The story unfolds via six different perspectives of several generations of villagers on Rollrock Island, where men are gripped with obsession for seemingly flawless ‘sea wives’ (selkie women, born magically from the bodies of seals by witches). However, the alluring selkies come at a high price, driving all human women from the island and causing inexorable loss.

It is impossible not to draw allegorical parallels to the real business of ‘mail order’ brides or to find contemporary resonance with popular ideals of feminine beauty. On Rollrock, ‘boys’ bodies and looks mattered less than did girls’, appealing women are ‘mere maids’ while others are branded ‘old witches’ for not fitting into a demure mould. Sea wives enthral the men with their slimness, muteness, and submission (‘they’ll go where they’re pushed’), appearing to be the epitome of docility.

The frequent shifts in narrator are advantageous. Descriptions from children’s perspectives are brilliant: a walk down a cliff path is one into ‘a tipped-steep world’, evoking the novel’s unstable world. In shifting between first-person voices, Lanagan also offers insight into the ‘witches’ and we begin to empathise with the way magic has offered them leverage over their outcast position in a society that worships perfection. By humanising ‘evil’ characters, Lanagan refreshingly moves beyond the binary of good/bad that pervades many fantasy novels.

Yet narrative events do not deviate greatly from existing selkie folklore; neither do the climax and conclusion yield lingering impact. Like sea wives themselves, Sea Hearts doesn’t turn out to be quite the incomparable offering it promises.