KDL Recommends

The Brides of Rollrock Island

ISBN: 0375869190

Title: The Brides of Rollrock Island

Author: Margo Lanagan

KDL Description:

I recently finished The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan. It starts with the story of young Misskaella, who has the uncanny power to draw out the human part of the seals who live near the island. Not understood on the island, Misskaella lives a secret life of pain and soon begins to draw up sea-wives for the Rollrock men in a kind of terrible repayment. The narrative is told from various points of view as time progresses, creating a story that tells of the private inner lives we all hold and the unfathomable and interconnected nature of our actions.
-Dawn at KDL’s Gaines Township branch

Amazon Description:

On remote Rollrock Island, men go to sea to make their livings—and to catch their wives.

The witch Misskaella knows the way of drawing a girl from the heart of a seal, of luring the beauty out of the beast. And for a price a man may buy himself a lovely sea-wife. He may have and hold and keep her. And he will tell himself that he is her master. But from his first look into those wide, questioning, liquid eyes, he will be just as transformed as she. He will be equally ensnared. And the witch will have her true payment.

Margo Lanagan weaves an extraordinary tale of desire, despair, and transformation. With devastatingly beautiful prose, she reveals characters capable of unspeakable cruelty, but also unspoken love.