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Summary
What doesn't kill you sometimes makes you wish it had....
Priddy's a lost soul in a part of Cornwall the tourists don't get to see. He's young, sweet-natured, and gorgeous, but that's not enough to achieve escape velocity from his deadbeat village and rotten family life.
He's a drifter and a dreamer, and self-preservation isn't his strong suit. An accidental overdose of a nightclub drug leaves him fractured, hallucinating, with too many vital circuits fried to function in a tough world. When a friend offers him winter work in a lighthouse - nothing to do but press the occasional button and keep the windows clean - he gratefully accepts.
His plans to live quietly and stay out of trouble don't last very long. A ferocious Atlantic storm washes a stranger to Priddy's lonely shore. For a shipwrecked sailor, the new arrival seems very composed. He's also handsome as hell, debonair, and completely unconcerned by Priddy's dreadful past.
Priddy has almost given up on the prospect of any kind of friendship, and a new boyfriend - let alone a six-foot beauty with eerily good swimming skills - out of the question entirely. But Merou seems to see undreamed-of promise in Priddy, and when they hit the water together, Priddy has to adapt to Merou's potentials too, and fast. His lover from the sea might be a mere mortal from the waist up, but south of that line....
Far-flung west Cornwall has 100 mermaid tales. Priddy's loved the stories all his life. Now he has to face up to a wildly impossible truth. Merou's life depends upon his courage and strength, and if Priddy can only find his way in the extraordinary world opening up all around him, all the ocean and a human lifetime needn't be enough to contain the love between merman and mortal.
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What listeners say about Priddy's Tale
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- JBo
- 03-05-17
Wonderfully lyrical tale
Harper Fox's writing is not just entertaining, amid the humour and the angst there is real poetry in the prose but not the sort that throws you out of the book and makes you wonder where the story went, it fits the story and the characters and helps to bring them further to life. Merou and Priddy are wonderful characters and the narration differentiated well between the various voices so I never got confused as to who was speaking. I read this in pixels first and decided to give the audio version a go and I'm glad that I did as it's certainly a book I will be listening to more than once.
If you love mermen and their dreamy lovers and a bit of dastardlyness and shipwreck with an ultimately happy ending then I recommend this book.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Justin D. Rumsby
- 08-11-19
An erotic enchantment.
A very enchanting, erotic tale, literally. It has all the ingredients to keep you hooked. A story with some twists in it but, it’s mainly sensual, erotic and humorous. A love story between a man and a... merman. A very different kind of Gay story. The narrator does a great job except that, how is it the most of the characters have the Cornish burr except for Priddy? Given the lead character’s background I’m baffled as to Priddy has a middle class accept! Too much for the performer to keep up the Cornish burr? I love the nine of the Merman. Not sure what to make of him. He comes across as someone to be cautious of despite him being a total opposite to a villain.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- BevS
- 26-06-17
A cute, well narrated whimsical tale.....
I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that Harper Fox has got to become an auto-buy for me. I resisted for so long as I found The Salisbury Key really boring, but I've more than made up for it since then. The Tyack & Frayne series is delightful, Seven Summer Nights is probably one of my books of the Year for 2017, The Brothers of the Wild North Sea was Fox at her atmospheric best, and THIS cute little tale took me completely by surprise.
I'm not into mermen....NEVER read/listened to a Mer People story before, but I was intrigued enough to buy it and am glad I did. Chris Clog's soft Cornish tones were soothing, the 'love' story such as it was certainly different and I would have no hesitation at all in buying another narration by Chris.