Lisa Henry

Okay, so I'm a sucker for new twists on old myths, but I'm getting a little bit tired of growly werewolves and snappy vampires. So this book was just what I needed! Paranormal, but not normalparanormal. Sidebar: can we make that a word, please?)

Barnabas is an artist living on the Cornish coast, and he rescues a stranger from the storm. What Barnabas fails to realise is that his new houseguest is a selkie - a seal shifter who, true to all the legends, can't change back because his skin/cloak is wrecked.

I have always loved the sinister stories that this is based on - selkies who were basically enslaved into marriages with humans and who, years later, would find their cloaks and escape back into the ocean. In some of the legends they dragged their half-human children with them, drowning them.

I really liked how Tease didn't just morph into a human being. Even in human form, he can only bark like a seal. Tease and Barnaby connect, but they do it slowly...no insta-love here. Because Tease might love Barnaby (and sometimes we're not sure of it, because he remains so wonderfully alien) but he belongs in the ocean.

This is a great read.