Mermaid Lore and Mermaid Books: Everything on Urban Epics

by D.S. Murphy | Myth & Folklore

Mermaids were never supposed to be my thing. I started writing a YA mermaid romance because I wanted a dark, Irish, salt-and-murder kind of story, and then I fell down the hole: how merfolk could possibly mate, why every mermaid book I bought was so tame, which myths the Little Mermaid was sanitizing. This page collects everything on Urban Epics about mermaids, sirens and the sea, from the article that still gets the most questions to the free chapters of my own mermaid novel.

Mermaid lore and biology

• How do mermaids have sex? The one everyone finds first. The anatomy problem, the shellfish solution I used in my own book, and why eggs are not sexy.
• My YA novel just went NA: how much darkness can teens handle? Most YA mermaid romance is light. Mine kept getting darker, and this is where I argue about how far a teen book can go.

Mermaid books worth reading (and the ones that let me down)

• 32 magical mermaid novels for young adult readers The big list: mermaids, sirens, merrow and other retellings of ocean folklore, most with a romance running through them.
• Where are all the great YA mermaid romance books? I bought a pile of bestselling mermaid books as research. Most of them sucked. Here is why, and what I wanted instead.
• The Siren by Kiera Cass (review) The book that marked the start of the mermaid epoch in YA, and what it gets right and wrong.

Shearwater, now titled Of Song and Tide

My mermaid romance went through a few names and a few covers. It is a dark YA mermaid fantasy set in Ireland, with a murder mystery underneath the love story. These posts follow it from first chapters to finished series.

• Shearwater (get the full book) What the story is about, and where to get the whole thing after Part One.
• Looking for part two of Shearwater? The teaser for the epic conclusion, with the full book link.
• 8 new chapters of Shearwater (Part 2 sneak peek) The chapters I released while finishing the book, slow parts and fast parts included.
• The Shearwater epilogue Spoilers. Only read this after the final chapter.
• A dark fantasy mermaid romance (death, magic, mayhem) The cover I redid again, and the version readers actually preferred.
• Cover reveal: Shearwater got a makeover Why I never felt the original cover was professional enough, and what replaced it.
• Shearwater reviews The early page from when this was my first ever novel and I was still finishing it.

If you want to read before you buy, the first chapters of the series are in the free samples, and the free starter library has the full starters.

More on Urban Epics: scary stories and monsters, mythology guides, ancient history, YA book lists, writing advice, my books and free chapters.

Mythology Guides: Gods, Myths and Legends by Culture

by D.S. Murphy | Myth & Folklore

I was reading Plato in middle school and ended up with a PhD in comparative literature, so mythology is not a hobby for me, it is the thing under everything I write. Most of my novels are built on old myths: fallen angels, Orpheus, the Oracle of Delphi, Aztec death cults. Over the years I have written a lot of guides to the gods and stories themselves. This page is the map. Start with a culture, or jump straight to the myth you came for.

Greek mythology

• Greek gods and goddesses: the complete pantheon guide Titans, the Twelve Olympians, Hades and the underworld, the heroes, and who first wrote the myths down.
• Fauns vs satyrs: what is the actual difference? Fauns are Roman, satyrs are Greek, and they stand for very different ideas.
• The myth of Sisyphus: why being damned forever made him happy The boulder, the hill, and what Camus did with it.
• Prometheus: the fire thief who challenged the gods A Titan who took on Olympus for our sake, and paid for it every day.
• Eros and Psyche The god of desire falls for a mortal, and the trials that follow.
• Orpheus and Eurydice The greatest musician who ever lived walks into the underworld to bring back his wife.
• Orpheus, Dionysus and Bulgaria (lesser known Greek myths) Written from Bulgaria, where Orpheus was supposedly born, right after I finished my PhD.
• The Odyssey: the epic journey that defined adventure I stumbled into Homer by accident, not in a classroom. This is why it still works.
• Best books for teens based on Greek mythology The YA novels that borrow from these myths, and do it well.
• Orpheum (Gods of Music and Madness, book one) My own Orpheus story, finished after readers complained about the cliffhanger.

Norse mythology

• Norse mythology: gods, giants and the doom of Ragnarok Odin, Thor, Loki and Freya, the nine realms on the World Tree, and the prophesied end.
• Who is Fenrir, the wolf in Norse mythology? The chained wolf the gods feared, and the part he plays at Ragnarok.

Roman, Celtic and Slavic

• Roman mythology: the pantheon, tales and lasting legacy How Rome absorbed the Greek gods almost wholesale, and what it kept of its own.
• Celtic mythology: the lore of the ancient Celts The Tuatha De Danann, the Ulster cycle, and the Irish, Welsh and Gaulish traditions.
• What are the Slavic gods and their legends? A pantheon that was never written down the way the Greek one was, which is exactly why it is so strange.

Myths from elsewhere

• The Rainbow Serpent in Australian Aboriginal culture A creator woven into land, rivers and rain, and one of the oldest continuous myths on earth.
• The wendigo: real Algonquian legend vs horror movie myth The spirit of winter and hunger, and what the movies got wrong.
• Angel spirit numbers, guides and the higher self Where the modern angel-number belief comes from and how people use it.

If you want to see what I do with all this, the books page lists the series, and the free samples let you read the first chapters.

More on Urban Epics: mermaid lore, scary stories and monsters, ancient history, YA book lists, writing advice, my books and free chapters.