Down to the Sea Again

Indra is good at keeping secrets. After all, she's helped her sister, Tally, keep the secret of what she is their whole lives. Tally is a mermaid, and if any of the superstitious sailors in Rohus found out about it, they would be quick to turn on Tally and her sister.

Indra and Tally have been on the move for years to keep the secret of their ancestry hidden, but all it takes is one slip for Tally to be found out. Only it isn't her own people who learn what she is. It's a group of slavers from across the sea. They steal Tally away in the middle of the night, leaving Indra alone without the one person who has always been there for her.

Now Indra is on a mission to book passage across the ocean and bring her sister home. The only problem? No one will have her. Sailors from Rohus are wary of women, and they don't cross the deepest parts of the sea, too superstitious about the kraken, sea serpents, and merfolk lurking in its depths. Indra's only hope lies in the crew of the Ringhorn, a mysterious group of sailors from shores unkown who might (definitely) be pirates.

Desperate, Indra disguises herself as a boy and joins their crew as a deckhand. To survive and save her sister, Indra must learn the ropes of crewing a ship as large as the Ringhorn, keep her identity a secret, and...try not to fall in love with the captain, who might not be human at all.

(This is Book 4 in the Kingdoms of the Kin series. It can be read as a standalone, but is best enjoyed as part of the series. The series deals with a gradually developing central conflict which is the eventual focal point of this book's plot.)