*MERMAN ROMANCE* Moving from the warm beaches of Oahu to the rocky shores of Monterey, California was supposed to be a fresh start for college graduate Leilani Ono. However, as she starts working for the esteemed genetics laboratory hidden along the chilly California coast, she realizes that her attempt at escaping her past has actually thrown her deep into a web of convoluted lies, mad scientists, and the horrors of human experimentation. ~*~ Gripped with panic, I turned away only to come face to face with the very thing I tried to run from. I gasped, stumbling back. Its face was shadowed, but I could still see the outline of its features. Illuminated by the reflection of the stars, I could see the sharp jawline and steely eyes that regarded me. A face that, even in the dark of night, was distinctly masculine. "Why are you here." A chilling voice seethed from the shadows. It was as cold as the night around us, with a slight hiss that was threatening enough to send my heart racing even faster. ~*~ #1 in EXPERIMENT #1 in MERPEOPLE #1 in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST #1 in OCEAN The second book in the Species Unknown series. Can easily be read as a stand-alone novel but I recommend reading Book 1: Aves first for more context. *COMPLETED*

Taryn Lowell has been dealing with one horrible thing after another while still coping with the sudden death of her brother. Yet when an invitation to go to Tokyo, Japan is offered to her by her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend no less, Taryn couldn't help but wonder why and cautiously excepted. Thinking that it would be good to get her mind off things for a while. That it would be an experience, she would never forget. While the latter half of this trip is staying at a historic mansion in a remote village, one almost completely cut off from the rest of the world. However, within this rural village, there are several old stories passed off as legends or rumours. The story of a Priestess who sacrificed herself to many demons protecting her village by binding herself in ropes soaked in her blood. While rumours of a demon that is said to resemble a man or a woman who will whisk unsuspecting travellers away in the dead of night if they wander into the forest, all while looking like a living doll... Such stories and rumours are often truths distorted through countless years being passed from word of mouth, yet how much remains true while the rest becomes fiction? Or were such things even fiction to begin with?