Merrow by Ananda Braxton-Smith

As somebody who grew up next to the ocean, that's something I miss all the time and I frequently gravitate towards books that have that setting. Add in the connection to Celtic folklore, and I'm hooked (pun not intended). No regrets choosing this one for the first read of the year.

Set on the tiny Manx island of Carrick, this story follows Neen Marrey, a young girl being raised by her aunt, Ushag. The reason her aunt has raised her is that her father drowned at sea- a fate that is unfortunately not wholly uncommon among fisherman. The people of Carrick are stead and practical though, and it is the lot of a widow to simply go on, raise her children, maybe even remarry. Neen's mother was made of different stuff, though, and not long after losing her husband the woman simply disappeared. She was always a dreamer, a storyteller, and raised a very young Neen on tales of Selkies, elves in the hills, mermaids and merrows. Neen's memories of her mother may be dim, but she also loves stories of what may be just out of sight, of a magic that lives just past the borders of the drudgery of everyday life in a small fishing town. She takes after her mam. Everybody says so.

Everybody also whispers how stranger her mother was, how odd, how unnatural.

Neen has dreams of the sea, of her mother the merrow, the selkie, of how after her father's death her mother returned to the sea. She dreams that she is a changeling, a halfbreed, only part human and part something else. As she enters her teens, this idea and a deep yearning to follow her mother's escape to a fantastic world only intensifies.

But her auntie Ushag is a practical woman, and she says that dreams are just that, only dreams. Neen's mother was a dreamer, too, but that doesn't make the dreams true. A less stolid woman broken by the early death of her husband can also come to an early end, and there's nothing fantastical about that. 

Which of these is the truth? What path lays ahead for Neen?

It's a poetically written coming of age story, at times painful, but also sweet. There are no villains here, just people. It's hard not to sympathize with both Neen and her aunt, each struggling in their own ways. I won't give away the twists and turns or the ending, but there may be different kinds of truth and her search for it is itself magical.