OCEANSONG Author C.W. Rose

Here's an insider about details straight from the author of OCEANSONG! Check it out below! You can also find the synopsis of the book at the end- do check it out lovelies! 

INTERVIEW

 - Can you tell where you got the inspiration for this book?

Ever since I can remember, I've been an ocean child at heart. A little background: because I have bad knees and asthma, exercising on land wasn't always easy for me, so I preferred swimming. The salt breeze helps my asthma, too. I was never scared of deep water, and the sea is an endless source of fascination for me. I was inspired to write Oceansong when I was on a cruise vacation with my family, and I remember standing at the balcony one day, looking out into the sea's churning waves. And as it does on vacation, my mind began to wander. If I were to dive into the sea right then, what would I find? How deep would it go? Those thoughts quickly spiraled into, what if there were mermaids living among us all this time? The ocean is the least explored place on Earth. From there, Oceansong was born. 

- Is the story or any part of it inspired from your or a friend's life?

Not particularly, as it's mostly inspired by my love for the ocean. Though like many authors, there's a small part of me or someone I know / knew in all of my characters. I'm also a certified scuba diver, so that inspired the scuba diving scenes and how divers play a large part in the story. 

- Which character from your book do you relate yourself to most?

Mia, Angie's big sister. She's a hopeless romantic, and at the start of the book, she's married to a man who gradually becomes someone she no longer recognizes. Yet she stays, because she doesn't believe she can do any better. Throughout the course of the story, she grows into her own confidence, and makes the right choice for herself and her young daughter. Her journey was fun, and healing for me to write, as someone who suffered with codependency and low self-esteem for much of my younger years. I didn't intentionally set out to write her that way, but after re-reading the book, I noticed that we shared many of the same struggles.

- When was the first time you realised you wanted to be an author? Is this the first book you started working on or are there previous unfinished or unpublished stories too?

I've loved reading since I first knew how to. I would read the backs of condiment bottles, and I would read every word on a sign. My first "book" was a picture book about fishes when I was in the third grade, but I just had to do that for a school assignment. When I was twelve, I started writing Disney fanfiction, slowly graduating to novellas (which I believed were novels at the time). I wrote my first novel, a young adult fantasy at sixteen, but I didn't seriously think about publishing it until more than a decade later. This became the first novel I queried, many years after that, and later shelved. I also have two unfinished WIPs outside the Oceansong universe. 

- What was the most difficult thing you faced writing this book?

All the research to make the settings as realistic as possible! Even though I scuba dive, I don't dive to the deep sea (though I may work up the nerve to do that one of these days), and while I've visited Alaska, I have never lived there. I looked up everything under the sun (and sea), from native Alaskan flora and fauna, what local foods and slang, native animals and what sorts of plant life lived at which depths. I researched down to the weather and sunrise and sunset times on a particular day in their Alaskan region. I also spoke with colleagues who once lived in, or had family in Alaska, and for deep-sea diving, I had to keep in mind the different suiting and oxygen / nitrogen / helium needs for the depths they would be diving to. 

- When did you start writing Oceansong? How long did the whole process take?

I began writing Oceansong in the fall/winter of 2021. During that same cruise vacation, I had started jotting down scenes as they came to me, one after another, and by the time the week was over, I had an entire phone notepad full of scenes. After organizing them into an outline, I hit the ground running with it once I got home and access to my laptop. The first draft took me around six months (though this is on the faster side for me). After several rounds of betas and revising, I started querying it in August 2022. So all in all, the process from outlining to querying took a little under one year, and I queried for just over a year before signing with Hey Hey Books.

- Do you like reading and writing different genres? For example, do you like reading rom com and writing fantasy or the same?

I'm a mood reader, so even though I may be writing a fantasy or romance, I'll read whatever book strikes me at the time. It could be similar genres to what I'm writing, or a contemporary, or women's fiction. I also enjoy thrillers and suspense, and I will pick up a literary fiction, memoir,  horror or light sci-fi book from time to time. I'm an avid reader that will read across most genres. 

-What's your favorite scene from the book? (without spoilers;))

It's a tie between Angie and Kaden's first meeting, and their first kiss. Their first meeting was the first scene to vividly come to my mind when I started plotting out Oceansong. All I saw in my head was a merman half out of the water, facing off with a human woman, who had one hand in front of her and her other hand, shaking, over her gun holster. At the time, I had no names, no setting, no title for the story yet. And I loved their first kiss because it's the first time Angie sees Kaden in a different light, as more than the enemy, or even more than a reluctant ally, and the moment where she finally gives in to the growing feelings she had been trying so hard to suppress.    

-Lastly, is there any other book you're working on? Can you us tell a little about it?

I'm currently working on Oceansong's sequel, and I have some other WIPs in mind to target next. I have a couple WIPs I could tackle next: a contemporary romance set in my childhood home of Singapore, another romantasy series centered around Chinese myth and mythological creatures, or potentially, a third book in the Oceansong universe, but focused on a different couple (the latter is just an idea for now). 

Do add if there is any relevant thing about the book you want to share with the audience!

Thank you so much for reading! Oceansong will be out on August 27, 2024 in paperback and e-book. If you enjoyed my interview and the idea of an Asian Romeo & Juliet x The Little Mermaid, set in the grittiness of the real world intrigues you, I hope you'll get a chance to check it out! For more information about me, my books and what I'm working on next, please check out my Linktree, where you'll find all my social handles and relevant websites: https://linktr.ee/cwrose

BLURB

Fish are mysteriously disappearing, starving the people in Angie Song’s Alaskan hometown. Angie, a snarky, guarded aspiring marine biologist and dock worker, enthusiastically joins the hunt to find out where the fish are gathering. When her family and the villagers discover that merfolk are responsible, they vow to destroy every last one. In the midst of the conflict, Angie faces off with a merman and fails to pull the trigger.

Inquisitive Mer-Prince Kaden is just as snarky as Angie, but he’s willing to talk and stop the brutal massacring of his people. The two form a cautious alliance to broker peace between the humans and mer before any more of them die.

Angie’s family becomes suspicious of her time near the water and threatens her future career. If the Mer-King and Queen learn of Kaden fleeing to the surface from an engagement he doesn’t want and falling for a landwalker, he’ll be exiled.

As tensions clash in this modern-day Romeo and Juliet meets The Little Mermaid, no one is safe in the desperate fight to control the sea’s resources. Despite the risks, Angie and Kaden’s forbidden relationship ignites. And as she learns about the mer’s mysterious world and the reason why the fish are gone, Angie starts to question who the true monster is, and where her loyalties lie. Taking the wrong side means choosing between family and her job, or the man she’s fallen for and the merfolk she’s come to respect—or losing it all.