The Woman From the Waves is the latest book from Roslyn Sinclair, one of my favourite sapphic romance authors. I’ve absolutely loved all her previous works (The X Ingredient is a personal favourite), but this is possibly the best, reaching new heights of writing style, characterisation, emotion, and scope of plot.

The story involves an American nun on a trip to a Scottish island, where she has a mysterious encounter with a naked woman who saves her from drowning, and entreaties her to “Return to me.”

I am a huge fan of The Little Mermaid, both the original fairytale and the Disney animated musical adaptation. This book appeared to be, at least in its broadest strokes, inspired by that story. (I wonder if the decision to make the character a nun was inspired by, in the original story, the prince believing his rescuer to be a nun from a nearby abbey?) Given that both Hans Christian Anderson and Howard Ashman, the creative force behind the Disney film, were gay men, it was interesting seeing a sapphic take on the story.

It seems to be a rare trope, but a personal favourite, when neither main character starts out the story identifying as sapphic. The nun, Madeleine, has been attracted to women before, but for obvious reasons has tried to ignore this fact, and coming out is simply not on in the cards for her at the start of the story. Hæra, the shapeshifting Each-uisge, doesn’t want to mate with males of her species, but nor does she even consider mating with females of her species, or humans of any gender, and the idea of love is foreign to her. This makes for a unique dynamic.

I truly loved this book and cannot wait to read it again.