighed, ran a hand through her hair.  They’re sea monsters.  Ceto is pretty much chaos personified— her favorite pastime is sinking ships and bringing down planes that come too close to her lair.

            Where’s her lair? I  asked warily.

            It’s actually in the Atlantic—between Bermuda and Puerto Rico.

            I choked on a piece of Dulse.  You mean, the Bermuda Triangle? I asked incredulously.

            I don’t think it’s actually a triangle, Mahina answered.  More like a rectangle.  Why?

            I started to explain about the myths and lore associated with that part of the ocean, but decided it could wait for another day.  I had more important things to do right now.

            As we ate, I continued to question her about Tiamat’s allies.  Scylla, it turned out, was another sea monster, one with two snake like heads and the power to create whirlpools and sinkholes wherever she was. And bunyips, while not as frightening as the three sea monsters Tiamat seemed to have at her beck and call, didn’t seem like anything to fool around with either.  Water demons who lived near Australia and who ate human and mermaid flesh¸ they were fanged and vicious and frightening as hell.

            Terrific.  Why had I wanted to know what I was swimming into again?

So, what do you think?  And what are your big plans for the summer?  I'm spending much of the summer in California, hanging with my boys and my mom and doing a book tour for Tempest Unleashed.  I'll post the dates soon, but if you're in San Diego, L.A., Vegas or Albuquerque (or Austin) come see Tera Lynn Childs and me as we sweep the Southwest with Mer Madness!!!  Leave a comment to be entered to win today's prize pack!!!!!