Book Review: The Selkie

The Official Blurb

“From the Deepest Ocean

While the technology of the war to end all wars had changed the face of Europe, some things stayed the same; the tempestuous Scottish coast and the surrounding sea remained a place of unquenchable magic and mystery. Sequestered at Fintry Castle by the whim of her mistress, Hexy Garrow spared seven tears for her past — all of which were swallowed by the waves.

Came the Deepest Passion

By joining the water, those tears completed a ritual, and that ritual summoned a prince. He came for Hexy — and for something she didn’t know she had stolen. He was a man of myth whose eyes held the dark secrets of the sea, and whose silken touch was the caress of the tide. His very nature went against all Hexy had ever believed, but his love was everything she’d ever desired. And he’d come not to collect her for the insatiable ocean, but for himself.”

Spoiler Alerts & Trigger Warnings: murder/death

The Book

My book for Season 2 Episode 10, Love in the Deep, is The Selkie by Melanie Jackson. This is an historical and paranormal romance published in 2003. The story is set in 1920s in Scotland. The best analogy I can think of for this book is that it’s Outlander meets The Secret of Roan Inish meets True Blood.

Let’s Talk About the Author

Melanie Jackson is a novelist who writes mystery novels as well as paranormal and historical romances.

My Spiciness Ranking

I’m ranking The Selkie somewhere between Green Pepper and Poblano. (If I really had to choose, I’d put it in the Poblano category.) There were a couple of sex scenes that were very wordy and descriptive. However, the wordiness and descriptions were weirdly not actually sexually explicit and the scenes were vague. There was a lot of weird salty sweating. That’s about it.

Let’s meet our main characters.

The Main Characters

Hesiod “Hexy” Garrow is an American of Scottish descent. She’s working as an assistant to an American actress who’s inherited a Scottish castle from her late husband.

Ruairidh “Rory” O’Uruisg is a Scottish Selkie Prince. He’s making an unexpected visit on land to investigate some recent murders involving his People.

The Storyline

This book involves a myriad of mythical sea creatures including finmen, mermaids, merrows and, of course, selkies. For those not familiar, Selkies are creatures that shapeshift between seal and human forms by removing or putting on their seal skin.

Hexy is working as an assistant/secretary/personal maid for an American actress and the two women are staying at a Scottish castle located on the coast. The castle belonged to the actress’s late husband and she bounces around between her newly inherited castle and London with Hexy in tow. Hexy has horrible Spring allergies and one evening she is sitting on a rock at the beach and her eyes are tearing up really badly. Well, apparently there’s some ritual where if you cry so many tears into the ocean, it summons a selkie. So Hexy unintentionally summons a selkie to her. 

But not just any selkie, the selkie prince Rory. He happens to be in land investigating some murders involving his People when he feels the “summoning.” And, because he took human form and left his seal skin on the beach, it gets mistaken for someone’s fur coat. But not just anyone’s fur coat.

The actress Hexy works for thinks she left her fur coat at the beach and sends Hexy to get it. Hexy accidentally grabs Rory’s skin. So there’s this misunderstanding where he thinks she summoned him and stole his skin to keep him from returning to the sea. But, she explains it was all an accident. However, the actress has gone off to London and taken the fur with her (cause they thought it was her fur coat). So Rory has to wait for it to get mailed back so he can return to the sea. 

During this time of a whopping few days, Hexy and Rory of course have an instant attraction. And, of course, fall in love. They end up having sex and somehow she’s pregnant by morning with twins and they both know she’s pregnant.

During this time, Hexy and Rory also figure out she’s actually part fae and part selkie via her Scottish lineage and Rory is also part fae and selkie so it’s this special match made in heaven thing. Why? Because it gives them both special abilities and will help them revive the selkie People that are dying off due to a severe lack of selkie women.

In the midst of this budding and weird romance, Rory continues investigating the deaths of his People and some local humans and there’s evil finmen (aka mermen) involved. There’s a particular merman/finman who is killing these selkies and humans to eat their souls to grow his demonic power. Obviously, he must be stopped but there’s a lot of debate amongst the selkies on how to proceed on this matter. (Who knew there was so much bureaucracy under the sea.)

Hexy finds herself inexplicably and overpoweringly drawn to various places despite Rory asking her to stay put at he visits his People and tries to handle the murdering merman problem. I won’t share more than that because I don’t want to completely spoil the book for you if you’re feeling inclined to read it.

What I Enjoyed About the Book

Scottish vibes and mermaids.

What Challenged Me About the Book

The writer, Melanie Jackson, uses a pretty advanced vocabulary. I consider myself fairly well read and love words like ennui and ubiquitous. But I had to keep looking up words throughout this book because I couldn’t even glean context in the sentence structure at various points. Overall, this book was kind of boring as a whole and confusing at various points. For example, the hero’s name is Rory and Hexy’s brother’s name is Rory Patrick.

Final Thoughts

This book was kind of boring as a whole and confusing at various points. (For example, the hero’s name is Rory and Hexy’s brother’s name is Rory Patrick.) Overall, the book was okay. Jackson tied everything together in the end and various mysteries/plot lies were resolved. If you’re into paranormal/romantasy novels with an underwater theme and a hint of mystery and not too much spice, this may be the book for you.

If you want to hear more of my thoughts on the book, you can listen to the podcast episode on your favorite podcast streaming service. Or click here for our in-house podcast player. I share some fun anatomy references as well as my Romantic Reminder. You can also find out if I won the episode Boobie Prize. Want to read the book for yourself? You can purchase it via our affiliate links for The Ripped Bodice here and Amazon here.

Have you read The Selkie? Let me know your thoughts on this book in the comments!