Skip to main content

In Over Her Head Launch Party!


It's here! It's here!
In Over Her Head's official release date!
As you saw from my last post, it had already hit the shelves, but June 1 is the official date - kind of like my book's birthday! So I thought I'd celebrate it with all my favorite birthday celebratory items. (Seeing any theme here???)



















and of course, we all know what comes in wrapped packages...


PRESENTS!








This has just been the best experience and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. Thanks to everyone for sharing this with me and being as excited as I am! (as I'm sure you can tell from the picture taken by LibraryJournal at BEA).

(Some images/graphics from Bing.com)
Here's a little something to whet your whistle for the story:
“So, you’re a merman? Are there others like you?”

“Technically, I’m a Mer and I’m a man, but not a merman like you think. Thanks to these,” he fluttered his legs (and a few other dangly parts went along for the ride), “I’m one of a kind. The rest of the Mers all have tails, just like in your sailors’ tales. And we have different cultures, different languages, different habitats. Just like Humans.”

He put his hands on his hips and floated an inch or two off the ocean floor. His hair settled down somewhat, curling low over one side of his forehead. He flicked his head, and it fell back into place, framing his face like some kind of un-angelic halo. With that grin, the stance, the shrewd piercing of his tourmaline green eyes, that chest, not to mention the package, he definitely had bad boy written all over him.

Which so should not be her type, but that didn’t stop the blood from thrumming through her veins. Of course, she could attribute that to the whole water-breathing-beneath-the-sea thing, but she wasn’t going to lie to herself.

“And how many, er, humans have your kind, um, turned?”

His grin twisted on his lips, and he looked away. “It’s, ah, been a while since anyone’s, ah, turned a Human.”

She lowered herself onto an upside-down steamer pot ringed with barnacles. Luckily, it didn’t move under her, although that hidden flounder did pop out to find a new hiding spot. “Define ‘a while.’”

He raised one of his eyebrows and licked his lower lip. “About two hundred selinos.”

“And exactly how long is a sel… whatever?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know your time, but we count time by the rotation of the full moon. One moon is a full rotation. Thirteen of them are a selino.”

“So we’re talking years. Thirteen full moons is roughly a year. Wait a minute. That’s two hundred years ago.” She gasped. No wonder he’d turned away to help himself to the green, squidgy Ulva stuff, revealing a cool tattoo just above some major musculature. “Care to tell me why I’m the chosen one? Why no one else has turned anyone in recent history? I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”

He found a sudden interest in the fish lamp. “Turning a Human is forbidden.”

“Beg pardon? Forbidden?” Great. Now she was a freak in his world. Forget about her own when she returned from the dead.

Except, now she breathed water…

“Holy crap. I’m stuck here, aren’t I? I can’t leave the water and I’m going to be breathing it for the rest of my life. Dodging sharks daily. And barracudas. And orcas. And jellyfish. Puffer fish and moray eels. Kraken. Oh my God, it’s like living in South Central L.A., and I can’t move out.” She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She had a headache. And no aspirin. Damn.

“No Kraken.”

She opened one eye. “Come again?”

“No Kraken. One of your whaling boats got the last one before I was born.”

“Well there’s a relief. One less predator.” She closed her eye again then opened both. “Wait a minute. If you changed my lungs, can’t you unchange them? Just let me go to the surface slowly enough to keep my body regulated, then at the last minute I hold my breath and you fix them?”

An eel slithered into the room. “Your pardon, sir, but Chumley Masticar is refusing to leave the front gate. He insists upon speaking with you.”

Reel didn’t look at her. “That’s fine, Jet. Send him in.”

The thing saluted with the tip of its tail and was off.

“Reel?” Erica dog-paddled over to him. “We could do that, right? You could follow me to a pier undo whatever you did to my lungs, then I could climb back up into my world and we could just forget this whole turning thing ever happened.”

“You didn’t tell her, did you?” A long, flat-headed, brown fish with a white stripe along its sides swam into the room, its tail and body wriggling like a worm on a hook. Ooh, not a good image.

“Not yet, Chum. She just woke up.”

“Chum?” Erica laughed. “Your name is Chum? Man, you peo—sea folk have a weird sense of humor.” There was something not right about the fish. It looked like a remora, but its head—

“Look, missy, instead of making fun of me, you should be thanking me. If it weren’t for my suggestion, you’d be shark bait by now. I was the one who convinced ol’ Reel here to save your life.” He made an impressive show of shoving his fins to his hips—if he’d had hips, that was.

“You did not have to convince me to save her life.” Reel pointed the shell at the remora, and the rest of the Ulva whatever slid—drifted—to the sea bottom.

“Well, I had to stop you from killing her with your heroic rush to the surface. Same difference.”
And he could shrug his shoulders—a whole bunch of anthropomorphic behavior that would have scientists reexamining Darwin’s theory if they ever got wind of her “adventure.”

“Hello? Gentlemen? I’m right here.” She waved her hands. Man, slogging through seawater was annoying. Everything happened in slow motion. “Anyone care to tell me why you can’t just fix my lungs and I’ll be on my merry way?”

It was interesting to note that it was possible to blush under the sea. Oh, it wasn’t a full-out red, but Reel’s eyes narrowed, his mouth grimaced, and the faintest twinge of color appeared between them. But he didn’t say a word.

“Come on, Reel. Tell her.” The remora shoved Reel’s shoulder with his caudal fin.

If looks were fishhooks, Chum would be dinner. Reel exhaled another water jet. “You can’t go back to the surface, Erica.”

“Why not?”

“Because… ”

“Because what?”

“Because then I’d have to kill you.”

Comments

  1. Congratulations, Judi! Nice excerpt, but you're so mean to end it the way you did! ;)

    Margay

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats, Judi! Love that great picture of you at BEA. The excerpt of In Over Her head has me itching to pick up a copy!

    Are you going to RWA Nationals? Will you be signing?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congratulations, Judi! This is going to be such a fun story. I'm in the mood for fun today, hope my copy shows up in my mailbox today.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good morning!

    Margay - heh. ;} That's where it ended in the First Chapters Romance contest, too. Sorry; you have to read the book.

    PJ - I will be at Nationals and I know Sourcebooks has a publisher signing scheduled on Saturday, so I'll be there!

    Pam - I hope your copy shows up today, too! Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congratulations, Judi! Great excerpt... so much fun!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great blog, Judi! Love your color scheme, matching the merman theme! :) Super excerpt! Can't wait to read the book!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Judi!

    Happy Release Day! and Congrats!

    Great excerpt, can't wait to take a peek into the book!

    Dottie :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Happy Launch Day, Judi! Have fun!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Yay, Judi!!! This is so exciting! I can't wait to pick up my copy! Congrats on your release! Let's make sure we meet at Nationals!!! :)

    -Jerrica

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Judi,

    What a fun excerpt with such a teasing end! Perfect! Congratulations once again on your launch. Thanks for the cake and ice cream! Yum!
    Amelia

    ReplyDelete
  11. Congratulations, Judi! I got my copy at the Santa Monica Barnes And Noble - there it was, in the "New in Romance" tower! So exciting!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Congratulations! Love the excerpt. Love the party pictures. Happy Birth Day.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Congrats, Judi! I'm loving the book.

    Robin :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Judi,
    I love the Blue.
    I'm reading the book.
    Wow!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Finally squeezed away from deadline hell for long enough to read your blog got--even if I'm late to the party, can I still have some cake?

    Cake or not, thank goodness I got to read the excerpt. Light as wave froth, refreshing as a cool dip in the ocean. Altogether, delightful.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment