Welcome to my stop on the The Oyster Thief Blog Tour! My stop will be featuring an interview with Coralline, one of the main characters (and the mermaid) in The Oyster Thief by Sonia Faruqi! Be sure to check it out if you want to know more about her!

– About the Book –

Title: The Oyster Thief
Author: Sonia Faruqi
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Mythology, Mermaids
Published: October 16, 2018

The mermaid’s scales were bronze, and they shimmered like hundreds of pennies arranged close together. Her immense blue-green eyes gave a look of fragility to her face, yet he found her eyes unsettling. She was leaning against a thirty-foot-long shark, which emerged from behind her and opened its mouth to reveal a great big cavern lined with hundreds of teeth—a black tunnel ready to swallow him.

Coralline is a mermaid who is engaged to the merman of her dreams. But when an oil spill wreaks havoc on her idyllic village life, her little brother falls gravely ill. Desperate to save him, she embarks on a quest to find a legendary elixir made of starlight.

Izar, a human man, is on the cusp of an invention that will enable him to mine the depths of the ocean. His discovery will soon make him the richest man on earth—while threatening merpeople with extinction. But then, suddenly, Izar finds himself transformed into a merman and caught in a web of betrayal and intrigue. Meeting Coralline in the ocean, he decides to join her on her quest for the elixir, hoping it will turn him human again.

The quest pushes Coralline and Izar together, even though their worlds are at odds. Their pasts threaten to tear them apart, while a growing attraction adds to the danger. Ultimately, each of them faces an impossible choice. Should Coralline leave her fiancé for a man who might betray her? And Izar has a dark secret of his own—one that could cause him to lose Coralline forever. Magnificent and moving, set against a breathtaking ocean landscape, The Oyster Thief is a richly imagined odyssey destined to become a classic.

– Character Inverview –

This is an interview with Coralline Costaria, the protagonist of The Oyster Thief. Coralline is a twenty-year-old mermaid who lives with her mother, father, and brother in the village of Urchin Grove.

What does your name mean?

Coralline is a beautiful, rosy algae whose strata indicate the health of a coral reef. I was named Coralline by my father, a Coral Connoisseur with the Under-Ministry for Coral Conservation.

What do you do for work?

I am an apprentice apothecary at a clinic called The Irregular Remedy. I became an apothecary so that I could save the lives of those I love.

Five rungs define a typical healer’s path: apprentice, associate, senior, manager, then, only for some, the coveted title of master. The Association of Apothecaries typically awards the title of master not on the basis of experience, but invention: A healer has to devise a novel, life-saving medication to attain the title.

My goal is to one day become a master apothecary. But my fear of blood could get in the way.

Your fear of blood?

Yes. I can set bones straight, I can prepare remedies for aching heads and tails, I can knead faltering glands into sudden functioning, but I’m terrified of blood. It acts as a sort of tranquilizer for me; as soon as it enters my nostrils, I feel dizzy. I hope my boss Rhodomela at The Irregular Remedy doesn’t notice my fear, for it could prove devastating to my budding career.

Even my fiancé doesn’t know of my fear of blood.

Who is your fiancé?

His name is Ecklon and he is a brilliant twenty-six-year-old detective. He has been promoted four times during his six years at Urchin Interrogations, the local Detective Department of the Under-Ministry of Crime and Murder.

He’s the most thoughtful merman I’ve ever met. For my birthday, he took me to my favorite restaurant, Alaria, where he presented me with The Universe Demystified, the latest book by the stargazer Venant Veritate. Like a telescope into the universe, The Universe Demystified opened brilliant new galaxies in my mind. Ecklon admires Venant just as much as I do, describing him as “the detective of the universe,” but I still can’t imagine how Ecklon managed to get the book autographed, for the stargazer is known to be just as reclusive as he is illustrious.

How did you and Ecklon meet?

Ecklon swam into The Irregular Remedy one evening with a purple-colored right elbow, the joint stiff and unmoving at his side. Discerning at a glance that it was fractured, I opened the medical textbook Splinters and Slings on my counter. Upon perusing a section titled “Elbow Ligaments,” I directed Ecklon to extend his arm to me across the counter. Warning him that it would hurt, I felt up and down his arm, pressing into its length with two fingers. Other patients would have whimpered, but he didn’t even wince.

Upon concluding my examination, I dabbed horned wrack salve onto his elbow to reduce the swelling. Then, clasping his shoulder with one hand, I leaned over my counter to crook his elbow at a ninety-degree angle against his chest. I wrapped the joint with a gauzy bandage of pyropia, and I started slinging red strands of spiny straggle around the pyropia, to hold it all in place. But a lock of hair fell across my cheek.

Reluctant to recommence my sling, I shrugged to encourage my hair back behind her ear, but my effort only resulted in another strand tumbling across my cheek. Ecklon’s hand crossed the counter between us to push my hair back in place. I drew my breath—my counter formed a barrier between myself and my patients—he’d crossed the line. I made the final knot of spiny straggle rather tight around his elbow, then, worried it might restrict blood flow, loosened it with my fingers.

“Thank you for your attention, Cora,” he said.

“Coralline,” I corrected emphatically, wondering how he knew my name. But of course: He would have read it on the badge pinned to my corset.

“I’ll collect you here for supper tomorrow evening,” he continued.

Don’t bother, I was about to retort, offended by his assumption that I’d be free for supper (though it was true), but I found myself speechless when he dropped a scallop shell in the carapace crock on my counter. Patients paid what they could afford—no one had yet given me a ten-carapace scallop shell.

– About the Author –

 

Sonia Faruqi is the author of critically acclaimed Project Animal Farm. A masterful storyteller, she pushes the boundaries of imagination in her debut novel, The Oyster Thief. She lives in Toronto and her website is www.soniafaruqi.com.

– Pre-order Links –

  
  

THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY WHAT THE FLOWER SAYS OF DEATH BLOG TOUR STOP! DO YOU LIKE TO READ PARANORMAL ROMANCE? IS THIS BOOK IN YOUR TBR PILE? ALSO, DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE TYPE OF PARANORMAL BEING? ALSO, DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE PARANORMAL ROMANCE BOOK? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!