Siren Bay

Before You Read

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to pop in here and give you a little information on what Siren Bay means to me, and what the themes of this book are, how it came about, but this explanation felt warranted after all the events of 2020. 

This book plays on the themes of secrets and the sacrifices we make in order to keep them - sometimes those sacrifices, and those secrets, can outweigh the other and do more harm than good. 

If you suddenly found out about the existence of mermaids, who would you tell? Who would you trust - and could you trust yourself?

Siren Bay wasn't the original name, nor was this the original draft. Originally titled 'A Siren's Sacrifice', it was a different setting and different world, but it was on hold until I finished T&T. 

Then the Australian bushfires hit over the summer of 2019/20. In October to March, over those horrid few months, for us as a community it was harder than I can explain, but it was sad to see that when the entire world was watching, they were watching us burn. 

It didn't sit well with me that after these fires, people would think of Australia as burning, charred, and as ashes. So when I finished T&T, I rewrote 'A Siren's Sacrifice' to be Siren Bay, and set the world in Australia - in my home - so you could see how Australia is beyond bushfires, deadly creatures, and the devastating summer we'd experienced. 

I rewrote the whole outline and was writing it, infusing a lot of my life and my home into the story, when the death of George Floyd sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.

I couldn't attend protests because of the pandemic and my health, and I had no money to donate. I asked for gifts that donated to charities, I watched videos that donated ad revenue, I did what I thought I could. I retweeted and listened and learned, and did the best I could with the platform I had - until I was called out to do more, as a Wattpad author.

There had been authors creating reading lists of BIPOC authors, but I never felt comfortable creating those lists - because they're not for a list of books, you're collecting authors on a shelf. And those readings lists that a lot of popular authors created collect dust, and gradually fall down the list and out of sight when a new trend arises and they create one for that instead. 

Tweets die down. Social media hashtags fade. Messages and calls will be forgotten. Streets will quiet and the media will move onto the next news story.

But books are immortal. 

Siren Bay has multiple POC. Sylvia, the main character, is biracial. It's not fair to my stories, to my characters, and to you my readers, to not wield my voice as best I can. I couldn't donate, I couldn't march, but I could forever remind people that Black Lives Matter - because they do. 

I haven't revealed my name nor my face, let alone my history, but I've had family murdered because of who they were. I know that anger and sorrow, that pain, because it's also been mine as well. This is not fair and it's inhuman for racism and discrimination to go on any longer. 

Being unheard in this day and age is inexcusable - and being unheard, being invisible, and seen as something your not - I ain't having that. Not here. Not in my books, not in my pages, not on my watch. 

Siren Bay is permanently dedicated to #BlackLivesMatter and those killed mercilessly because of the colour of their skin, to every community that has been discriminated against because of who they are. You are always safe here. You have a home here within these pages. I see you. I hear you, and I'm listening. 

If this bothers you, two things;
1) This is a mermaid novella, with themes of secret and sacrifice. This isn't the struggles of being BIPOC, that's not my story and it's not my story to tell.  

2) If you don't believe black lives matter, then I'm assuming you've clicked off the story by now, which doesn't bother me at all. Reading a book is your choice, in the end, and your opinions are your own - but I won't allow racism in comments, or bullying, that's not welcome here.

Siren Bay is a very personal book to me. It being set where I live, my home being the main character's, there's going to be a lot of detail in this book that is intrinsic to my own life. This also is challenging how I write, with a new type of layout for the book's plot that I haven't tried before, and I like to challenge myself in new ways where I can. 

I do want to thank everyone that gave me advice on Siren Bay when I reached writer's block last month. Massive hugs to you! If you want to see that, go to 'Libby's Forums & Updates' on my profile, and go to October's entry titled Advice. I ended up rewriting Siren Bay again to be in First Person, rather than Third - I'd accidentally done that because I was used to writing T&T in Third. 

If you want a mermaid novella with the tropes of found family, secret keeping, and a looming threat of the unknown, this is a book for you. There's a diverse, queer cast, and there's hot Aussie's in the surf. Also, Tim Tams. 

If you want to know what Australia is like, this is the book for you. 

Let me show you how beautiful it is - welcome to Siren Bay.

Much love, 

Libby x

P.S. Here's your obligatory shovel for any characters you hate and want to smack, and here's a blanket to wrap yourself, and a character you love, up with as you read.