Love can be complicated, but parents even more so.
Thank you BOMM and Tessonja Odette for the chance to read and review this book!
As I was reviewing my email on this tour, I found out I was supposed to do less of a review, and more of a giveaway post! So because I liked the book, my full review is here on my blog, with the giveaway on my bookstagram (linked here and down below).
The Kiss of the Selkie is the third book in the Entangled with Fae series by Tessonja Odette but it can be read as a standalone. It’s also moderately steamy (especially towards the end).
To evade a vicious sea queen’s clutches, selkie Maisie hides on land surviving as a thief. But when she rescues a human from drowning and illegally brings him to shore, she must answer for breaking faelaw. As punishment, she’ll have to hunt down the man she saved…and kiss him. But with a kiss that can kill, Maisie’s mission means more than seduction. It means murder.
Son of a notorious fae-killer, Dorian was never meant to survive the shipwreck that was orchestrated to assassinate him. Now that he’s on the forbidden fae isle, he’ll do anything to gain citizenship—even marry a fae bride. Desperate for a hasty marriage, he holds a bridal competition in the isle’s most theatrical city, where displays of frivolity aren’t just encouraged—they’re expected. And if Maisie can act like a proper debutante and join the pageantry, she’ll get near enough to deliver her fatal kiss.
But getting close to her target brings complications she didn’t expect. As she pretends to compete for Dorian’s heart, it starts to feel less like an act…and more like falling in love.
If Maisie doesn’t deliver her kiss by sunrise on the last day of the competition, she forfeits her life. But if she succeeds, Dorian dies. When the pageant ends, will there be a true victor? Or only death and broken hearts?
It’s really clear to see how the story of the little mermaid was incorporated into this retelling! Of course, this is strictly the Disney version and not the Hans Christian Anderson one. It’s a story about love; love its many forms, between friends, family and lovers. Of course, you also have a key element in here from The Selection.
Odette did give us a grown-up take on the little mermaid; Maisie’s kiss can kill, and she has no idea why. She has a knack for lifting things out of pockets to sell and make money while living in self-imposed exile (while also adding pieces to her own collection). Maisie has a large number of siblings but has grown up closer to her brothers, and Podaxis. As she rescues the handsome stranger, she leaves not because she is shy but because it is the prudent thing to do. She competes for his hand and goes from the girl who was relieved to have just grown up among brothers, to someone who values all her friends. Like Ariel, she grows from someone very sheltered to someone who understands political games, even if she refuses to play them.
I’ll admit this book started off really slow, and I was prepared to write it off. It’s only when we meet Maisie’s mother and understand the dynamics there that things really pick up. As we learn more about Queen Nimue, we slowly gain more sympathy and respect for her. She’s the real star of this book for me, and if Tessonja Odetta wanted to write more about her I’d be happy to read it. I do think Maisie was also far too quick in forgiving her father for what he had done to her mother (but we do need to know more about what was said to her), but I think that’s also us as children writing off our parents mistakes.
I also loved Podaxis! While in the little mermaid, Sebastian is more of a hapless older relative or uncle, in this Podaxis is his brother in a way that we all didn’t know we needed. I’m glad that we will get a story about Britney Rose (I mean just the name made me realize that there would be something based on her), and I love how Maisie was tied into the previous book, and how we saw some characters again!
The Girl Who Reads 
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