The Brides of Rollrock Island
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Rollrock is an isolated, windswept island; a wild and salty landscape where fishermen and their families must wring a living from the stormy seas. But Rollrock is also a place of eerie magic, and of powerful desire.
Down on the beach, the outcast witch of Rollrock casts her spells, and draws mysterious girls from the sea. These are girls with long, pale limbs and faces of haunting innocence - the most enchantingly beautiful creatures the fishermen of Rollrock have ever seen.
The island is envied, and many a man is lured to Rollrock with the promise of a sea wife. But the arrival of these women is the ruin of countless families - and to the despair of the men of Rollrock, magic always has its price. The brides do not belong on land. One day, the sea will claim them back.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this powerful but grim tale set on a rugged, windswept island, an unlovely, embittered young woman discovers that she can magically pull human beings out of seals: "I drew each speck toward and into the man-shape at his center. A head-blur parted from the body-blur; some limbs came good, splitting from the main shine. Then suddenly the man's outline sharpened within the seal." She uses this power first to find herself a lover and then to take revenge on the people of Rollrock Island, who she believes have slighted her, providing each man with a supernaturally beautiful seal-woman (for a price). Decades later, the jilted human women have all left the island, leaving the spell-struck men with their captive wives, who cannot always hide their yearning for the sea. Lanagan (Tender Morsels) casts the traditional selkie tale in a poetic yet deeply antiromantic form. What, she asks, would such a relationship truly be like? How might it satisfy, but also destroy those involved? A beautifully written story featuring a thoroughly realized setting and cast. Ages 14 up.
