The Selkie’s Daughter

January 22, 2024January 22, 2024 by onemoreexclamation

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the THE SELKIE’S DAUGHTER by Linda Crotta Brennan Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

About The Book

Title: THE SELKIE’S DAUGHTER

Author: Linda Crotta Brennan

Pub. Date: January 2, 2024

Publisher: Holiday House

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Pages: 208

Find it: Goodreads or Here

A cozy, richly imagined fantasy where a young selkie girl must save her family from a vengeful king.

Brigit knows all the old fisherman songs and legends by heart: sea goddess, warriors, and people who are not quite human. But Brigit also knows the truth. It’s evident in the webbing between her fingers–webbing that must be cut. She’s the daughter of a selkie. A truth she must keep secret from everyone.

But there is another secret growing in the village. A terrible one that will invite the wrath of the Great Selkie, bringing storm, sickness, and death. To protect those she loves, Brigit must find a way to Sule Skerrie, the land of selkies, to confront the Great Selkie and bring the truth—all of it—into the light.

Like sitting by a warm fireplace, The Selkie’s Daughter is an imaginative fantasy, steeped in Celtic mythology and set in Nova Scotia. Debut Linda Crotta Brennan has crafted a magical portrait of a brave girl coming into her own. Perfect for fans of mermaids and Studio Ghibli-esque stories.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

About the Author

Linda Crotta Brennan is the author of many picture books, including When Rivers Burned, named a Notable Social Studies Trade Book by the CBC and NCSS and an Outstanding Science Trade Book by the NSTA and CBC. She holds a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education and has worked as an instructor for the Institute of Children’s Literature. Linda is an active member of SCBWI. The Selkie’s Daughter is her debut novel. She lives in New England.

Giveaway for The Selkie’s Daughter

1 winner will receive a finished copy of THE SELKIE’S DAUGHTER, US Only.

Ends January 31st, midnight EST.

Enter Here and Good Luck to you!

Excerpt from The Selkie’s Daughter

I swim as selkie on the sea.

And when I’m far and far frae land,

My home it is in Sule Skerrie.

The wild wind keens across the spruce barrens, rattling the windows of our cottage on Finn’s Point. Shivering, I splay my hand across the cutting board. Newborn veils of skin, blue-pale and tender, connect my fingers.

Cousin Alys sharpens her knife against a stone, tests the edge, then, satisfied, turns to me. I kneel and hide my face in Mum’s woolen lap, breathing its comforting smokiness.

Mum strokes my hair. “Ready, Brigit?”

I nod, though my insides roil. Mum’s hands are fully human, why not mine? Why should I be marked and not Mum?

At the last second, I try to jerk away, but Alys grips my wrist like a vise. Her blade comes down.

Pain sears me. I suck in my breath and my vision narrows. Clinging to consciousness, I focus on the wind, throaty with alien voices. My blood pulses out, a salty sea washing away my otherness, flooding across the cutting board, pinging into the metal basin set on the floor.

Mum’s thighs tremble. She could never bear to cut me. “Sorry,” she whispers.

That doesn’t stop my dread. We both know that now I’m coming into womanhood, no matter how often Alys cuts the webbing away, it will return. Or at least, that’s what the old tales say.

When both hands are done, Mum takes my elbow and guides me into the rocking chair, tucking a blanket over my knees.

It’s Good, huh?!

Alys bandages my hands with a poultice of yarrow and spoons willow tea into my mouth. I lean my head back, weak as a spawned-out salmon.

“Thank you, Alys.” Mum offers her a wooden spoon she carved from driftwood. It has a fish handle with glittering chips of oyster shell for scales.

Alys recoils.

The spoon clatters to the stone floor. A bit of oyster shell spins out, skidding to rest at my feet. Instinctively I reach to rescue it. Gasping, I pull back, cradling my hands, cringing in agony.

Alys’s nostrils flare. “What would I do with such a bauble in my good plain house?”

I stiffen. The brittle old barnacle! Her house doesn’t deserve anything so beautiful.

Mum picks up the fish spoon and sets it gently on the table, her mouth a tight line. She goes into the keeping room at the back of our cottage and returns with a stiff salted cod from our shoulder-high stack.

The villagers gossip about why Da’s nets are so heavy laden since he married Mum, but he’s just a better fisherman than any of them, certainly better than Alys’s husband. Or her pimple-nosed son.