Review: `Someone is trying to kill you.'
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 19, 2014
Australian author and artist Virginia King has a history of extensive travel, a career as a teacher, a writer of children's books, a publisher, a producer of audio books, and a close affiliation with writer workshops. Now she enters the world of adult novels with a proposed series she calls the Selkie Moon Mystery Series. The charm of her titled series first draws our attention and deserves a definition of the word 'selkie'. From a charming Celtic legend comes the following: `A selkie is a seal in the water but a man on land. At the full of the moon the selkie rises from the water in foam and spray, takes off its seal skin, throws it aside on the rocks, and dances around mystic fires on the shore. Selkie women are very beautiful and the men very handsome. That is why when humans in legends happen upon the shore at full moon and see the selkie-people, often they want the selkies to be their mate and steal the sealskins that are lying on the rocks. If their seal skin has been stolen a selkie can never return back to the ocean and becomes a prisoner. If you are ever on the shores of Scotland, turn your face towards the sea and if you listen hard enough you may just hear the ghosts of the selkies and their beloved human laughter and cries rip and wave across the briny sea. And if you do, just think....How many of the people around you are really selkies trapped on land in human form?' King wisely opens her book with a glossary of Hawaiian terms that support the readers understanding of the story that follows.What Virginia King does with this inspiration is to create a mysterious tale of the shadows that are secretly driving us, from our mythical pasts and our present reality - a story about the secrets we hide from ourselves. Selkie lives in Sydney where she is established but unhappy with an emotionally aloof husband and a constricting stepmother and she is haunted with recurrent dreams and fears. She moves to Hawaii in an attempt to correct the sense of doom she feels. Though she is a warm, caring woman with a fine sense of humor and a strong personality, she cannot separate herself from the her past fears. In her new home she is faced with a stalker, psychic messages,  and bizarre, frightening incidents make her aware of the realm of the supernatural. An amateur sleuth, Selkie is determined to understand the strange phenomena that surround her and gradually her past confronts her in strange ways. But once she has successfully quashed the lies and secrets she is able to acknowledge her strange ancestry and use it to her benefit and growth - leaving of course miles to go before we sleep, as this is only volume one a series.Chick lit? Yes, but Virginia King has such as facile way with words and with creating strange atmospheres all the while keeping a light touch that the book overflows with as much charm as it does with mystery. This is a strong start for an ongoing series and should prove popular with her audience. Grady Harp, May 14