National bestselling and award-winning author Cerece Rennie Murphy fell in love with science fiction at the age of seven while watching "Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back". Since debuting her first novel, Order of the Seers (Book 1) in 2011, Ms. Murphy has published eleven speculative fiction novels, short stories, and children's books, including her latest release Enchanted: 5 Tales of Magic In The Everyday. Ms. Murphy is also the founder of Virtuous Con, an online sci-fi and comic culture convention that celebrates the excellence of BIPOC creators in speculative fiction. Ms. Murphy is the recipient of Black Pearl Magazine's Author of the Year Award for Children's Literature, the National Best Sellers designation from the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC), and the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA)'s Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for significant contributions to the science fiction, fantasy, and related genres community. Created in 2008, Ms. Murphy joins the ranks of distinguished previous Solstice Award winners, including Petra Mayer, Carl Sagan, Octavia Butler, and Gardner Dozois. To learn more about the author and her upcoming projects, please visit her website at www.cerecerenniemurphy.com.

Between Two Seas by Cerece Rennie Murphy

The best-selling author of the Order of the Seers trilogy, To Find You, and The Wolf Queen series brings you four new stories that delve deeply into the beautiful and terrifying contradictions that dwell within all of us.

This genre-bending collection explores the catalysts and consequences of transformation through the tales of a murderous fairy, a wayward explorer, a young girl carving a new fate from the ugliness of her world, and a father and son who hold the power of life and death in their hands.

The truth is often terrible, but within it is the power to grow - the power to change - if we are willing to swim the distance

between who we are

and who we can become.

CURATOR'S NOTE

A bestselling and award-winning author, founder of Virtuous Con for BIPOC creators, and the 2022 Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA)'s Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for significant contributions to the science fiction, fantasy, and related genres community, Cerece Rennie Murphy is a powerhouse in the speculative fiction scene. Sample her work in Between the Seas, a collection of genre-bending black girl (and boy) magic featuring a murderous fairy, a wayward explorer, a young girl carving a new fate from the ugliness of her world, and a father and son who hold the power of life and death in their hands. – Zelda Knight

 

REVIEWS

  • "What happens when a fairy with a murderous streak, a stubborn explorer, a younger girl determined to change her fate and remove herself from the ugliness of the world, and a father-son duo who hold the power of life and death in their hands end up in one book? A series of "genre-bending" stories interwoven to create a fantastical fairytale and landscape with rich characters, immaculate world-building, and beautiful language. Murphy's characters journey to discover the truth—no matter how terrible—and force them to see the power of change and the power to grow—that is, if they're willing to do the work to get from where they are now to who they may turn out to be."

    – The Roots

  • "In Between Two Seas, author Cerece Rennie Murphy has written 4 short stories that speak to the black experience related to oppression, rage, excellence, and power. But most of all, the overcoming of everything this wicked world lay in their path. The writing is excellent and the mix of genres ensures quality entertainment while making you think, which is the very best kind of reading experience in my opinion. Absolutely check it out!"

    – Amazon review

  • "Between Two Seas was so wildly entertaining from cover to cover. I read the book in one sitting over the weekend. I just could not put it down. I love the debt, richness, and complexities of this writer's work. Her style is fresh, innovative, uplifting, and offers a more relatable perspective for me than most one dimensional drug, incest, rape, and dire traumatized narratives of the black community offered by commercially and celebrity endorsed authors. Sometimes you don't want to head to therapy after reading a book to face inner demons you just want to take a mental vacation and be carried away from your life in a great story. This author does this for me every time.

    Between Two Seas is no exception. It does not disappoint and I truly enjoyed the ride with each great compelling story."

    – Amazon review
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Mallette rushed forward with the promise of blood so near she could taste it. The damp swell of night stretched across the shallow pools and marshlands of her home like a thick cloak, muting her sense of things near and far, yet Mallette had no trouble finding her way. Her slender wings slid through vines that tickled and scraped. Frightful creatures lurked by the riverbank, their eyes sliding back and forth with the surface of the water, but there was nothing more terrible than her tonight; no one else who dared hasten towards the echoes of agony that shook the forest.

The cries brought her to where the twisted limbs of the Mother Tree curled along the forest floor stretching nearly a hundred feet. Her bark was as velvety as the philodendron that peeks out from beneath the bush to catch the sun, with a canopy so wide it might one day shelter all the earth, given the chance. If Mallette had her way, the Mother Tree would live to see the next millennia and the one after that.

She slowed her pace and approached with reverence.

The hunter who was now her prey waited at the base of the tree, cursing and wailing in pain. Fear cut through his cries like a blunt ax as she drew near. His eyes squinted and bulged, desperate to make sense of the approaching bluish orb against the dark of the forest. Because he could not stand, Mallette kept herself low to the ground as she flitted about –- searching his face. His smell was familiar. She thought she knew him, yet with his features so contorted Mallette could not be sure.

His eyes crossed themselves as he struggled to track her movements. Beyond the terror and pain, she saw wonder. He had no idea who or what she was, and Mallette felt no compulsion to soothe his curiosity.

Instead, she darted away, past the open lacings of his trousers and the fresh smell of urine, to inspect the swollen flesh that bulged between the roots of the tree, where his foot lay twisted and crushed.

"Thank you, Mother!" she whispered. "Thank you for delivering our enemy to me."

The permission to do this, to reveal herself fully and set this plan in motion, had taken years to bring to fruition. In that time, many of her kindred had died eating the sorrow this hunter and those like him had wrought. After tonight, Mallette promised herself that—at least in her forest—there would be no more.