First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?  The rules are as follows:

• Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
• Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
• Finally… reveal the book!

If you’re using Twitter, don’t forget to use #FirstLinesFridays!

I haven’t done this book meme in a while, so let’s get to it.

I circle the ship with the sharks, slipping between dark waves. The water is layered with cold currents, sea creatures, and a ship that slices through it with cargo holds full of stolen people. I swim underneath the swells, away from the gaze of men and just out of the reach of jaws.

Waiting.

Do you know what book this is?

Still guessing?

Well, the book reveal is…

Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen

From Penguin Random House:

A way to survive.
A way to serve.
A way to save.
 
Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata—a mermaid—collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home.
 
But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi goes against an ancient decree and does the unthinkable—she saves his life. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy the gods.
 
To protect the other Mami Wata, Simi must journey to the Supreme Creator to make amends. But all is not as it seems. There’s the boy she rescued, who knows more than he should. And something is shadowing Simi, something that would rather see her fail . . .
 
Danger lurks at every turn, and as Simi draws closer, she must brave vengeful gods, treacherous lands, and legendary creatures. Because if she fails, she risks not only the fate of all Mami Wata, but also the world as she knows it.