Written by Mermaid Wioletta
In „Mermaid Princess Amelia and the Lost Symphony,” we learn plenty about the mermaids’ community residing in Santa Ana, Portugal. However, it’s important to know that it isn’t the only place where one can meet mermaids, on the contrary: there are several others. One example given in the book, is Chicago.
Amelia learns about Chicago mermaids from Edith and her friends. When Edith first mentions Chicago, she does so, by talking about an old friend, Irene from Kara Sea. Apparently, she lived in Santa Ana for a while, then moved away to the other city.
Later on, when Irene suddenly shows up again in Santa Ana, Edith is very surprised to see her again. Irene explains then, that she’s just visiting. She’s wearing a black ribbon on her wrist, symbolizing depression, and she talks to Edith about the illness of Leticia.
It looks like, Leticia is part of the Chicago community. When she sends the video tape to Amelia, asking her to rescue Kamadia, she tells Amelia to contact Cassidy, a friend of hers, who’s precisely in Chicago. Cassidy is said to be living and working in the Clearwater Motel.
Later on, Amelia called Cassidy, who helped her get the ticket to India. Apparently, Cassidy knew somebody who was working on the airport and could help with it.
Because there was so little information in the novel about Chicago, we had asked Maxine for an interview about it.
WS: Where do Chicago mermaids even come from?
MF: When writing the very first draft of Mermaid Princess Amelia, I got the idea for a side novel, about a new mermaid, Cassidy. I had written a very poor first draft of her story, and later, rewrote it in 2017/2018 during NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo. The story was about Cassidy’s life in Chicago and the Clearwater Motel. It introduced different mermaids, among them Irene, and new kingdoms. It’s highly likely that the novel will be published one day, casting a new light on the mermaid world that I have created.
WS: But why Chicago?
MF: Chicago is one of the American cities with most Polish migrants, and we’re both Polish. It seemed fun, to pick exactly this city, and not any other one, for a mermaid community on land. Note, though, that except Chicago, there’s also another mermaid community on land described in Mermaid Princess Amelia and the Lost Symphony. It’s not stated directly, but it’s Tokyo. Lumina moved there.
WS: That’s very interesting… Are we going to visit Tokyo one day, with Amelia?
MF: I don’t want to give spoilers but that’s very likely, especially because of characters such as Taisuke, and, of course, Lumina.
WS: I see. And do you think that you will publish Cassidy’s story one day?
MF: Yes, I think so. I’d like readers, to read about her, too. Overall, I had promised myself, I would publish each and every better project that I had written in the past, and Cassidy’s story is definitely one.
WS: That’s amazing, Maxine. And could you tell blog readers something more about Cassidy’s story? What is it about? What can we expect?
MF: Like mentioned before, Cassidy’s story is darker than Amelia’s. It tells the story of lost memories, a broken utopia, and there’s quite a lot of blood. Cassidy is also older than Amelia, she’s twenty-two.
WS: Does it mean that we will get more romance?
MF: Yes, she’s involved in a passionate love triangle.
WS: It sounds like this novel will be extremely different from what we have here about Amelia.
MF: Amelia’s story is more for younger audiences. Cassidy’s story is much more serious.
WS: I get it. Are we going to meet characters from Amelia’s story?
MF: Some, but not all. My goal is to develop mermaids’ world as much as possible, and to do so, I’d like to introduce many new characters.
WS: Any other mermaid books that you’re hiding from us?
MF: (laughs) Who knows? I promise you’ll know everything with time.
I feel like I got more from this interview, than expected. I never imagined that there was such an advanced story beneath that seemingly underdeveloped subplot! I’m hoping that we can get the book about Cassidy pretty soon. It would also be nice, to see Irene from another perspective.
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Grab your copy of “Mermaid Princess Amelia and the Lost Symphony” here…
English: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08T6BJ6RG
Spanish: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08Z8GK1JX
Italian: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0953PN3Y7
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