RENDEZ - VOUS: Tides by Betsy Cornwell

Exclusive Excerpt from Tides by Betsy Cornwell + Win A Signed Copy!

Betsy Cornwell Saturday, May 25, 2013

Hello readers! Okay, tell me the truth, do you guys know what a selkie is? I've been blogging for over a year now and I still giggle inside when authors think that 'selkie' is my name. Selkies are my favorite mythical beings, and they're kind of like Celtic mermaids. They’re seal shapeshifters who live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to be human on land. You can head on over to this Wikipedia article if you want to know more about them.

That being said, I was so super thrilled when I heard about Tides by Betsy Cornwell- a young adult fantasy about selkies, science, and the fluid bonds of family and love. I was flailing and screaming 'Finally! A new YA book about selkies! Yesssss' and exclaimed my excitement on twitter. Thankfully, Betsy didn't freak out. She was so nice and handled my freakish ravings quite well, and sent me this excerpt to share with all of you. Read on and enjoy~

Tides
by Betsy Cornwell
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date: June 4th 2013
Pages: 336 (hardcover)
Author's website | GoodReads

When high-school senior Noah Gallagher and his adopted teenage sister, Lo, go to live with their grandmother in her island cottage for the summer, they don’t expect much in the way of adventure. Noah has landed a marine biology internship, and Lo wants to draw and paint, perhaps even to vanquish her struggles with bulimia. But then things take a dramatic turn for them both when Noah mistakenly tries to save a mysterious girl from drowning. This dreamlike, suspenseful story—deftly told from multiple points of view—dives deeply into selkie folklore while examining the fluid nature of love and family.

He called her Hope. She thought that was stupid. Once he’d caught her, she’d known better than to hope for anything. Every youngling heard the stories of captured selkies and their lifetimes on dry land. She’d never heard of someone from her pod actually being captured before, but then, maybe the Elders hadn’t wanted to scare them. . . .

She thought maybe if she had her sealskin back . . . but that wouldn’t do any good, either. The fisherman had it—she knew he must from the stories, she’d never have gone with him, otherwise—and she knew he wasn’t stupid enough to keep it anywhere she’d find it.

Oh, she shouldn’t have thought of her skin. Because every time she did, she started to wonder if maybe it had been more than just the skin that had made her leave.

Hadn’t she been a little curious? Hadn’t she smiled at him when he put his finger to his lips and beckoned? Hadn’t she followed him willingly from the beach, away from the safety of her pod?

This, everything that had happened, was her fault. All hers. She didn’t deserve to escape.

Author website / Twitter / Goodreads

Betsy Cornwell wrote Tides as a student at Smith College before graduating in 2010. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Notre Dame in 2012, and after grad school, she ran away to live with the fairies in Co. Galway, Ireland. She's taught writing at Notre Dame and the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, and was a columnist and editor at Teen Ink magazine. When she isn't writing, Betsy enjoys traveling, knitting, cooking, and nerdy TV (especially Buffy the Vampire Slayer). She is also really tall.