A Mermaid's Tale

      Melusina is a mermaid who chooses to live as a human to be with her true love, spending only one day a week indulging in a warm bath with a submerged tail in place of legs. Her tail is a secret that is sacred to her and is kept private, even from her husband, who has promised never to interrupt bath time. Her tail is hers and hers alone, and when she catches her husband spying out her intimate secret during her bath time, it is enough to make her retreat to the sea, returning to shore only to see her human children.
      River is a mermaid whose tail has been replaced by beautiful, sensual legs, the color of sandy amber. She wears neither clothes nor makeup and has no earthly possessions except a necklace of shark teeth and jade. She lounges on the beach day after day, night after night, swimming as she pleases and rolling in the sand when she desires.
     Yemaya is a mer-woman of many names: Jemanja, La Balianne, Agwe. Her tail is sparkling blue and white, her body warm and soft, her voice comforting. She is often sought out by mothers-to-be as a source of maternal inspiration. Godess of motherhood and fertility, she is the great nurturer and protector of women and children and is most honored and revered for her compassion. All the earth's oceans and waters are the result of her womb bursting with life.

      Melusina, Yemaya, and River are some of the sea-women you will meet in Amanda Adams' book, A Mermaid's Tale. Adams draws on oral tradition and folklore, poetry and literature, history and archaeology, as well as personal experience to sculpt a magical portrait of the mermaid, in all her forms. Plunging into the mermaids' stories, Adams traverses through land and sea to understand exactly  what the mermaid has meant to society, especially to women, as a symbol, a guide, a warning, and explores what it is about the mermaid's story that has captivated our imaginations since the beginning of time. The mermaids whose stories are here described are much more than sexy creatures to be feared by lost-at-sea sailors. Drawn under Adams' pen, these mermaids become enchantingly reminiscent of ourselves and the women we adore.