The folkloric creature that belongs to the sea but is trapped on land takes on a new twist in Selkie, an atmospheric, melancholy fantasy novel by Nataly Gruender (Medusa).
Quinn is a selkie, a seal woman, abducted from a beach and trapped in human form by a fisherman who hides her seal pelt and forces her to have his children. She longs for the sea but can only gaze at it from her window, "glinting a gunmetal blue like the pearlescent inside of an oyster." Then one of her children finds the pelt. Quinn escapes back to the sea after seven years on land to search for her mother and herd, gone to unknown waters. A run-in with her vengeful husband leaves her wounded and back in human form to heal. She takes refuge in a lighthouse with Maisie, a young woman disguised as a man. Quinn has known nothing but suffering at human hands, but she slowly comes to trust the three people who keep the lighthouse. Her connection with Maisie grows as she recuperates, and Quinn must decide whether she is truly a daughter of the sea or the land.
Gruender puts a fresh spin on the selkie legend by focusing on what becomes of the seal wife after she returns to her true form. The coastal setting is an appropriately storm-tossed, windswept background for this story of anger, identity, and finding home again. Fans of folklore retellings and gothic atmosphere will enjoy this emotive fantasy with a sweet sapphic romance. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads