The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan

Blank-eyed women who are willing to serve their men Stepford-Wife style.Ĭonfused yet? Trust me, I was confused for the first couple of chapters. Seals (I'm being serious, the actual sea creatures)Ĥ. Stupid men who think with the wrong headģ. It's more like this type of crazy business going on.Ģ. You won't find a dreamy, romantic, fairy-tale retelling here. If you have any expectations of what this book will be like based on the cover, throw them away. After reading about the Rollrock fishermen and their sea brides, the world will not seem the same. In devastatingly beautiful prose, she reveals unforgettable characters capable of unspeakable cruelty - and deep unspoken love. Margo Lanagan has written an extraordinary tale of desire, despair and transformation. And in the end the witch will always have her payment. But from his first look into those wide, questioning, liquid eyes, he will be just as transformed as she is. A fisherman may have and hold a sea bride, and tell himself that he is her master.

Down on the windswept beach, where the seals lie in herds, the outcast sea witch Misskaella casts her spells - and brings forth girls from the sea - girls with long, pale limbs and faces of haunting innocence and loveliness - the most enchantingly lovely girls the fishermen of Rollrock have ever seen.īut magic always has its price. But Rollrock is also a place of magic - the scary, salty-real sort of magic that changes lives forever. Life is hard for the families who must wring a poor living from the stormy seas. Rollrock island is a lonely rock of gulls and waves, blunt fishermen and their homely wives.

The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan