Dive Deep With Mer & Selkie Recs!
Mermaid by Yuri Arcurs PhotographyThis year’s Wyrd & Wonder theme is all things ocean-worthy, so of course I had to put together a rec list of mer and selkie stories! Behold a mix of my favourites and others I consider noteworthy examples of the type!
When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, New Adult, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay Boricua MC with asthma, M/M, secondary Desi character with dwarfism
Goodreads
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In Coney Island, true love rises to the surface. With lush illustrations and buoyant prose, Venessa Vida Kelley forges an unforgettable New York fairytale.
Benigno “Benny” Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can’t call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds the eccentric sideshow proprietor who commissioned it. He invites Benny to join the show’s eclectic cast and share in their shocking secret: the tank will cage their newest exhibit, a live merman stolen from the salty banks of the East River.
More than a mythic marvel, Benny soon comes to know the merman Río as a kindred spirit, wise and more compassionate than any human he’s ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leading Benny’s heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Río’s captivity—and his own.
Releasing Río could mean losing his found family, his new home, and his soulmate forever. Yet Benny’s courageous choice may just reveal a love strong enough to free them both.
The most recent release first: published just at the end of last month, Kelley’s queer merman love story is not only beautifully written, it’s also stunningly illustrated – by Kelley themself! (Seriously, buy yourself the hardback, the art is so worth it!)
Tides by Betsy Cornwell Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, YA
Representation: Adopted Chinese MC recovering from bulimia, secondary F/F
Goodreads
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Probably my very favourite selkie book, Tides manages to feel soft despite having some teeth. It’s been a bunch of years since I last read it – content warning for eating disorders – but it still has a very special place on my shelf!
In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Goodreads
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During a time of great upheaval, the citizens of Venice make a pact that will change the world. The landsmen of the city broker a treaty with a water-dwelling tribe of deepsmen, cementing the alliance through marriage. The mingling of the two races produces a fresh, peerless strain of royal blood. To protect their shores, other nations make their own partnerships with this new breed–and then, jealous of their power, ban any further unions between the two peoples. Dalliance with a deepswoman becomes punishable by death. Any “bastard” child must be destroyed.
This is an Earth where the legends of the deep are true–where the people of the ocean are as real and as dangerous as the people of the land. This is the world of intrigue and betrayal that Kit Whitfield brings to life in an unforgettable alternate history: the tale of Anne, the youngest princess of a faltering England, struggling to survive in a troubled court, and Henry, a bastard abandoned on the shore to face his bewildering destiny, finding himself a pawn in a game he does not understand.Yet even a pawn may checkmate a king.
The fact that Whitfield is not a household name makes me want to gnaw a fence, because my gods, folx, her freaking worldlbuilding!!! Her take on mermaids is a masterpiece (though do be sure to look up her werewolf and faerie books too), wherein she asks: what if the royal heads of Europe were all part-mer for excellent political reasons? The answer is phenomenally well-done!!!
The Blue Salt Road by Joanne M. Harris Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Goodreads
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An earthly nourris sits and sings
And aye she sings, "Ba lilly wean,
Little ken I my bairn's father,
Far less the land that he staps in
.
(Child Ballad, no. 113)
So begins a stunning tale of love, loss and revenge, against a powerful backdrop of adventure on the high seas, and drama on the land. The Blue Salt Road balances passion and loss, love and violence and draws on nature and folklore to weave a stunning modern mythology around a nameless, wild young man.
Passion drew him to a new world, and trickery has kept him there - without his memories, separated from his own people. But as he finds his way in this dangerous new way of life, so he learns that his notions of home, and your people, might not be as fixed as he believed.
Beautifully illustrated by Bonnie Helen Hawkins, this is a stunning and original modern fairytale.
Most selkie legends – and novels – focus on selkie women; a book about a male selkie is a rare treasure! Between Harris’ beautiful prose and her masterful storytelling, this is a gorgeous but heartbreaking selkie tale. (The ending is supposed to be a happy one, but I was still devestated, so brace accordingly!)
The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Black sapphic MC
Goodreads
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Yetu holds the memories for her people.
Her people, the wajinru – water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slavers – live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one. Save the historian.
Yetu remembers for all the wajinru, and the memories – painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so she flees to the surface, escaping the memories and the expectations and the responsibilities – and discovers a world the wajinru left behind long ago.
Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past – and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identities – and own who they really are.
Inspired by the hit song by clipping. (comprised of Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes), The Deep will resonate long after the last page is turned.
If you love mermaid stories you definitely need to know The Deep, a short, intense book with a take on merpeople origins you probably haven’t seen before. Inspired by the song of the same name by the band clipping. – which in turn drew on the mythos created by another band called Drexciya – I’ve never seen this book fail to move someone.
Nine Years of Silver (Love Has Claws, #1) by Parker Foye Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Goodreads
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Briar Augustin, a bounty hunter, returns to his hometown on the trail of a killer. There he becomes once more entangled with his first love, Quinn Lawrence, who is as integral to Briar's hunt as he is to the mythology of Lastings. Can Briar find his bounty and return to the city, resisting the call of the sea? Or will he be drawn back into Lastings' secrets—and the arms of Quinn Lawrence?
Lastings: Where some things can only be mined out.
*
Nine Years of Silver is the first story from Love Has Claws, a speculative romance trilogy linked by the town of Lastings.
Content Warnings: mentions of abusive childhood; bloody violence; off-screen murder; drowning (real/dream); claustrophobic scenes.
One of the first books I ever reviewed for the blog, this was the novella that convinced me Foye was an auto-buy author. (A decision that has served me very well!) The prose is delicious, and Lastings is a fabulously atmospheric setting, exactly the kind of place that might have selkies.
Rolling in the Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #0.5) by Mira Grant Genres: Adult, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs, wheelchair rep, Deaf rep
Goodreads
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When the Imagine Network commissioned a documentary on mermaids, to be filmed from the cruise ship Atargatis, they expected what they had always received before: an assortment of eyewitness reports that proved nothing, some footage that proved even less, and the kind of ratings that only came from peddling imaginary creatures to the masses.
They didn't expect actual mermaids. They certainly didn't expect those mermaids to have teeth.
This is the story of the Atargatis, lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the bathypelagic zone in the Mariana Trench…and the depths are very good at keeping secrets.
Right, time for some monstrous mermaids! This is flat-out horror, but as usual, Grant elevates it by having researched the bejesus out of what believable real-world mermaids might be like. (The answer: terrifying.) Rolling in the Deep is a novella, and there’s a novel-length sequel to enjoy after it!
A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, F/F
Goodreads
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Set on the stormy shores of Nova Scotia in 1832, A Sweet Sting of Salt is debut author Rose Sutherland's bold and magical queer retelling of the Celtic folktale The Selkie Wife with a feminist twist.
In 19th century Nova Scotia, village midwife Jean Langille’s first love ended in a quiet her childhood sweetheart married to a man on the far side of the colony, Jean's reputation in tatters. Now, all she wants is to be left alone in her cottage by the shore, to do her work and try to forget she ever knew how to love at all.
Then, a labouring woman appears in the salt marsh behind Jean’s home in the dead of night. Muirin is beautiful, enigmatic . . . and barely speaks a word of English, having come from away to marry the fisherman who lives up on the hill. As Jean picks apart the knot of Muirin's silence and the two women grow ever closer, Jean feels a growing unease. She suspects the marriage between Muirin and her husband Tobias may not be all it seems.
When Jean’s own past comes calling in the form of an unexpected visitor, stirring up old rumours and drawing her relationship with Muirin into question, she finds herself caught up in a deadly foxhunt with a desperate man in search of a mysterious stolen treasure. Jean must brave the depths of her own heart to save the woman she loves and uncover what Tobias is hiding—a Pandora’s box containing a wave big enough to drown Jean and Muirin both.
It’s probably cheating a bit to include this one, because the magical elements only become obvious at the very end – and although our main character very much falls in love with one, I don’t remember the word ‘selkie’ ever actually being used. But despite that, Sweet Sting of Salt is the selkie tale I’ve spent my whole life waiting for, a brutal and incisive look at the ‘romance’ of the selkie bride myth. IT’S ACTUALLY PRETTY FUCKED-UP TO KIDNAP AND ENSLAVE A MAGICAL CREATURE, HAROLD, AND DOUBLE-ICK FOR ROMANTICISING IT.
Mermaid Moon by Susann Cokal Goodreads
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Sanna is a mermaid — but she is only half seavish. The night of her birth, a sea-witch cast a spell that made Sanna’s people, including her landish mother, forget how and where she was born. Now Sanna is sixteen and an outsider in the seavish matriarchy, and she is determined to find her mother and learn who she is. She apprentices herself to the witch to learn the magic of making and unmaking, and with a new pair of legs and a quest to complete for her teacher, she follows a clue that leads her ashore on the Thirty-Seven Dark Islands. There, as her fellow mermaids wait in the sea, Sanna stumbles into a wall of white roses thirsty for blood, a hardscrabble people hungry for miracles, and a baroness who will do anything to live forever.
All right, our mermaid main character spends most of Mermaid Moon with legs instead of a tail – it’s still one of my favourite mer stories! Colkal’s prose is very dreamy and languid, and there’s a strong folklore vibe – the old kind of folklore, the kind with teeth. And I love the worldbuilding done on mermaid culture – matriarchal AND queernorm??? Heart-eyes!
Ascension (Water, #1) by Kara Dalkey Genres: Fantasy, YA
Goodreads
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Nia, a young mermyd of the Bluefin clan, has had one wish all her life—to be an Avatar in her beloved home of Atlantis. The ten Avatars rule the beautiful and peaceful undersea city alongside the ancient Farworlders, whose magic keeps their world alive. To be an Avatar is an honor and a great responsibility, and Nia dreams of taking her place among the noble ten.
Now, at sixteen, Nia has a chance to see her dream come true. Atlantis is choosing its next Avatar, and Nia knows she is supremely qualified.
But there is something Nia doesn’t know—if she gets her heart’s desire, it could mean the end of her treasured world of Atlantis forever.
Ascension deserves recognition for the amount of thought and care Dalkey put into her worldbuilding – she’s the only author I’ve ever seen consider how something like the oxygen content of the water in a room would affect mermaid furniture needs!
And one to look forward to?
Bind Me Tighter Still by Lara Ehrlich Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Published on: 9th September 2025
Goodreads
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“A gorgeous, playful, thoughtful novel for feminists, for mothers and daughters, for those of us who grew up on the *other* version of mermaids, and who’ve thought from time to time that we might prefer to join the sirens rather than tie ourselves to the mast."
—Amber Sparks, author of And I Do Not Forgive You
The youngest of three siren sisters, Ceto is weary of an existence driven by hunger, no better than a fish. She trades her tail for life on land, marries the first man she meets, and bears a daughter, only to discover that domesticity is just as mundane as sirenhood.
In search of something more, she flees with her daughter Naia to the ocean, where she establishes a mermaid burlesque and recreates herself, performing as a siren in a tank built into the limestone cliffs overlooking the sea. She trains more sirens, expanding Sirenland from a roadside attraction to a national sensation she rules without opposition—until Naia, at 15, begins to push back against the world Ceto has created and the role she performs in her mother’s shows. A death at Sirenland threatens Ceto's authority and leads Naia to question whether this women-ruled kingdom is truly as empowering as her mother would have her believe. Bind Me Tighter Still explores power and hunger, sacrifice and motherhood, and celebrates the fierceness of female strength in a male-dominated world.
This one’s not out until September, and I’ve not read an early copy or anything, but I want to draw attention to it because that premise is so freaking cool! And I’ve not seen anyone talking about it. Thoughts? It’s on my tbr, anyway.
Have you read any of these? Share your own mer and selkie recs in the comments!
The post Dive Deep With Mer & Selkie Recs! appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.
