Salt and Skin is a contemporary literary fiction by Australian author Eliza Henry-Jones and is longlisted for the 2023 Indie Book Award.

Widowed Luda Managan and her two teenage children, Darcy and Min, move to Seannay island in the Orkneys in Scotland. Luda works as a photographer, raising awareness about environmental issues. Publishing a photo of a child taken in the moments before her death in a landslide turns the locals against Luda and repercusses through the story. The children soon befriend Theo, the mysterious, luminous foundling who washed up on the island years before with webbing between his fingers. The islanders believe he is a selkie.

The story began very well and I was intrigued by the mystery surrounding Theo and also the mystery of why some of the islanders have a kind of sight that reveals the hidden scars on the skin of anyone on Seannay. There is also a storyline involving the historical witch trials on the Orkneys. The women who were killed were accused of communicating with the whales. Then there are the mysterious witch marks on the walls of the ghost house, protective engravings on the walls. There were so many fascinating facets to the story but sadly all of these tantalizing titbits are thrown out to lure the unsuspecting reader in, only to leave you frustrated and annoyed when halfway through it degenerates into a slow, ponderous, indulgent treatise on the awkward relationships between the family, and also Theo. None of the mysteries are concluded, none of the storylines actually go anywhere, and the ambivalent ending was an anticlimax to say the least. Even the gay romance that was presumably meant to be slow burn eventually just became frustrating. My favourite character was aunt Casandra, but even her story was not fleshed out and explained. The priest was a dangerous misogynist, and somehow a story that sets out to be empowering to women isn’t really.

The audiobook accents were brilliant. The first half of the book was a four to five star read, the second half probably two stars at best, so overall I’m going with three stars, but almost reluctantly, as the writer clearly has the skill to set out a great story, so why did she leave us high and dry? ( )

An initially promising narrative was drowned in a sea of overblown “aching” prose. The author is so enthralled with her characters—so preoccupied with documenting their every melodramatic move and mood, romanticized look and sigh—that she loses sight of her job to maintain readers’ interest in them. Belaboured. Repetitive. Tedious. Just dreadful. ( )