Hello, lovely readers!

We’re back with our June pick for ILVN’s 2023 Reading Challenge!

This month, we’re diving into some summer fun with a slow-burn retelling of The Little Mermaid: A Sea of Blood and Sapphire by Florence Gray! Apparently, there’s some torture, some magic, and LOADS of tension.

Yes, please.

Check out this description:

As long as mermaids live, the sea will fill with blood.

On the night of Amaris’s eighteenth birthday, she is finally free to surface from the depths of the Sapphire Sea, but when she joins her pack, she’s horrified by the barbaric hunt. She knows the cost of saving her mortal enemy’s life, but she can’t bring herself to join in on the bloodshed.

Amaris is left with no choice but to consult the sea witch in order to escape from her father’s wrath. She soon finds that there are worse things than being the predator, gambling her soul and becoming the prey.

Hans Christian Andersen’s story of The Little Mermaid with a dark and compelling twist, this new adult fantasy novel will leave every reader swept away in the tides of magic, mermaids, and romance.

This sounds like the perfect summer read—hot and refreshing if you know what I mean. I’m excited to see the influence of the Hans Christian Andersen’s version of the story instead of the Disney one, because let’s be frank, sweet and lovey-dovey does not make for a good paranormal read. Let’s get some blood and pain and violence, shall we?

The prompt for this baby is really easy. I created it for this time of the year after all. It’s our underwater prompt. We might have a few recent events that make this a little off-kilter contextually, but that’s what the reading is for, right? To distract ourselves from some of the more gruesome realities.

Right.

Let’s fill in our underwater graphic. I am ready for this new twist on a classic fairytale! Bring it on!

We hope you’ll be reading our choice for July with us and joining us for our live discussion on A Sea of Blood and Sapphire as our ILVN Book Club pick! Remember to set yourself a reminder for July 29th at 2 pm CDT over on our Youtube channel. No worries, you can still join us via Facebook to get there.

We’ll also have some live reading sprints on July 15th at 2 pm CDT over on Youtube, so please join us for those! I look forward to chatting with you all!

Join our list for more information about the book club!

Tag us at @ILoveVampireNovels to share your pick for this month’s reading challenge.

Happy reading!