Fanny Fitzpatrick and the Sirens by Dana Hammer

It’s the end of the school year. For most kids, it’s time to relax and get ready for summer. For Fanny, there’s work.

Welcome to the February 14th stop on the blog tour for Fanny Fitzpatrick and the Sirens by Dana Hammer with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

I’m Promoting My Book While Suffering the Ravages of Shingles.

I’m a writer, and my book is going to be released in a week. My publisher has asked me to write several blog posts to promote this book. Wonderful! I love to write, and I love to reach wider audiences. My leg hurts, but that’s fine. I am a professional, and I can work through the pain.

I’m ready to write. I’ve already written most of the blog posts and done most of the interviews. I  just have this last one. What am I supposed to write about? My book, obviously, but it’s really hard to concentrate on my book, with the stabbing pains in my leg.

I take some Tylenol. I get a cup of soothing tea. I rub my leg muscles. NOPE! That hurts. The skin is hypersensitive, which is…just insufferable. Ok. I get my keyboard connected. I shift position. Maybe if I straighten the leg – nope. Now it’s cramping.

Fanny Fitzpatrick and the Sirens is the third book in the Fanny Fitzpatrick series. It follows Fanny as she attends a summer camp for aspiring sirens, despite her friends’ warnings that sirens are dangerous man-killers.

There is a rash on my leg. It looks like hundreds of bright red pimples. The doctor says it could last for weeks. The pain is horrible. It’s not like regular pain, where you can change positions and it helps. You can’t escape it. It’s like labor contractions in that way.

In the same way that I cannot escape the pain of shingles, Fanny cannot escape Feather Island, once she is there. There is a supply boat that comes infrequently, and no internet or cell service on the island. This would be an unnerving experience for anyone, but especially so for a young girl who has been warned that the island is run by evil mythological beings. Fortunately, Fanny is brave, and spunky, and open to life’s experiences. She is still young, and fresh and optimistic. She is not old enough to get shingles. She is fully vaccinated against chicken pox, and will never have to experience what I’m going through.

Fanny Fitzpatrick is healthy and shiny and free of rashes. I hope you enjoy reading about her and her adventures on Feather Island.

About the Book

Fanny Fitzpatrick and the Sirens
by Dana Hammer

Published 4 February 2025
Cinnabar Moth Publishing LLC

Genre: Middle Grade Fiction
Page Count: 266
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

It’s the end of the school year. For most kids, it’s time to relax and get ready for summer. For Fanny, there’s work. She has a brand-new baby brother, and she’s been hired by Zeus to look after his “injured” son. And she still has her and her friends’ cheesemaking business! Fanny is overwhelmed.

But then she meets three sirens who want Fanny to join them on Feather Island for a summer of singing, instrument playing, and fun at the beach. The program is totally free and could start an amazing musical career-the thing that Fanny has always wanted the most.

Athena and Gemma are dead set against it. Athena says that the sirens are bad news; that their whole purpose in life is to lure men to their deaths with their beautiful singing. Gemma says that Feather Island is part of a network of unmappable islands, the type of place where criminals and sketchy organizations hoard their wealth and do their crimes.

Surely, the sirens don’t do that anymore, right? All that stuff was a long time ago. If the sirens want to keep their island paradise a secret, well, that’s not so weird, is it? Fanny has talked to them, and she just knows that they aren’t as evil as everyone says. They are perfectly nice ladies.

Right?

Follow Fanny Fitzpatrick as she navigates big sisterhood, friends who disapprove of her life choices, burning ambitions, and a bunch of sirens luring her away to their private island.

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Excerpt

But I don’t have a chance to practice or not practice, because I remember that I have a Zoom date with Gemma and Athena. I head down to the computer and log in to the meeting.

Gemma and Athena are already in there, talking about something. They look serious and sour, but Gemma is wearing the most adorable newsboy hat with embroidered flowers on it, and I squeal when I see it.

“Gemma, that hat though!”

They stop talking and look at me, not smiling. I realize something weird is going on, and so I stop smiling.

“Fanny, we need to talk,” says Athena.

That’s not good.

“Um. Gemma? How’s England?” Gemma shakes her head at me.

I look back to Athena, who has crossed her arms, which makes her look like a strict disciplinarian who’s about to give me a terrible lecture. And I realize that’s exactly what’s about to happen.

“Herman told me everything,” Athena says.

“Um.”

“You let those things in your house! After I specifically told you how dangerous they are!”

“I didn’t let them in,” I say, which I realize is a wimpy thing to say, but I can’t think of anything better. “My dad did.”

“What did they want? Why were they there, at your house?”

“Well—”

“Do you have any idea how many people sirens have killed over the course of these millennia?”

“But that was a long time ago!” I say, sounding desperate and silly, even to my own ears.

“Fanny,” Gemma says, quietly, looking around to make sure no one is listening to her. “I’m not supposed to say this. But there are these islands. A few of them. And they have special deals with the UN, NATO, the African Union, and a few others that I’m not allowed to even say the names of. They have diplomatic immunity. They operate under their own laws, and they answer to no one. They’re unmappable, untraceable. I’ve been talking to Athena, and I think these islands are owned by the sirens.”

“You sound like conspiracy theorists,” I say, rolling my eyes. “How do you even know about these top-secret islands if they’re so top secret?”

“My parents,” Gemma says, like it’s obvious. I guess it should be obvious. I still have no idea what her parents do for a living, but they seem to jet around the planet a lot, with machete-bearing security guards, so I guess it must be important. Still.

“Well, Feather Island is a school. A school for musicians,” I say, trying to reassure them. “There’s a brochure and everything.”

I wish I had the brochure so I could show it to them, how lovely and harmless the place is, but my parents have put it somewhere and I don’t know where it is.

“How do you know about Feather Island?” Athena demands, looking even more furious.

Whoops. I guess I’ve gotta tell them now.

“That’s what the sirens wanted. To tell me about their music camp.”

“NO!” Athena shouts, banging her fist on the table in front of her. Splinters of wood fly everywhere and I’m kind of scared now. This is intense, even for Athena. “You can NOT go to this island. I don’t care what they told you. It’s bad news.”

About the Author

Dana Hammer is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright. She has won over forty awards and honors for her writing, few of which generated income, all of which were deeply appreciated. She is not a cannibal, but she is the author of A Cannibals Guide to Fasting. Dana is also the author of middle grade fantasy My Best Friend Athena which was inspired by a desire to write something her 9 year old daughter could read.

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Giveaway Alert!

Dana Hammer will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift certificate to a randomly drawn winner.

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