Read for the Once Upon a Time V Reading Challenge.
Jane True lives in the tiny Maine village of Rockabill, and she’s always known she was different. You see, she swims. In the ocean. In all seasons. In Maine. If you’ve ever been in the ocean here, you know that’s just not normal. It’s always been Jane’s guilty secret, and when the discovery of a body in the water during one of those swims leads to the revelation that Jane is only half human, she finds out exactly how different she really is.
The back of this book has an If you like Sookie Stackhouse… recommendation on it, and the comparison is apt. Rockabill is the quirky Maine counterpart to Bon Temps, LA, with an intriguing cast of characters, and a surprising number of supernatural residents. In this world, the supernatural people are include gnomes and selkies, the Irish equivalent of vampires, many others you may never have heard of, and ruling them all, the ancient Alvar, who you could call Elves, but never to their faces.
Jane, as only half supernatural, is in a precarious situation in this supernatural world, and her introduction is interesting, to say the least. This is a good set up to a series, and I’m interested to see where the author goes with the next books.
On a side note, I’m always a little leery reading books set in fictional Maine cities or villages. Non-natives either get things completely right, or hideously, horribly wrong. Fortunately, Rockabill has a good flavor of coastal Maine, and I was able to read the scenes set in town without cringing at the example of “local color”.