Blog post at David Fickling Books

Because talking is hard enough without all those 'st's
It goes without saying that I want to see defiant, empowered, happy and successful women represented in fiction. But making it all about individuals overcoming society’s sexism can draw attention away from the fact that the system needs to change. This is why I also want scarred Misskaellas and passive sea-wives in my feminist fiction...
The prose is mesmerising and seductive, the plot is gripping, the setting claustrophobic. I cried through much of this novel. ...If I had had this novel when I was thirteen or fourteen, it would be one of those which would have defined and shaped my reading life. With plenty to say about gender, about what it means to be a woman, I hope Sea Hearts finds itself in the hands of many young women.
But the best images of all are the ones that capture the mood you're looking for for this story, that lead you into the emotions that your characters are feeling. It can be the colours of a sunset, the expression on a face, the flip of a pony tail... there are no rules. You'll know when you find the images of the clues that'll help you dive deeper and focus more sharply in the world you've created.
What an extraordinary achievement is Margo Lanagan's Sea Hearts. The acclaimed Australian writer's second [read: seventeenth published :D] novel brings to utterly convincing life the selkie, that part-seal creature of Celtic myth, in a haunting realisation of an island community with a devastating secret at its heart. Her prose is achingly beautiful, bring to life the dumpy sea-witch Misskaella—whose ability to draw "mere-maids" out of seals keeps a whole generation in thrall—and evoking other voices, whether red-headed or bearing the dark locks of their selkie mothers, to contribute to the exquisitely constructed tale.
Nice!the best compliment I can give it is that had I have stumbled upon it and knew nothing of its publication date I would have guessed it to have been decades if not centuries old, such is its timeless nature. It is ... unlikely that many better will be published in the genre this year.
This book is magic from the first page to the last. ...I was completely bewitched by this book. The night I finished it I dreamt of selkies all night long and woke up wishing I could read it again for the first time.
The Brides of Rollrock Island is written beautifully with great confidence and vigour, cleverly charting both the social and the emotional impact of the bewitching of the Rollrock men. Lanagan’s masterful storytelling will both warm your heart and tug at its strings; the inevitable and tragic fates of the selkies, the Rollrock men and their children will leave you fighting back the tears right down to the last page.