I grew up with a whole collection of Hans Christian Andersen fairytales. My dad often read them aloud in the evenings to my sisters and me. But there were a few stories that I returned to on my own, again and again, because they woke something up in me: a deep, heart-pounding, chest-tightening longing. One of these was The Little Mermaid.
If you’ve only ever experienced The Little Mermaid through the lens of Disney, I’d encourage you to dive into the original. Andersen’s classic is nuanced, bittersweet, and thoroughly gripping: the kind of tale that takes hold of your heart and never leaves. So I was thrilled when K.B. Hoyle, one of my favorite contemporary authors of young adult and middle grade fantasy, announced that she was writing her own Little Mermaid retelling.
See my reviews of Hoyle’s Gateway Chronicles and Breeder Cycle.
I’ve enjoyed various glimpses of this novel-in-progress over the last few years, and it has been tantalizing, to say the least. Hoyle’s Son of the Deep retains the richness of Andersen’s tale, but weaves in creative elements that make it feel fresh and exciting. She re-imagines the story as a peril-fraught romance between a merman (Orpheo) and a human princess (Rose). There are new characters to love, deft plot twists, intriguing backstories (especially for the Sea Witch!), and the fate of multiple kingdoms at stake. Here’s a teaser from the back cover:
Orpheo never meant to disobey his father or betray his kind, but when he finds the young human woman weeping over the death of her own father, his compassionate heart moves him to comfort her.
All Rose ever wanted was to make her father proud, but after the mysterious Boy in the Sea eases her through her grief, Rose throws aside her reservations and vows she will find the boy and marry him.
As Rose despairs of ever finding him, Orpheo sells his voice to the Sea Witch and gives up his family in a desperate bid to fulfill their love and heal a hundred-year rift between their worlds. But restoration cannot be bought through black magic, and when Orpheo becomes human, Rose does not recognize him.
At the end of all hope, only great sacrifice can bring Rose and Orpheo a happily ever after.
Son of the Deep is now available from Owl’s Nest Publishers, and it’s fantastic. I couldn’t wait to interview K.B. Hoyle and dive a little deeper into this story and the inspiration behind it.
When did you first encounter Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales?
It’s difficult to say exactly when my first time experiencing a genuine Hans Christian Andersen fairytale was because I think, like most people in my generation, the first time I encountered his stories, it was as a very young child through the lens of Disney. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing! Disney eased my way into a lot of stories with big themes and hard material—the animated films of my youth were a gateway to a much bigger world.
What are some key qualities of Andersen’s “Little Mermaid” that you wanted to convey in your story?
The first word that comes to mind is longing. Longing is (can be, at least) a spiritual endeavor, and that is woven throughout Andersen’s tale: the longing for the surface, the longing for love, the longing for a new and better world—or even just something other. These aren’t intrinsically bad longings. It’s the question of, how do we go about fulfilling our longings that creates tension and conflict in the story. I wanted to recreate this same framework, these same feelings and themes, in SON OF THE DEEP.
Your retelling went through various incarnations before reaching its current form, including a mermaid version, as in Andersen’s original. Why did you eventually decide to retell the tale as a romance between a human princess and a merman?
I wish I had a profound answer to this question, but (sadly) I do not. When I was agented and we were in the submission “trenches,” we kept getting the same feedback from acquisition editors everywhere we went: that they liked my writing and the story, but it wasn’t “different” enough. It “wasn’t original.” After several months, I grew frustrated and pitched the idea to my agent that perhaps I could shake up the story by gender-bending it. He loved the idea, so I rewrote the book as a merman and a human princess and we put it back out on sub. Sadly, it still didn’t sell, but I ended up really appreciating the story as it turned out. Ultimately, it was the right decision.
Who was your favorite character to write in this book, and why?
James was my favorite character to write. He is Princess/Queen Rose’s best friend, and not only does he think he’s in love with her, but he’s overprotective of her. He’s also overconfident, snarky, and brash. On the other hand, he refuses to be morally simplistic. Rose sees him for exactly who he is, and knows his heart better than he knows it himself, and so he and Rose play well off each other as characters in the story—holding each other to account, in a way, even when they don’t know they are doing so. I am a firm believer, as an author, that you write certain characters into a story to help propel the main character along the journey that they need to take. It doesn’t mean these characters are static themselves, but the story is not about them. James was one such character, and he was a lot of fun to write.
What was your greatest challenge in retelling Andersen’s tale?
Probably my biggest challenge in retelling the tale was writing the second half of the book where Orpheo (now Hugo) has gone to land with his ill-begotten legs and is mute. Being a limited, dual perspective story, the chapters that were Orpheo/Hugo chapters became “silent” chapters where he couldn’t engage in any dialogue—he could only observe and communicate in nonverbal ways. The greatest challenge of all these chapters was the first chapter that is from his perspective after he’s first come to land, because he’s in a brand new world and seeing and learning about things he’s never seen, heard, tasted, touched, smelled before, and I had to communicate all that to the reader through his perspective without using language he wouldn’t know also without being boring or over explaining or repetitive. (I remember thinking, for example, “WAIT—I can’t call these stairs… he wouldn’t know what stairs are!”)
Why do you think that fairytales deserve to be retold? Are there other tales you’d like to re-imagine?
Fairytales deserve to be retold because every time we do, we’re stepping into a long tradition. These are not static stories, but living ones, and every age can breathe new life into them. What’s classic about them is that they speak across the ages; what’s living about them is that you can always retell them for a new generation. In other words, fairytales don’t have to be retold to be understood by readers today (Andersen’s original “Little Mermaid” is an easy and beautiful read), but in doing so, authors can invite contemporary readers to appreciate the timeless themes—the truth, beauty, and goodness—within the classic tales. We could even argue that it’s difficult to trace the genesis of what we call “original fairytales” because so many of them come from oral traditions and archetypes… so we are always retelling fairytales!
There are lots of other fairytales I want to retell, and a few I’m actively working on right now. But I will keep my secrets as to which for the time being. SON OF THE DEEP is just the first of a whole collection of retellings set within the same universe of a new series, The Fairytale Collection.
Tell us a bit about your new venture, Owl’s Nest Publishers.
Owl’s Nest Publishers is an indie publishing house I co-founded with my lifelong best friend that caters to adolescents and the authors who want to write for them. We aim to capture the imagination of teens and middle grade readers with the stories and poetry we publish, and we are so excited about creating this space in the publishing world. Although we will not be only publishing upper middle grade, we do have a special desire to serve the in-between aged teens who seem to be overlooked a lot in today’s market.
What’s next for you?
Obviously I am very busy right now acting as acquisitions editor (and CEO) at Owl’s Nest Publishers—and I am really excited about some of the upcoming talent we will be publishing soon!—but I am also looking ahead to my next books. As I mentioned above, SON OF THE DEEP is book 1 of my Fairytale Collection, so I am working on book 2 of that series. And I am debuting a MG science fantasy series later this year with Owl’s Nest called ORION AND THE STARBORN that I am so excited about. All of us at the publishing house think this is going to be a story that a lot of readers are going to enjoy! So ORION is currently in edits, and we will be making announcements about that soon over on Owl’s Nest’s social media sites.
SON OF THE DEEP is available in the Owl’s Nest online store, or you can order here on Amazon. Learn more about K.B. Hoyle and her published works at her fun author website, www.kbhoyle.com, or on Instagram. And be sure to check out Owl’s Nest Publishers for updates on future releases!
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