Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Stealing the Selkie’s Heart by Ella Rose: Guest Post, Review

Stealing the Selkie’s Heart by Ella Rose
Stealing the Selkie’s Heart (The Selkie Seas, #1) by Ella Rose

Publisher: Lightning Platypus Press, (July 19, 2022)
Category: Paranormal Romance
Tour dates: November 3-23, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985603811
Available in Print and ebook, 286 pages


Description Stealing the Selkie’s Heart by Ella Rose


A cursed town, a kidnapped selkie…what will happen when love is on the line? 

Powerful selkie warrior Ronan must negotiate with a group of local sirens before war breaks out. The last thing he needs is a desperate human who steals his sealskin, intent on forcing him to help her. He decides to seduce her, get his skin back, and fulfill his mission. But finding out she’s his True Mate changes everything…

Widow Una MacCallan is determined to save her small Scottish fishing town from the curse that fell over it twenty-four years ago, even if it means blackmailing the fierce selkie. Though she knows he is the key to breaking the spell, she doesn’t anticipate the attraction between them. She can’t afford the distraction, and she doesn’t trust that his interest is anything more than a manipulation, a bid for freedom. But she keeps finding herself tempted…

Together, they must race against time to break the curse. But as the two get closer, they find themselves asking: can they give up love to save those around them? What is the price for their newfound passion?

Stealing the Selkie’s Heart is an exciting enemies-to-lovers paranormal romance and the first book in The Selkie Seas series by Ella Rose. Let it steal your heart today!

Review Stealing the Selkie’s Heart by Ella Rose

Review by Suzie

“This close, she felt the primal energy coming off him in waves, and it sparked an answering energy deep inside her. This was a desperate man. And he'd just met an even more desperate woman.”

On the Hebrides islands in coastal Scotland lies a small village, with a big secret. The year is 1861, and young widow Una MacCallan is desperate to bring in her fishing haul when she witnesses something that few humans have ever seen before.

In a small cave on the shore, she sees a seal enter, and a man escape from it's skin. The man is a selkie, a mythical race that are capable of transforming from a seal into a human by simply taking off their seal skin. However, selkies must hide their skin, because if a human steals it, they are bound to that human until it is returned.

Knowing this legend, Una decides to steal the selkie's skin so that he might help her free her town from a curse that has left them nearly bankrupt. The selkie, Ronan, agrees to help, but secretly plans to seduce Una so that he can retrieve his skin and return to the sea.

This is an electrifying story that has elements of history, passion and romance all rolled up into one.

I loved the immediate sexual tension between Ronan and Una, and the way that he found himself falling for her even after promising himself that he was not going to. The main plot of the cursed town was a great backdrop for the romance of the story, and, as a reader, I really came to care about the people of Selbane and hope that Una and Ronan would prevail and the curse would be lifted. This was a five-star read for me and I suspect it would be for you, too! 

Guest Post by Ella Rose, Author of Stealing the Selkie’s Heart 

What is a Selkie

Suzie,

Thank you for graciously hosting me today. As you know, my latest paranormal romance novel, Stealing the Selkie’s Heart (The Selkie Seas, Book 1), revolves around selkies and other water creatures. But one question I get a lot is this: “What the hell is a selkie in the first place?” And if that was your question, too, never fear! I’ve got your back.

Simply put, selkies are seal shapeshifters. When they change from human to seal form, they pull on their sealskins like a cloak and fasten small hooks that go along the stomach. This allows them to shapeshift. When they desire to change back into human form, they simply unclasp the hooks with their teeth, and they slip from beneath the sealskin as a naked human.

The common tale, when looking at the history of selkies, is that of a fisherman who stole a female selkie’s sealskin, thus binding her to him as a selkie wife. She was preternaturally beautiful and very fertile. The story goes that, for decades, she bore his children, until at last, upon his deathbed, the fisherman gave back the sealskin. The selkie wife immediately fled to the ocean and followed her children as they made their way in the world.

For me, I enjoyed taking the selkie wife concept and turning it on its head. In Stealing the Selkie’s Heart, the main character, Una MacCallan, is the one stealing the skin, and she does it not out of desire for a selkie husband, but to save her home from ruin. She strikes a bargain with the selkie, Ronan, that she’ll return his sealskin once he helps her lift the curse that’s befallen her town.

In my telling of the selkie myth, there are certain physical attributes that set them apart from regular humans: first, their eyes look different. The pupils themselves aren’t round, like a normal person’s, but contract to a slit in the light. Their heart beats faster than a human’s, as well. And finally, they live longer than humans do; in Stealing the Selkie’s Heart, Ronan is about 60 years old while his physical appearance is that of a 20-year-old man.

But the real magic, in so far as my series is concerned, is that they have the concept of True Mates, which is my take on the Fated Mates trope. They can sense when they are near their True Mate by experiencing a doubled-sensation of body: they feel lungs expanding out of sync with each other and heartbeats pumping out of rhythm of their own. These feelings usually happen during the first time they sleep together, but the True Mate bond isn’t solidified until they climax at the same time. Once that happens there is a telepathic bond that stretches between the two mates: they can’t read minds, but they can send and receive emotions through the bond.

Selkies can also find True Mates outside of the selkie world. In Stealing the Selkie’s Heart, the couple is a human and selkie. Other books in my Selkie Seas world revolve around selkie-selkie relationships. But in the case of human-selkie True Mate bonds, the human’s lifespan is extended to match his/her mate’s.

As you can see, a lot went into the selkie mythology, and I tried to stay as respectful of the origins as I could, while still making my mark on the lore. As always, if you have selkie questions or curiosities about The Selkie Seas world, email me! You can always catch me at ellarose@ellarosebooks.com.

Best,

Ella Rose

© Ella Rose 

About Ella Rose



Ella Rose is a paranormal romance author who loves kink, ink, and cake, and hopes you do too. She is a bi-sexual author writing through a Bi-Polar Disorder lens and thinks representation and mental health matter. She is the author of The Selkie Seas series, which includes Losing the Selkie’s Skin and Stealing the Selkie’s Heart.

Her latest selkie short stories will appear in Dark Rose Press’s Worlds Apart and Dragon Soul Press’s Beyond Atlantis anthologies. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and the Paranormal Romance Guild.

Website: https://www.ellarosebooks.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EllaRoseBooks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellarosewrites/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ellarosewrites?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/EllaRoseWriter/

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Giveaway Stealing the Selkie’s Heart by Ella Rose


This giveaway is for 2 print or ebook copies. Print is open to Canada and the U.S. only and ebook is open worldwide. This giveaway ends on November 24, 2022 midnight, pacific time. Entries accepted via Rafflecopter only. 

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Stealing the Selkie’s Heart by Ella Rose
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1 comment:

  1. I am so glad you enjoyed 'Stealing the Selkie’s Heart'! Thanks so much for hosting Ella!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comment. It is very important to me. Know that while I might not reply directly to your comment every time, I certainly read it and appreciate it.