Fine, lure a reader in with the whole specter of being murdered for not checking nets…

12. Hold Back the Tide – Melinda Salisbury

Alva lives in a small village that revolves around a loch and a mill that sucks a bit too much water from said loch. Her father is the caretaker of the lake and she’s convinced that he murdered her mother. This is the second book set in the Scottish Highlands I’ve read this year where a father and daughter live together and there’s a major suspicion that the father is a murderer. That’s an interesting and unexpected trend. This version seems to be set around the 17th or 18th century, though it isn’t made clear, based on all the candles being mentioned and me looking up what an earasaid actually is. I was getting hooded sweater, it’s more like a blanket scarf that’s very convertible. Alva is very attached to her earasaids.

Alva, though, has a job as a transcriptionist that sounds cool (this being part of what makes it complicated to figure out the time setting) and a plan to escape. Her friend, fellow village black sheep Ren, gets her some of what she needs to start over far away and also totally sees through her plan. She won’t admit her plan because she thinks that any word of it getting back to her father will get her killed. So Ren is like, take me with you, at the town bonfire and Alva’s like, I’m not leaving. And then a supernatural creature shows up literally at her cottage door. It’s very pale and is or isn’t what’s been messing up nets and animals in the area.

That creature throws a major wrench into Alva’s plans and is the key to understanding her father’s job, what happened to her mom, and her future. It’s a good story with a sad ending.

 

Right now Thorfy’s more of a “hold down this blanket” kind of pig. Sleepy. Not up to capturing old timey monsters from caves.