Deep Kiss

For fans of Anne McCaffrey’s dragon-rider bonds and Naomi Novik’s Temeraire, Deep Kiss is a science fantasy adventure where mermaids, dragons, and cutting-edge medicine collide.

Emma Jean Holmes is an eighteen-year-old biology major who doesn’t believe in magic, not even after a freak accident on her Oklahoma ranch transforms her into a mermaid. To her, the change is science that simply needs more study.

Then she discovers her kiss can heal the dying.

The mermaids of Echo Island are terrified. If the world learns what a mermaid’s kiss can do, their fragile community will be torn apart. But Emma Jean refuses to keep a cure from mankind. She builds a hospital ship, assembles a research team, and sets out to unlock the biology behind the miracle.

The CIA has other plans. They want her power as a weapon of political extortion, and they’ll kidnap, imprison, or kill to keep their monopoly. Meanwhile, off the Great Barrier Reef, a Chinese Fire Dragon has emerged from a volcano, and he won’t stop until he finds her.

His name is Chen Shao. He speaks Mandarin. He’s eight hundred years old. And he believes Emma Jean is the rider he’s been waiting centuries for.

As governments, spies, and ancient forces close in, Emma Jean must decide how far she’ll go to change the world, and what she’s willing to lose to protect those she loves.