Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep by Liz Kessler

When the lagoon narrowed back into a channel, I couldn't see my reflection swimming along below me anymore. Its light rippled below us in wavy lines across the sea floor.Īs we slid across the stillness, the water grew colder and murkier. The sun burned down, heating my neck and dancing on the water. I glanced around to check that no one had followed us, then I squeezed through the gap and swam into the lagoon. A white tropical bird flew into a hole behind me, its long tail disappearing into the rock. Ferns hung down over cracks and gaps in the walls.

The water sparkled and fanned out into a wide lagoon. Trying not to let Shona see my quivering hands, I parted the curtain and looked through the hole in the wall. Waiting for something - and a feeling that there was something waiting for me, too. A quivery kind of sensation jiggling around in my stomach. That's when the feeling started inside me. We came to the curtain of reeds draped down the channel's walls and the algae-coated wooden plaques. Two silhouetted mermaid figures gliding along below the surface, our shadows came and went, appearing briefly before suddenly growing distorted with the splash of a tail breaking the water's still surface. The ground soon became uncluttered: clear golden sand beneath us, the sun shining down, almost directly above our heads.

When the channel narrowed, I swam ahead, slinking along the silent passageway. Below us, occasional shoals of parrotfish and bright red snappers swept across the sandy bed. Mermaid magic, a fabulous monster, and wonderful descriptions of undersea life make this a rich fantasy that is a real page turner and has all the charm and warmth of Liz Kessler's first book, The Tail of Emily Windsnap.We swam side by side to begin with.

Their voices alternate as the kraken's terrifying tentacles rise from the deep, threatening the future of the islanders, and kraken worshippers try to sink the cruise ship. What follows makes a terrifically exciting adventure, not just for Emily, but for her old adversary Mandy Rushton, whose parents have taken her on a cruise and whose father thinks he can make his fortune if he catches a mermaid. Being Emily, she can't resist exploring forbidden places, and as a result, she inadvertently wakes the kraken, the legendary deep sea monster who has been asleep for two hundred years. Emily Windsnap is thrilled to arrive at her new home, a secret island near the Bermuda Triangle where humans and merfolk live together, and where being a girl who grows a tail as soon as she enters the water isn't a problem.

Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep by Liz Kessler