Atmospheric and neatly woven queer story that will place you in the middle of the Scottish Isles feeling weak in the knees. Ban Gilmartin serves quality and tenderness in their emotional self published debut!

Jamie is a charmer, who might seem carefree, but who has problems with drinking, making bad decisions, chronically being late and messing everything up. But now he’s starting over, moving to a new city to be closer to his childhood best friend. Meet Thomas. He's had strange visions for years, but they’ve gotten worse recently, bleeding into reality until he doesn’t know which is which, paralyzing him with the accompanying migraines. Having tried solutions from therapy to exorcism, all to no avail, Thomas is on the brink of leaving for America to search out a cure when a stranger bangs on his apartment door and launches herself into his life. it sees how difficult it is to ask for help. how love is not enough to miraculously fix everything. but this book says: let others in, and you can help each other while working on yourself. that life is horribly terrifying but you can find safety with each other. Such a beautiful little gem of a book! It truly warmed my heart and gave me such hope – no matter how broken you are, there is always a second chance to love! also, i loved how cohesive the plot is, how even the smallest details come together in the end to make sense. my only complaint would be that i wish there was more emotional resolution towards the end, more apologies, more feelings, a little epilogue giving us a reassuring glimpse of the future. but i'm being greedy, i just wanted to spend more time with these characters.

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at some point Jamie mentions that he'd thought about sleeping in Jude's bed several times, but *we* never saw him think about that before today i’ve been the kind of person i want to be. the kind of person i think i can be. like, maybe if i can do things like this—be useful, be good, help others, maybe it’ll help me stop treating everything like it’s temporary.” The atmosphere of this story is on another level, everything felt very anchored on the Isle of Mab and its magic is so well weaved in. Thomas’ visions feel very vivid when reading them and every moment of terror experienced by the characters is enhanced by the setting. This was so captivating and I had a hard time putting it down, it was so easy to get drawn in by every aspect of this book and feel everything deep in your heart. This was a book about second and sixth and tenth chances; about being broken and still worthy of love; that life is messy and confusing and imperfect, but also really, really beautiful.

While Isla is the spunky, brave, and inexperienced in being human selkie shines a light of hope for the other characters, especially for Thomas. Isla is positive and dives head on with her belief even when the person she recruits to help (Thomas) annoys her a lot. Isla’s character development for me is the most memorable as she is the catalyst that started the story and eventually became the one that ends it all. The relationship Isla established with all the characters in some way endearing as Isla isn’t afraid in placing her trust. Even though she is careful on who she trusts she still follows her instinct more than her head, but thats what makes Isla a good character that balances out Thomas. Isla’s relationship with Tanis felt a bit instantaneous it was done in a way that made sense. It is a cutest meet cute I have ever read honestly. Julian smiles. A real one. I think I get what he meant about kind cheeks when he smiles. I don't think I have them, but he definitely does. Kind cheeks and mussed up hair and messy beauty, clutching a chipped mug and trying to look happy.Edit: I wrote the above after reading the first complete draft, when it was still in its awkward teenager stage. This update is my third read—the first time reading the finished, published version—and it’s still all true. But now the gangly promising teenager has grown into their own, and it’s so incredibly lovely. This has to be one of the most unexpected books I’ve ever read. I went in it with very little knowledge of what it is actually about and I feel like it only enhanced the experience. Isla- Queen. Everyone stans her. She's just an adorably stubborn selkie, and reading a seal's perspective on humanity was different and super weird and awesome! It definitely made the book a lot more immersive. I loved how she was constantly longing to go home, but also so determined to stay. Her arc was also based on realization, I guess? About who her person is. I really loved that. We’ve never said I love you. That’s not what we do. He says you keep me sane. I say you keep me focused. We talk around our feelings. We’ve planned a future together, but that’s not new. We’ve always had a future together, ever since we were kids. Wherever he went, I was always going to follow.”