Today is re-release day for
Skin Deep! A slightly revised version of the story first published in 2016 is now out through Book View Cafe; while it’s the same story, it’s been polished (ask any author: once you release a book, you immediately see all the sentences you wish you’d worded differently or the commas you should or should not have used) and repackaged a little. But it’s still the same
award-winning,
starred-review story...and one I’m still very proud of. You can
buy it direct from Book View Cafe in both MOBI and EPUB formats, as well as at all the usual on-line bookstores.
And just to remind you what selkies are...
* * * * *
For those who aren’t familiar
with them, selkies are a type of shape-shifter, a magical creature that can
take the form either of a seal or a human. They’re a Celtic creature, from the islands
and west coast of Scotland as well as the east coast of Ireland. But unusually
for shape-shifters, they don’t just change from one form to another: in order
to assume his (or her) human form, a selkie takes off his or her skin and puts
it on again when it’s time to return to the sea. In human form they’re said to
be very beautiful, dark-haired with shining eyes—so beautiful that humans who
see them often fall madly in love with them. But they also often have rough
skin on their hands as well as webbed fingers.
The most common stories about
selkies usually involve a human happening upon them at one of their
dances, for
selkies were said to gather on beaches at the full moon to take off
their skins
and dance together in the moonlight. Smitten by their beauty, the human
(usually a fisherman out late at night to check his nets) would
sneak over to where the selkies had left their skins and steal the one
belonging to the fairest selkie maid, forcing her to remain in her human
shape.
Though she would beg for him to return her skin he always refused, and
would somehow convince her to marry him (maybe she figured that if she
stayed close to him she would be able to find her skin again.) They
would marry and raise a family together...but years later the
selkie would find the place where her husband had hidden her skin
(often led there by one of her own children,
who has no idea what the soft furry cloak he or she has found is) and snatch it
away to return to the sea...though in some of the stories she would return to visit her children.
It’s a beguiling image, isn’t it—the beautiful selkies, laughing and
smiling as they dance on the beach with the sea glittering beyond them
in the moonlight, the smitten fisherman watching
them from behind a boulder, perhaps? I’m not sure if that’s the image
that drew
me, or the fact that seals are pretty neat creatures to begin with...but
the
selkie legend has always held a strong fascination for me, so it was
inevitable
I’d write about them one day.
But in
Skin
Deep, I’ve turned the selkie legend more than a little upside
down...and given it a happily ever after ending.
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