The Selkie Countdown Begins

With the Freedom Series now complete, I've spent most of this year diving back into the Selkie Trilogy, which is a little ironic since this story has been with me since the beginning of my publishing career. Like me, the story has evolved in fits and starts over the last fourteen years—and like mine, Annie's story has remained, in many ways, unfinished.

I first wrote To Love A Selkie in the early winter of 2012, and from the beginning, Annie's story was a fantastic blend of the everyday and the supernatural. She was a woman healing from heartbreak, having moved to a new city to rebuild her life and her confidence after a crushing divorce. She found a new house, bought a new car, made a new friend. And then on a day that should've been beautiful, she found herself in the midst of unspeakable danger.

It was a contemporary fantasy novel, beautifully blended with the themes of personal growth and transformation inherent to women's fiction. The kind of character-driven fiction I've always loved reading, where sometimes the greatest villain is the struggle within. But I am also in many ways a hopeless romantic, so in those terrible moments of Annie's devastation, a surprise rescue led to new love...

Because I believe in the possibility of new beginnings.

From there, Annie's story took on a life of its own, but as my own personal life seemed to implode, I struggled to maintain the pace I'd set for my writing. To Love A Selkie was absorbed into Selkie, the first book in the Selkie Trilogy, and a few years later, I wrote and published Selkie II. But behind the scenes, things were getting worse—and eventually, I was forced to put the development of the Selkie Trilogy on the back burner.

Now, I'm digging back in, and more ready than ever to write the end of Annie and Malik's story.

Step one? Like I said, I've been reworking Selkie this year, preparing for a book rerelease in January 2027. This will be a newly revised second edition—the same story readers fell in love with so many years ago, full of resilience and new beginnings, complete with a Celtic mythological twist. So what's changed?

That's simple: I have.

I was terrified, actually. After so long, I knew I couldn't give Annie proper justice without at least rereading the story.

I knew I'd grown as a writer, and I knew there were details I'd forgotten. Stories about overcoming adversity require a certain attention to emotional detail, but there were also the simple things to be remembered: names and timelines, side characters and histories. Resilience and new beginnings sound wonderful, but strength is built through resistance and struggle, and I wanted to write Annie as a woman balanced by vulnerable dignity—even as I ripped her from the human life she'd always known and sent her straight into the middle of the selkies' impending war. I wanted to be sure that every reader could see themselves in her struggle and relate to her growth.

And honestly, I was excited to get to play with my writing in a way that isn't always my style. Women's fiction is the core of who I am as a writer, but fantasy opens doors to entirely new people and places and themes. I hoped readers would fall in love with Annie, and that she would shine a light on the beauty of rediscovering yourself, even in the midst of the struggle. Through her courage to become something more than seems possible, I hoped she would quietly show readers what finding strength through vulnerability really means.

I hoped I could manage such a complicated story, and that I wouldn't read through those previously published books with embarrassment. I have, after all, grown a lot since they were written.

But then I dug in. I turned pages and highlighted passages. I reworked sentences and paragraphs, enriched scenery and dialogue. I gained a new understanding for Annie and Malik, for the selkies as a people, and for the younger version of me who started that story with nothing but grit and determination.

I've always loved stories about finding strength after heartbreak, and as I read through the pages of these books, I can see the version of myself who wrote them. The one struggling through medical trauma. The one suffering through grief. And yes, the one healing from pain too deep to share out loud. But I also see the starry-eyed version of myself with big hopes and impossible dreams. The one with unshakable faith. The one so deeply fascinated with ancient cultures that she nearly drowned herself in their richness as she blended bits and pieces of favored peoples into fantasy.

I did find an embarrassing plot hole, and yes, I was embarrassed by it. But I'm also thrilled with the way I noticed it, the way I repaired it, and the way it made the story better illustrate growth and culture and functionality.

Mostly, I've been so proud of young me that I could hardly stand keeping quiet about it. I've reread scenes and wished I could time-travel, just to pat my younger self on the back. I've discovered deeper, almost allegorical meanings woven into Annie's life that I never realized were there. And I've confirmed that this story was one hundred percent worth coming back to all along.

I'm nearly finished with the re-writing and re-editing. Selkie will re-release in January, and then I'll dig back into Selkie II, where I imagine I'll end up on another adventure of rediscovery—both for Annie and for myself.

Because as it turns out, sometimes the best parts of a story are the ones that were there all along.

*****

Blending contemporary fantasy with Celtic mythology isn't new. It wasn't new when I did it back in 2012. And writing women's fiction with fantasy elements isn't new either, but I think there's a deeper reason so many stories blend those things together.

There's a special kind of magic found in fantasy. It's the freedom to become and explore, to be deeply passionate, fiercely loyal, desperately protective, and even sometimes immensely powerful. So many boundaries, simply erased. Contemporary stories set in the real world give us room to explore trauma, healing, and relationships in ways that allow us to examine how we become who we are. Combining the two gives the real world the magic of imagination, and maybe that's why I love Annie's story so much.

The countdown to release day has begun, and if you're as excited about the Selkie rerelease as I am, keep an eye on this page for more updates, including excerpts from the trilogy, upcoming cover reveals, purchase links, and—who knows?—maybe an eventual Selkie-themed giveaway.

But until then, think of Annie. So far, she's been through divorce, drowning, supernatural romance, life-altering grief, and the remaking of everything she once thought was real. And still, she's determined to...

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