You Picked What I Read. Here’s What I Thought of It.
In May, I asked you to pick which queer books I should read next from my TBR, and the winner was A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland. Unfortunately, my library hold then took weeks to come in, so I wasn’t able to read it until about a week ago. Here’s what I thought about it before reading:
I’ve talked about this in the newsletter several times because it’s one of my most-anticipated releases of the year. Mostly because I cannot resist a sapphic selkie story, and they’re so rare! Somehow, though, I haven’t actually read this one yet. It looks like it will be a little darker and moodier than some of the other options, but the water element keeps it in the spring reading sphere for me.
Now that my library hold finally came in and I have finished it, here’s what I thought.
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I saw one review call this a “Nova Scotia gothic,” and I think that’s the perfect encapsulation of it. The author describes the rocky, seaside, small-town life in loving detail — even as the main character struggles to feel like she belongs there. As befits a gothic, the sense of unease and tension slowly ratchets up over the course of the novel.
When Jean was younger, she was caught kissing another woman, and her girlfriend was sent away to marry a man she’d never met. Since then, she’s earned the villagers’ grudging respect as a midwife by saving lives, but she spends most of her time in isolation on the outskirts of town. One night, she is woken up by the sound of a woman screaming. She finds the stranger in labor outside in the middle of a storm. She takes her in and helps Muirin, who doesn’t speak English, give birth. Jean finds out she’s her neighbor Tobias’s new wife. But why has her pregnancy been kept a secret? And why does Muirin seem reluctant to return to Tobias’s home?
As mentioned, I picked this up because it’s a selkie book, but the main character doesn’t realize that Muirin is a selkie until near the end. (I can’t imagine this is a spoiler because it’s part of the marketing.) Personally, I usually find it a little frustrating to know something the main character doesn’t for a long time, but that was really my only complaint for A Sweet Sting of Salt.
I really enjoyed the mood and setting of this story: I felt like I could see, smell, and hear the waves crashing on the shore. It was very immersive.
It’s challenging to have a love story where the characters don’t share a language, but that’s helped by Muirin picking up language at a supernatural speed. Muirin’s mysterious, passionate personality is balanced well with Jean’s more practical and reserved nature.
I appreciated the side characters, too, including Indigenous characters and a side character who is coded autistic — I’m a big fan of historical fiction with a diverse cast.
Overall, if you want an immersive sapphic folkloric fantasy read and don’t mind knowing a reveal before the main character does, I highly recommend this one, and I’m glad you picked it for me!
What’s the last queer book you read? Let’s chat in the comments!
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