At First Blush

(Note: This book is an independent title and can be read separately from the rest of the series.) As a child, Dawn Fitzpatrick spent her summers at her family's holiday home on the beach. While playing at the edge of the ocean one sunny day, she met a mysterious young boy named Cijal, a child who was both frightened of her and fascinated by her because they were so very different. Although they did not even speak the same language, Dawn was just as fascinated by the strange boy from the sea. They found friendship together over the course of the years - until a terrible family tragedy separated them. Now eighteen years old, Dawn just can't forget her childhood friend. She goes in search of him, hoping to recapture the one last happy memory of her childhood from before she lost her parents. There is just one problem: Cijal is from a completely different world. He is not human. He is a Nereidis, a member of a powerful, pseduo-human species that live beneath the waves. They survive in secret, hidden from the rest of the world except on the rarest of occasions. She has no choice but to look for him. In her heart, she desperately needs to see him again. But how can an ordinary human being hope to find an amphibian that has the entire ocean to hide in? And if she does find him, then how could they possibly construct a life together?