Shorelines by Ruth Ennis - #bookspotlight #blogtour

I am very pleased to be shining the spotlight on this book today. Shorelines by Ruth Ennis is a fantasy adventure written in verse and is aimed at a young adult audience.

The Blurb

When proud mermaid Muireann flees her climate-ravaged ocean in search of hope on land, she confronts human cruelty and body-shaming as she struggles to find her true home and voice. Caught between a dying ocean and a divided world, she must grapple between the sea that made her and the surface that might break her – in this stunning verse novel that reimagines The Little Mermaid.

Muireann is a mermaid – fierce, curious and proud of the body that keeps her warm beneath the waves. But life in the ocean is becoming impossible. The merfolk are at war with the human ramifications of climate change: food is scarce, and her twin sister has been killed in a mass-fishing net. With her mother lost in grief and her world falling apart, Muireann longs to escape to the surface to find some answers. But the human world isn’t the haven she hoped for. It’s colder, crueller – and here, her large body is seen not as strength, but as something to be ashamed of.

In this beautiful novel-in-verse, Muireann must find her voice and fight for where she belongs – whether that be beneath the waves, or above them.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1915071989

 Publisher:  Little Island

Formats:  (e-book for preorder) and paperback

No. of Pages:  280 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

About the Author

Ruth Ennis (she/they) is a writer from Kildare, Ireland. She has a B.A. in English with Drama from University College Dublin and an M.Phil. in Children’s Literature from Trinity College Dublin. She has written poetry, short stories, and essays for several publications. Her work has been published in The Irish Writer’s Handbook (Books Ireland) and I Am The Wind (Little Island). She usually is working with books in some capacity.

Ruth’s debut novel Shorelines (Little Island, Feb 2026) is a young adult verse novel retelling of The Little Mermaid, told through the lens of a fat protagonist.

Ruth is represented by Alice Williams Literary: Children’s Books Agency.

Ruth is the Emerging Writer in Residence in dlr LexIcon from September 2025 to June 2026. They are working alongside Eve McDonnell as the Established Writer in Residence.

Ruth was a Young Writer Delegate with The Irish Writers Centre for the International Literature Festival Dublin in 2019 and was selected for the Words Ireland Mentorship Programme in 2020. She was awarded two grants from the Arts Council Ireland; a Literature Bursary in 2021 and an Agility Award in 2022. Ruth was selected to take part in the Stinging Fly Summer School Poetry Programme in 2025.

Ruth regularly reviews children’s and young adult books on various platforms. Her main reviews can be found on the Books Ireland Magazine website. She occasionally reviews titles for Children’s Books Ireland and is a Book Doctor for CBI. She also posts informal reviews on her social media accounts (@rurooie).

In collaboration with the Discover Irish Kids Books campaign, Ruth runs the Discover Irish Children’s Books Challenge every October since 2023. This is a social media challenge where participants are encouraged to share a book by Irish / Ireland-based authors and illustrators in response to a daily prompt.

You can also find Ruth at:

Author Website

Instagram

Bluesky

Tik Tok

X

(media courtesy of The Write Reads)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

The Sea Witch Voyages by Helen Hollick - #spotlight #bookblast

 

Today I am bringing you something a little different; a spotlight on a whole series of books. The Sea Witch Voyages by Helen Hollick are a nautical adventure series with some supernatural fantasy mixed in.

I know that many of you enjoy this genre of book, and if you haven't already given these a try then you may want to.

Happy reading!

The Blurb

Trouble follows Captain Jesamiah Acorne like a ship’s wake...

The early 1700s: from the sun of the Caribbean to the eerie mists of England’s Exmoor in Devon, the Sea Witch Voyages follow the adventures (misadventures?) of Captain Jesamiah Acorne. Orphaned at almost fifteen Jesamiah escaped his home in Virginia and the bullying of his half-brother to join with his father’s old friend, Captain Malachias Taylor – a kindly man, but also a rogue of a pirate.

Jesamiah eventually captains his own ship, but at Cape Town, South Africa, he is to meet the girl who becomes the love of his life – Tiola Oldstagh, a midwife, healer... and a White Witch with the gift of Craft.

Accepting amnesty from Governor Woodes Rogers of Nassau, Jesamiah turns to a legal, married, life, except various governors, ex-lovers, bad-tempered pirates, lingering ghosts and other non-human entities seem to have different ideas.

Jesamiah Acorne: a swashbuckling amalgamation of Hornblower, Jack Aubrey and Jack Sparrow mixed with Indiana Jones, James Bond and Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe.

Voyage with Jesamiah aboard Sea Witch and sail into the ocean realm of fast-paced, exciting nautical adventures...

About the Author:

First accepted for traditional publication in 1993, Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (titled A Hollow Crown in the UK) with the sequel, Harold the King (US: I Am The Chosen King) being novels that explore the events that led to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Her Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy is a fifth-century version of the Arthurian legend, and she writes a nautical adventure/supernatural series, The Sea Witch Voyages. She has also branched out into the quick read novella, 'Cosy Mystery' genre with her Jan Christopher Mysteries, set in the 1970s, with the first in the series, A Mirror Murder incorporating her, often hilarious, memories of working as a library assistant. The fifth in the series, A Memory Of Murder, was published in May 2024.

Her non-fiction books are Pirates: Truth and Tales and Life of A Smuggler. She is currently writing about the ghosts of North Devon for Amberley Publications, and Jamaica Gold for her Sea Witch Voyages.

Recognised by her stylish hats, Helen attends conferences and book-related events when she can as a chance to meet her readers and social-media followers, although her ‘wonky eyesight’ as she describes her condition of Glaucoma, and severe arthritis is becoming a little prohibitive for travel.

She lives with her family in an eighteenth-century farmhouse in North Devon with their dogs and cats, while on the farm there are showjumper horses, fat Exmoor ponies, an elderly Welsh pony, geese, ducks and hens. And several resident ghosts.

(all media courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(all opinions are my own)

Arvia: Wings of the Wild by D.H. Willison - #CoverReveal

 

Today I am delighted to be bringing you a cover reveal of Arvia: Wings of the Wild by D.H. Willison. I think it is a beautiful cover. 

Does it make you want to dive in and discover more?  

It's book four in a series, with the first one being Harpyness is Only Skin Deep. 

Let me tell you a little about the book.

The Blurb

It’s easy to stand up for your friends. What about for anonymous creatures nobody else cares about?

With their homes apparently safe from the magical storms, Darin and Rinloh venture to an isolated elven village and another ancient mystery: ruins of an imperial city whose entire population vanished centuries ago.

The duo befriend a host of eccentric new characters, from a chipper ogress and hipster troll to a deadpan griffin. Yet the Forest of Nightmares challenges them as never before. Merciless carnivorous trees, subterranean horrors, ethereal creatures no mortal weapon can slay… and most sinister of all, the greed and ambition lurking within the human heart.

Darin and Rinloh’s empathic connection grows stronger the deeper into the wilderness they go, but will it be enough to stop a dark conspiracy from ravaging the land?

Arvia: Wings of the Wild challenges the harpy-human duo with their grandest adventure yet. They must balance their deepening relationship as they sharpen their skills and work together as never before to unravel a deadly new plot.