Introducing Ros Baxter and her FISH OUT OF WATER giveaway!

Too much Splash

When I was 10, I saw a mermaid movie.  Not just any mermaid movie.  Splash!  Remember it?  A veeerry young Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. 

And that super-cool bit where she makes the squealing noise and breaks stuff.

Well, apart from being funny, and clever, and totally charming, there was THAT kiss.

Remember it?

Just the two of them, under water, in a perfect bubble, away from the fracas and the prying eyes.

*sigh* 

And from then, I was hooked.

When I saw that movie, a little seed was planted.  One that would lay dormant in the outer reaches of my brain until it sparked against the tinder of other ideas.  Specifically, two other ideas.

Firstly, legends.  I read the Norse legend of Aegir, God of the Boundless Seas, and his nine billow maiden daughters.  It lit a spark that fired my inner Splash and got it sizzling.

Second, I became fascinated with secrets. My mermaid came to me fully formed and living incognito, as a small-town cop, in the driest town on earth.  Tough, cool, smart-mouthed.  But vulnerable because of her secrets.

My mermaid, Rania, is what I love most about all of us: she’s complicated.  She’s the anti-mermaid.  She’s dark, volatile and packs heat.  But she sings, swims and thinks like a citizen of the underwater world her mother called home.

My story, her story, is all about reconciling these two parts of her nature, and finding a way to make sense of them.  While at the same time the clock’s ticking on a ten thousand-year old mystery, a horrible tragedy, and her pending demise.  Just to spice things up a bit.

So, tell me, who was your fist mermaid and why did you love her?  I’ve got a free copy of my e-book Fish Out of Water for Nas’ favourite siren.

 

 

Ros Baxter has been writing since she was eight and penned a whimsical series of short stories about a race of tiny people who lived on a rainbow. While they were a hit in the playground, a few things intervened – including a career in social policy and four noisy children. Ros started writing again in earnest three years ago. In that time, Ros has secured a two-book deal with Harper Collins Australia, published Sister Pact (a romantic comedy co-written with her sister Ali) and Fish Out of Water (Escape Publishing on 1 April), been a contributing author to the e-anthology URL Love, and finaled in the STALI competition.

Ros writes fresh, funny, genre-busting fiction.  She digs feisty heroines, good friends, quirky families, heroes to make you sigh and tingle, and a dash of fantasy from time to time.

Ros also runs a successful business consulting to government and the private sector.  She teaches professional writing skills and has authored a writing guide, Clarity.

Ros lives in Brisbane, Australia, with her husband Blair, four small but very opinionated children, a neurotic dog and nine billion germs.

You can email Ros at rosbaxterink@gmail.com or find her at www.facebook.com/RosBaxterInk, on twitter @RosBaxter, or www.rosbaxterink.com.

 

Blurb:

“It’s  Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum meets Splash in a sexy, smart-talking debut about a mermaid in a desert, a city under water, and the secret that no-one is supposed to uncover.”

Fish out of Water Dirtwater's straight-talking Deputy Sheriff has a lot on her plate: a nicotine addiction that's a serious liability for a mermaid, a solider-of-fortune ex who's hooked on her Mom's brownies, a gorgeous, naked stranger in her shower, and a mysterious dead blonde with a fish tattoo on Main Street. Oh, and one other thing. She's scheduled to die on her thirtieth birthday - in three weeks - unless she can 'change the course of destiny and save the world entire'. Throw in a Mom who's the local Mayor and a Dad who's been locked in the county jail for twelve years, and that's all the trouble she needs without her mermaid roots coming back to haunt her.

Rania's heading home to Aegira for a family wedding but she's starting to have a sinking feeling that's got nothing to do with hydroporting seven miles under the sea and everything to do with some weird connections that seem to be emerging between her, the dead blonde, her Mom's shady past and a ten thousand year old prophesy. Now if she can just steal a corpse, get a crazy Aegirian priest off her case, work out who the hell's trying to kill her and stop sleeping with the fishes, she might be able to unravel the prophesy, the mystery of the missing choirgirls and the secrets hidden in her Mom's past. And maybe even save her own ass while she's at it.

Buy Fish Out of Water.
Find out more at www.rosbaxterink.com