The Brides of Rollrock Island [Hardcover]

There is something about the way Margo Lanagan writes that seems to hold magic...The Brides of Rollrock Island, everything I could hope for, in a book. Beautiful. --Jackiemorris.co.uk

Powerful, beautiful, dangerous, unsettling, truthful, earthy, challenging, poetic, wonderful, absorbing. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's heartstoppingly gorgeous. 5 stars. --The Bookbag

Atmospheric, moving and rich in detail. --Fluttering Butterflies

A gorgeous piece of work, perhaps less startling and visceral than Tender Morsels, but in many ways a richer and more complex novel.
--LOCUS

`Lanagan's prose is always a joy ... she shows writing of the highest order: subtle, powerful, poetic'. --Marcus Sedgwick, The Guardian, February 11, 2012

Nothing is predictable in this astonishing novel, which expands on classic tales about selkie brides with unsettling imaginative thoroughness. --The Times, 4th Feb 2012

Lanagan's prose is always a joy; it's often surprising and yet always familiar, for she is confident swimming in the archetypes of folklore and fairy-tale. As she paints images for us of Daniel's brief life under the waves as a seal, she shows writing of the highest order: subtle, powerful, poetic. --The Guardian, 11th Feb 2012

This earthy novel is unsettling and dangerous. It dissects everything that love can be; joyous and tender but equally cruel, painful and totally all-encompassing.
--Sugarscape, 14th Feb 2012

A mesmerizing tale of sea magic from the author of Tender Morsels.

Rollrock island is a lonely rock of gulls and waves, blunt fishermen and their homely wives. Life is hard for the families who must wring a poor living from the stormy seas. But Rollrock is also a place of magic - the scary, salty-real sort of magic that changes lives forever. 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.

But magic always has its price. A fisherman may have and hold a sea bride, and tell himself that he is her master. But from his first look into those wide, questioning, liquid eyes, he will be just as transformed as she is. He will be equally ensnared. And in the end the witch will always have her payment.

Margo Lanagan has written an extraordinary tale of desire, despair and transformation. In devastatingly beautiful prose, she reveals unforgettable characters capable of unspeakable cruelty - and deep unspoken love. After reading about the Rollrock fishermen and their sea brides, the world will not seem the same.

Rollrock is a lonely island of cliffs and storms, blunt fishermen and their fierce wives. Life is hard for the families who must wring a poor living from the stormy seas. But Rollrock is also a place of magic - the scary, salty-real sort of magic that changes lives forever. Down on the windswept beach, where the seals lie in their herd, the outcast sea witch Misskaella casts her spells, and brings forth girls from the sea - girls with long, pale limbs and faces of haunting loveliness.

But magic always has its price. A fisherman may have and hold a sea bride, and tell himself that he is her master. But from his first look into her lovely eyes, he will be just as transformed as she is. He will be equally ensnared.

And in the end the witch will always have her payment.

The sea witch can conjure girls out of the sea. Spell-binding, beautiful girls. But what price must be paid for such magic?

Margo Lanagan's novels and short story collections have excited readers the world over, and won many prizes, including four World Fantasy Awards - for 'Singing My Sister Down' (Best Short Fiction, 2005), Black Juice (Best Collection, 2005), Tender Morsels (Best Novel, 2009) and Sea-Hearts (Best Novella, 2010).

She lives in Sydney, Australia.