Tracy Deebs has loved mermaids ever since her mom brought home a VHS tape of the Hans Christian Anderson version of “The Little Mermaid” when Tracy was 5. “This is the darker version, where she turns into sea foam, and I fell in love with it — and Ariel,” Tracy told Cracking the Cover.” I watched it every day for 18 months and my mom swears she can still quote the movie verbatim. …”
With that kind of history, it’s no wonder that Tracy went on to write about mermaids as an adult. Her books “Tempest Rising,” “Tempest Unleashed” and “Tempest Revealed” (forthcoming) follow Tempest Maguire, a teenager who decided to embrace her mermaid nature and give up living on the land. It’s not as easy as Tempest thought it would be, and the books follow her trials and tribulations as she works to find her place in the world.
“I love writing Tempest,” Tracy says. “She’s my favorite heroine to date because she isn’t close to perfect — she’s flawed and confused and torn. She really doesn’t know what to do to reconcile the two halves of herself and her life. Yet she never gives up, and I really appreciate that.”
“Tempest Unleashed” hit bookstores in June, and Tracy says it was both easier and harder to write the follow-up to “Tempest Rising.” “Easier, because I already knew and loved the world I built in ‘Tempest Rising,’” she says. “Harder, because I knew I was making choices that some of my readers would love and others would hate. That’s always difficult because I love my readers and want them all to love everything about Tempest. But, as I mentioned, she’s a confused, torn 17-year-old girl and she’s going to make some mistakes.”
Tracy jokes that she writes for young readers because she herself is hopelessly immature. But it’s more than that. “I spent a number of years teaching junior high and high school before moving to teaching college freshmen and sophomores, and I love the age — the humor, the attitude, the fun,” she says. “From 12-20 you experience a lot of firsts, and as a writer, there’s nothing more exciting than writing about those firsts. First loves, first hurts, first responsibilities. There are also a lot of heavy-duty choices — not necessarily between human and mermaid as Tempest must decide, but still, a lot of decisions that are both thrilling and frightening. I can’t imagine not writing for young readers, to be honest with you.”
“Tempest Unleashed” stands out from other books in its genre in part because of its dark nature, Tracy says. “I’m a dark writer — Tera Lynn Childs, who writes amazing, fun mermaid books always says were Yin and Yang. The Tempest books are dark, filled with difficult choices, blood, death, fear, and often painful relationships. And yet I’ve been told by my readers that I’ve created a really vivid, believable underwater world and I hope that’s the case — I worked really hard on doing just that.”
Tracy hopes readers readers come away from her Tempest books with the idea that it’s OK if it takes time to figure out who you are. “You aren’t supposed to have all the answers right away,” she says. “Also, it’s important to be strong and stand up for what you believe and who you are. In the end, you’re the only one living your life. You need to make it count.”
Read a complete transcript of Tracy’s interview with Cracking the Cover. Read Cracking the Cover’s review of “Tempest Unleashed.”
