A Mysterious Woman Has Unspoken Secrets In This Excerpt From A Sweet Sting of Salt
Retellings are all the rage in publishing at the moment, but most of them tend to revolve around familiar stories: Greek myths, popular fairytales, or novels we all had to read in high school. So it’s always exciting to see an author embracing the unexpected in terms of the source materials that inform their stories. And such is the case with Rose Sutherland’s atmospheric A Sweet Sting of Salt, which takes its inspiration from the Scottish folktale “The Selkie Wife,” but gives the story a decidedly queer twist.
Set in 1830s coastal Nova Scotia, the story follows Jean, a young spinster and midwife who discovers a woman in labor one dark and stormy night. The woman turns out to be the new wife of a neighboring fisherman and as the pair grow closer, her unhappiness in that situation becomes increasingly evident. (And if you know anything at all about folklore involving selkies, you’ve already guessed where this story is going, but Sutherland undoubtedly offers plenty of surprises along the way.)
Here’s how the publisher describes the story.
When a sharp cry wakes Jean in the middle of the night during a terrible tempest, she’s convinced it must have been a dream. But when the cry comes again, Jean ventures outside and is shocked by what she discovers—a young woman in labor, already drenched to the bone in the freezing cold and barely able to speak a word of English.
Although Jean is the only midwife in the village and for miles around, she’s at a loss as to who this woman is or where she’s from; Jean can only assume she must be the new wife of the neighbor up the road, Tobias. And when Tobias does indeed arrive at her cabin in search of his wife, Muirin, Jean’s questions continue to grow. Why has he kept his wife’s pregnancy a secret? And why does Muirin’s open demeanor change completely the moment she’s in his presence?
Though Jean learned long ago that she should stay out of other people’s business, her growing concern—and growing feelings—for Muirin mean she can’t simply set her worries aside. But when the answers she finds are more harrowing than she ever could have imagined, she fears she may have endangered herself, Muirin, and the baby. Will she be able to put things right and save the woman she loves before it’s too late, or will someone have to pay for Jean’s actions with their life?
A Sweet Sting of Salt will hit shelves on April 9, but we’ve got an exclusive first look at the story for you right now.
Jean perched on the edge of the bed and studied her toes, debating whether she should take off her socks. It had gotten every bit as chilly as she’d feared, the wind howling down from out of the Northeast.
When Jo Keddy had still lived in town and they’d still been friends, Jean had stayed over with her family sometimes. They’d shared Jo’s bed and Jean would leave her socks off on purpose, to press her icy toes to Jo’s in the dark and hear her squeal and giggle, and then Jo would catch Jean’s feet between her own to warm them up. The memory opened up a hollow between Jean’s shoulders, where her spine ought to be, as empty and cold as the hours after midnight.
Josephine Keddy was married to Victor Gaudry these four years past and had moved clear across the colony, closer to his people in French Acadia. Jo didn’t even speak French. Still, she’d not gone against her family, not fought the marriage, not fought for Jean.