Isabel brings a lot of secrets with her to her very humble new home in Cornwall. One might think that a young widow would know not to bring all of those secrets to a small village where no one has anything else to do other than to fish and peddle rumors. But this little no-where village is where she was found as a child eighteen years earlier. Now that there’s nothing left to hold her to her previous life, Isabel returns with a faint hope that she might at last find out where she came from. The Sea Child, by Linda Wilgus, is a delightful romp: romance, smugglers, and possibly a mermaid.
Our protagonist is used to a much more comfortable life before she came to the cottage that locals refer to, cheerfully, as the old pilchard shed. As the adopted daughter of a wealthy admiral and the wife of a rising naval officer, she’s always had servants to cook and clean for her. All of that is gone, with her adopted father and husband dead. Worse, it’s more than gone, since her husband left so much debt that Isabel only has a parsimonious widow’s pension to keep her. Isabel is made of stern stuff. She may be daunted but she finds friends who are willing to teach her how to take care of herself and her cottage. I couldn’t help but admire her.
Adventure arrives soon for Isabel when a Revenue Officer (law enforcement officials mostly tasked with fighting smuggling) knocks on the door and thoroughly creeps out Isabel (and me). Almost as soon as the Isabel gets rid of the officer and his warnings about lawless bandits in the area, one of those bandits is dragged through the door by his crew. The man, Jack, has been shot through the abdomen. Even though he’s bleeding all over sheets she doesn’t yet know how to wash, Isabel is much more sympathetic to Jack. She takes care of him and hides him long enough to escape the law.
All of this happens in just the first few chapters of The Sea Child and the plot never really lets up. Isabel gets further tangled up with Jack and his smugglers while dodging the weirdly persistent (and surprisingly bloodthirsty) officer Sowerby. Our protagonist wrestles briefly with the ethics of helping criminals before landing firmly on their side after Sowerby proves himself to be utterly repellant. She hardly has any time to dig into the stories around her rescue; most of the locals unhelpfully think she might be the daughter of a supernatural sea creature.
This book was a lot of fun to read, though I wish the mystery of Isabel’s origins had gotten more time.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.
