PRIDDY'S TALE by Harper Fox

4 Stars

They don’t seem to thrive away from the sea, and if they do leave, they always return.

This is a classic Mer tale. 

The hubris of youth that infallible superhero feeling that you can surpass anything until you can't. 



Priddy is left behind as his best mate goes to university, still suffering consequences from misjudged youth. That's Priddy's fate. His backstory is sad and unfortunately not uncommon. 

Merou is the half-drowned man Priddy pulls from the sea when disaster strikes the rough-hewn cliffs of Cornwall in the rugged West Country. From that moment, time is being rewritten as Priddy's life changes. 

Fox's descriptives are a key draw for me, and they don't disappoint. While I am usually keen on the palpable renderings of the setting that was not the focus. Sure the waters are lovingly drawn, but the spotlight is on Merouac, of Mer anatomy itself. He reads like a heroic nude from antiquity, quite beautifully done. 

Merouac chuckled. “If you like. Pretty and merry— won’t we make a pair?” Closing his eyes, he pulled the bedclothes up to his chest, and Priddy must have imagined the webs between his fingers— there was nothing there now but a glimmer, like fine-ground fish-scale dust.

But it is not all smooth waters and lilting songs on the air, for a nemesis lurks threatening everything. I love the ocean, I could read pages of nothing but sea spray, wind shifts, wave and current patterns and be happy, add in Fox's writing style and this was a big win.

This isn't a grand romance. It's loving and thoughtful and sexy, but more finding that puzzle piece that's been missing than a overwhelming courtship. 

Overall, love and the sea, and how both are catalysts of change.