Novel about four girlfriends, a scoundrel husband in Hermosa Beach
by Erin Waldner
Carrie Talick set her debut novel, Beware the Mermaids, in the South Bay because, she said,
“I have so much love for the South Bay.”
Beware the Mermaids is about a wife and mother in Hermosa Beach, Nancy, who discovers her louse of a husband is cheating on her. Nancy turns to her three best girlfriends for support, which sometimes comes in the form of margaritas. With their encouragement, Nancy moves onto a sailboat in King Harbor.
Beware the Mermaids was published this week by Alcove Press and is being distributed by Penguin Random House.
Pages: a bookstore in Manhattan Beach will host a reception for Talik at 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 14. Another event is tentatively set for Sept. 16 at Uncorked in Hermosa Beach.
The 51-year-old author lived in Hermosa from 1995 to 2020, when she moved with her husband, Mike Ayotte, and stepdaughter, Charlotte, to Rancho Palos Verdes.
Talick is a copywriter at Innocean, the in-house ad agency for Hyundai Motor America.
“I knew I wanted to write a book before I left Michigan for California back in 1992, ’93,” Talick said. “My mom had just died — she was 46 — and I was sort of adrift. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was working in advertising. And then I was with a friend and we were at a summer party and we were talking about dreams and she said, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said I want to write a book and she said, ‘Oh, way to start small.’”
“People in Michigan tend to be a little more humble in their dreams,” Talick said. “And so I said, ‘Yeah, you’re right, what am I thinking?’”
But Talick never let go of her dream. In 2008, she started writing a novel about zombies roaming Hermosa Beach on the 4th of July, but ended up abandoning the project.
“I think I lost my footing a little bit. Some self-doubt crept in,” Talick said.
She met her now-husband in 2011 and he encouraged her to return to writing.
“He said, ‘You’ve got to do this for yourself,’” Talick said.
She attended a writing class led by Nicole Criona, founder of Los Angeles Writers Group, who offered book coaching services, something Talick previously didn’t know existed.
Talick told Criona she had an idea for a book. She said it would be “about female sailors sort of taking down the patriarchy a little bit.”
Criona said he would help her.
She had to send Criona a set number of pages on a regular basis. Whenever she got stuck or doubted herself, she’d call Criona, who would know just what to say.
“And she really, really helped me. She helped me get to the end,” Talick said.
Her husband helped, too.
Talick based her protagonist, the heroine of Beware the Mermaids, on her mom.
“She was a very strong woman,” Talick said.
Talick wrote while still working full time as a copywriter. She put a chair in the garage and with her laptop on her lap, carved out two to three-hour blocks, usually in the morning.
Momentum built as she wrote.
“Strange things just started to happen and the ideas came a little quicker,” Talick said.
Sometimes ideas came in the middle of the night, which gave her a starting point for the next day.
Talick finished the first draft of Beware the Mermaids in about 17 months. Then came the rewrites and proofreading.
Talick started searching for a literary agent in January of 2019. She sent a query letter to about six agents a week, and this went on for a long time.
She ultimately signed with Ali Herring at Spencer Hill Associates in Atlanta. Four weeks later, they inked a deal with Alcove Press.
“This was a true labor of love for me. I’m just so excited to get my girls out to the world,” Talick said. ER