The Sealgairs are seal hunters; killing is in their blood. Until a few years ago Kier was no different, and then one bad hunt stripped her of all ability to kill. Now she can’t even harvest a single mollusc from the sea floor, let alone face a seal with a single knife like she once did. Now her parents go out on the family boat alone and Kier stays behind keeping house and feeling useless.
Her pride as a Sealgair won’t even allow her to find another job, not until the mysterious Lady Erskine offers her a small fortune for just a few weeks of diving. There are only two catches. Kier has to stay at Erskine Manor while she works, a place shrouded by fear and rumour. And the thing she is diving for? Bones.
The setting of this book creates a perfect contradiction between the warm and friendly village and the dark and mysterious manor house, with the sea serving as an ominous background to it all. Oddly Kier doesn’t seem to belong in either setting. She is too wild for the village and not wild enough for the manor house. The only place she seems to truly belong is the sea, but even that turns against her at times and she knows that the sea is too dangerous to be fully trusted.
Instead it seems to be people, rather than place, that Kier seems to find that homely warmth with. First her father, then Fie and, later, Breagha. The reader only sees these people through Kier’s eyes and the one thing that seems to connect them is her view of their bravery. Her father is brave when he faces the sea and the seals; Fie is brave when he accepts his own identity despite the challenges of others; Breagha remains brave against uncertainty, isolation, and betrayal. I think that this bravery is a characteristic that Kier greatly respects, whilst at the same time feels that she does not have enough of. She is not brave enough to kill seals anymore, yet also isn’t brave enough to break from tradition and find her own path. Despite this the bravery she shows at the end of the book far outstrips anything shown by any other character.
Whilst I love both the characters and the setting of this book, what makes it is the atmosphere of suspenseful gothic mystery that runs throughout. What happened on Kier’s last hunt? What is wrong with the sea? Why can’t the Erskine’s leave the manor? What does Lady Erskine do with the bones?
Escape to the Bookshelf 