Review: In Sea-Salt Tears by Seanan McGuire

In Sea-Salt Tears by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This is a short story that expands on revelations from One Salt Sea in the October Daye series. If you haven't read that far in the series, there are minor spoilers.

Chronologically, this story is a prequel, with only a little of the timeline overlapping. None of the main characters show up in this. It is, instead, a story which gives insight into the Luidaeg, the grumpy sea witch Toby both fears and needs in her adventures.

She's less grumpy in this story. Here, she's Annie, the green-eyed cousin to skin-less Selkie, Liz. Without a skin, Liz is essentially human, with no powers, and a human life span. As she's watching her cousins and brother (Colin, who appears in A Local Habitation) go off to become full-fledged Selkies, she's falling in love with Annie. On the day her brother inherits his skin, she spends the night with Annie, and they soon move in together. But then Liz gets the call with the announcement she's been waiting for all her life, and, though Annie asks her not to, she accepts it.

This works as a tender, sad love story between women, as well as a story of a young woman coming into her own, and a further development of the world presented in the October Daye books.

Seanan McGuire never writes explicit sex in her books; most of it's fade-to-black. This story is no exception, though it does contain a bit more prompting about what the imagination should be filling in.

I enjoyed this story, though I'd imagine it wouldn't hold the same appeal to those who haven't read the rest of the October Daye books. I grabbed it free off the author's website, and, if you enjoy this series, I recommend you do the same.



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