Margo Lanagan

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Tender Morsels

The Brides of Rollrock Island

Outstanding . . . Margo Lanagan is a writer whose violently sexy reworkings of Grimm have previously been more for teenagers, but her new book stays within the allusive fairy tale tropes and will enthrall readers of 11+. Nothing is predictable in this astonishing novel, which expands on classic tales about selkie brides with unsettling imaginative thoroughness

Lanagan's prose is always a joy . . . she shows writing of the highest order: subtle, powerful, poetic

Margo Lanagan’s writing is dangerously beautiful; it knows how to dance, and it knows how to fight

Powerful, beautiful, dangerous, unsettling, truthful, earthy, challenging, poetic, wonderful, absorbing. I can't recommend it highly enough. Margo Lanagan has a unique, uncompromising and lyrical voice and she brings it to the folk myth of selkies in a soaring journey of passion and pain . . . Read this selkie novel. It's heartstoppingly gorgeous. And you won't find anyone else with a voice like Margo's. Five stars

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

There is something about the way Margo Lanagan writes that seems to hold magic. Brides is a story of desire, love, loss, heartbreak and heartache and the sea. You can smell the salt sea and sealskin, and feel the sway of the water. This book contains the joy and the horror of love, the magic and the bitterness and the cruelty and the kindness of love...The Brides of Rollrock Island, everything I could hope for, in a book. Beautiful.

The Brides of Rollrock Island is a dark, brooding and windswept tale of longing and despair in which Lanagan' s writing is as beautiful is ever...It reads like a classic. It is a wonderful book and it is unlikely that many better will be published in the genre this year. Existing fans of Lanagan should rejoice and I strongly suggest that those who have not already read her work, do so.

The Brides of Rollrock Island is written beautifully with great confidence and vigour, cleverly charting both the social and the emotional impact of the bewitching of the Rollrock men. Lanagan's masterful storytelling will both warm your heart and tug at its strings; the inevitable and tragic fates of the selkies, the Rollrock men and their children will leave you fighting back the tears right down to the last page.

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.

Margo Lanagan writes a hauntingly beautiful folktale of the poor fishermen of Rollrock Island...It is easy to see why this was originally an award-winning novella. Lanagan creates a magically tale that is almost lyrical in ambience. It is a heart breaking story.

a heartbreakingly beautiful novel about persecution and revenge, love, betrayal, sacrifice. The conflict - the bringing of the sea wives to Rollrock Island by the witch Misskaella - plays out over three generations or so, which reminded my Bronte-saturated mind of Wuthering Heights... As a richly poetic and atmospheric novel...Highly, highly recommended.

The language of The Brides of Rollrock Island is beautiful. The stories are distinct but flow from one to the other. The selkies are enchanting but the human women are full of life. There are moments of wonder here - the boys swimming through the sea, forgetting their human lives, to name just one. Despite the heartache, the worry and the loss, one abiding feeling to emerge from The Brides of Rollrock Island is the power for love.

loved the way the language helped infuse the novel with a strong sense of place. I loved the atmosphere of Rollrock Island itself - barren and beautiful and every bit as alive as any of the characters. And I loved that the different sections of the novel give us what feels like mere glimpses of a much larger story - the tip of the iceberg, in the best possible sense. It's not that the novel feels incomplete; it's that it manages to make readers sense how much more must have been going on in this place than we get to see. And when you finish the book, you almost suspect that the puzzle pieces will go on to rearrange themselves, and whenever you read it again you'll see entirely different parts of the whole and deepen your understanding of what really happened in this island. 
Margo Lanagan has done it again. The Brides of Rollrock Island is a beautiful book, and one that will stay with me for a very long time.

A new Lanagan novel...is an event to be met with both delight and a faint dread: it’s likely to be excellent, but it’ll also put you through the emotional wringer. Brides is indeed not a cheerful tale, but it is a richly nuanced one...Brides is a bleakly beautiful, highly atmospheric be-careful-what-you-wish-for tale. 4 1/2 stars

Lanagan’s story is wonderfully unpredictable — never letting the reader become complacent, never letting the prose be any less than pitch-perfect. Regardless of who the narrator is, the language is always heavy with mood — perfectly atmospheric for such a storm-tossed setting.

The writing is captivating, full of warmth, beauty and understanding and there is much for any reader to take from this fascinating story.

It's just beautiful. From the sea-maidens' transformation right down to their homesickness, everything is tasteful, wonderful and never feels at all silly...a fascinating look at the selkie myth

Enthralling...This beautifully written story will keep readers enchanted until the very last page.

When fairytales grow up the are often rebranded fantasy, a genre that readers tend to love or hate. I picked up this novel on the strength of having been previously impressed by Red Spikes, a collection of the author's short stories. Margo Lanagan can inhabit an unusual character, see the world from their point of view and transfer that to the page. The Brides of Rollrock Island relates to selkie myths which have often been retold, but Margo Lanagan makes them her own by treating her characters as individuals, rather than types. She particularly considers the motivation of the witch Misskaella who can call beautiful, biddable women from the bodies of seals and uses this power to destroy a community that has shunned her. As the book moves through its different sections, time passes and we trace the effects on Rollrock Island from the point of view of different characters. As Margo Lanagan is completely inside her characters' experiences, information is slowly revealed and sometimes needs unravelling, a strength in the writing but one which may prove challenging. A brilliant novel that draws you in to its particular world and holds you spellbound.

Readers will find themselves beguiled by Lanagan’s deliciously unsettling and haunting prose

This book is utterly enchanting, the dark atmosphere adding to the tension within the narrative. A brilliantly written story that I highly recommend.

Rollrock is an isolated, windswept island; a wild and salty landscape where fishermen and their families must wring a living from the stormy seas. But Rollrock is also a place of eerie magic, and of powerful desire. 
 
Down on the beach, the outcast witch of Rollrock casts her spells, and draws mysterious girls from the sea. These are girls with long, pale limbs and faces of haunting innocence - the most enchantingly beautiful creatures the fishermen of Rollrock have ever seen. 
 
The island is envied, and many a man is lured to Rollrock with the promise of a sea wife. But the arrival of these women is the ruin of countless families - and to the despair of the men of Rollrock, magic always has its price. The brides do not belong on land. One day, the sea will claim them back.

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

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.

The Brides of Rollrock Island

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