“She’d tasted the spray on her lips and swallowed it along with the promise of the horizon.”
Only a missive with promises of secrets to be revealed from her dying mother could bring Isla home after years at sea.
A wonderfully wrought “Scottish-inspired dark fantasy (with selkies)”-N.C. Scrimgeour, encompassing home coming, family, discovery, danger, love, heartbreak and Machiavellian turns.
Scrimgeour pens an intriguing world woven from man’s relationship with the sea and its attendant magical influences. Folklore inspired selkies and their struggles to live in a world overrun by humans heavily influences the shaping the narrative.
A strong female main character leads the way supported by her brother and the strong arm and loyalty of a family retainer.
The descriptive styling used throughout is exceptional. There is no meandering or “painting” of a picture that usually prompts me to skim ahead. Instead, with each scene, interaction, or movement, Scrimgeour weaves her words in such a fashion that the entirety of the story becomes a beautifully rendered mural.
The magical system is tantalizingly and satisfyingly teased out as the pages turn.
The character development is balanced and feels realistic in light of their experiences. Their relationships are natural and evolving. Scrimgeour’s navigation of the emotional highs and lows of her characters is skillfully accomplished.
The pace and flow of the reading experience is exceptional. Even when I suspected a lull inducing detour in the narrative I was happily proven wrong. The story advances and builds with each scene.
Act one is nicely wrapped up by book’s end and set’s up act two. An act I am looking forward to getting my hands on.
Dark be the water, and darker still the creatures that lurk within…
Free-spirited Isla Blackwood has never accepted the shackles of her family’s nobility. Instead, she sails the open waters, searching for belonging on the waves.
But when tragedy calls Isla home, she realises she can no longer escape the duty she’s been running from. Selkie raiders have been terrorising the island’s coasts, and when they strike at Blackwood Estate, Isla is forced to flee with her hot-headed brother and brooding swordmaster.
To avenge her family and reclaim her home, Isla will have to set aside old grudges and join forces with an exiled selkie searching for a lost pelt. The heirloom might be the key to stopping the bloody conflict—but only if they can steal it from the island’s most notorious selkie hunter, the Grand Admiral himself.
Caught between a promise to the brother she once left behind and an unlikely friendship with the selkie who should have been her enemy, Isla soon realises the open seas aren’t the only treacherous waters she’ll need to navigate.
As enemies close in on all sides, she must decide once and for all where her loyalties lie if she wants to save what’s left of her family—and find the belonging she’s been searching for.