Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs

Forgive My Fins:
Lily Sanderson has a secret, and it’s not that she has a huge crush on gorgeous swimming god Brody Bennett, who makes her heart beat flipper-fast. Unrequited love is hard enough when you’re a normal teenage girl, but when you’re half human, half mermaid like Lily, there’s no such thing as a simple crush.

Lily’s mermaid identity is a secret that can’t get out, since she’s not just any mermaid – she’s a Thalassinian princess. When Lily found out three years ago that her mother was actually a human, she finally realized why she didn’t feel quite at home in Thalassinia, and she’s been living on land and going to Seaview high school ever since, hoping to find where she truly belongs. Sure, land has its problems – like her obnoxious, biker boy neighbor Quince Fletcher – but it has that one major perk – Brody. The problem is, mermaids aren’t really the casual dating type – when they “bond,” it’s for life.

When Lily’s attempt to win Brody’s love leads to a tsunami-sized case of mistaken identity, she is in for a tidal wave of relationship drama, and she finds out, quick as a tailfin flick, that happily-ever-after never sails quite as smoothly as you planned.


This book by Tera Lynn Childs is the first I have read of her work and it's a wonderfully romantic story about a girl from the sea in love with a boy from the shore, and a second boy who is no longer willing to stand aside, watching the girl of his dreams end up with the wrong boy.

Lily is like any other seventeen-year-old girl--crushing on the popular boy, Brody, at school and homework. Oh...and making sure that her sneaky neighbor, Quince, doesn't see her fins. Lily is a mermaid Princess, slated to follow in her father's path and rule her people, but she must find a mate and bond with him before her eighteenth birthday just a few months away. And she has her heart set on Brody, even though she has been completely invisible to him for the past three years. The night of the spring dance, Quince convinces Lily that he is going to help Lily win Brody and sets up a secret rendezvous for them in the darkened library. Only it's not Brody that shows up to give Lily her first kiss. It's Quince and he has changed their lives forever with his kiss. He is now bonded with Lily and transforming into a merman, and the only way to stop the process is to pay a visit to Lily's father deep within the oceans embrace.