Welcome to Day 3 of Fin Week! If you’re just joining us, check out how you can win our Fin Week giveaway from day 1 and check out Tera Lynn Childs’ rapid-fire interview from day 2! Now on to today’s post where Tera tells us why she loves mermaids.

My obsession with mermaids began at bath time. I used to play with these little mermaid dolls called Sea Wees that had brightly colored tailfins and beautiful hair. They had little mer babies and little sea pets and came with sponge floaties. I loved them. And still secretly scour eBay looking for them. So far I’ve managed to restrain myself from bidding…

Image courtesy of Flickr

Then I saw the movie Splash, about a beautiful blonde mermaid who comes on land and finds her one true love. Sound familiar? (cough Lily Sanderson cough) I must have watched that movie fifty times. It’s still one of my favorites and, clearly, a big influence on Forgive My Fins.

Image courtesy of IMDB

In fifth grade, I joined a swim team. I had always loved the water, but this made me love it even more. I spent as much time as I could in or around the water and secretly wished I were a mermaid so I could spend even more time there.

For me, and I assume for readers, mermaids represent a kind of magical freedom. As humans our relationship with the water is precarious. It is both wonderful and scary, comforting and dangerous. Being able to breathe water and explore the world beneath the waves is a gateway to a secret world that most of us can only dream about.

My cousin and I used to splash ourselves with saltwater, hoping we would magically sprout tailfins. It never happened. We are still disappointed.

Fast forward to the summer of 2006. I was on a beach in Florida, soaking up the sun and wishing I could explore the underwater world. “Wouldn’t it be great,” I asked myself, “if a merman could walk out of the Gulf and bestow his magical mer powers with a kiss?”

Seriously, a perfect storm of girlie fantasy: hot mer dude, smooching on the beach, turning into a mermaid. I knew that was (probably) impossible, but it was a great idea for a book. Add in a princess crown, a biker bad boy, and a kiss gone wrong, and the Fins series was born.

Princess crowns and bad biker boys? I want to read! Click the images below to browse inside:

Why do you love mermaids? Tell us in the comments!