Which Selkie Books Retell Scottish Myths With Romance?

Stories about ancient heroes are often told as either character studies or as plot-driven epics. I think both are valuable and in the market today you can get your fill of either kind of story. The character studies make the ancient figures feel like people you know, with a complex interior life and many motivations. The plot-driven epics capture the sweep, scale and politics that made these stories the template for much fantasy. Some times I want to read a heart-wrenching, tragic love story about Patroclus, and other times I want to read about a siege, with great siege engines and huge battles. Thankfully there is plenty of both on the market.

Right now I’m reading ‘Court of Mist and Fury’ by Sarah J. Maas. It’s the sequel to ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ and I am absolutely loving it right now. The characters’ emotions are so intense to read in this book and the stakes are even higher than before. Plus the romance is getting even better which is making it hard to put down. Another darker but equally as romantic book is ‘Shadow and Bone’ by Leigh Bardugo. I really enjoyed this because it had just the right mix of magic and adventure, and I loved how the characters got pulled into the world and the epic journey that they were on. Plus there was just the right amount of romantic tension to make it a super binge-worthy read and have me turning page after page.

One of the most satisfying historical romances to read is one that defies most expectations of the genre. Courtney Milan’s The Duke Who Didn’t is a Regency romance about a Chinese-British duke who falls for a woman from a Hakka village in rural England. The woman makes sauce for a living. The book is joyful and funny and treats with depth the realities of being a person of color in 19th century England without letting that become too depressing for the romance at hand. The historical research about Hakka communities in England is great and very fresh. The novel follows the long-held crush of a man on a woman. He secretly identifies with her, and they share a common cultural heritage. It is a very warm, clever, and deeply romantic novel, which explores in a thoughtful manner the history of a people of color in a bygone era. In short, a perfect escape read that is also very perceptive.

Of the many interpretations of mythology that Miller wrote, ‘Circe’ is perhaps most notable in that it treats mythology as a character study, rather than simply as symbol or monster. For the most part, the book is quiet and minor in terms of action: the title character tends herbs, talks to mortals, grapples with the difficulties of being immortal. The episodic re-reading of familiar myths, such as Odysseus’s visit to the magician, is experienced from her point of view. The stories are reimagined as intimate memoir, with crisp and modern prose that preserves the ancient setting of the myth.

Manga and manhwa have a very different take on Greek myths, and again there’s a huge range of ‘steam’ levels, from pretty risqué Josei and mature-audience manga to seriously hardcore stuff. Notable for their emotional and extremely sensual ‘steam’ is Lore Olympus (Webtoon), but there’s loads more where that came from – try browsing Webtoon for more, and looking for mature manga anthologies for even more of a mythological fix with lots of naughty bits. The way the tension builds up in a manga or manhwa is a totally different animal from a novel, and is largely based in the artwork and the way the characters look at each other – even more so than in a prose work, where the tension is mostly in the words.

I read the Tales in high school, but I never really got it. They bored me to tears, and I was generally confused as to why they existed in the first place. Maybe now that there are modern adaptations, I can finally appreciate the old man through one of them. Anyone else appreciate the Tales later in life through an adaptation?

Pride by Ibi Zoboi, it's a Pride and Prejudice retalling as a Black romance. Children of Blood and Bones by Tomi Adeyemi, African Fantasy/Mythology which also has romance. Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, Black romance really beautifully and lyrically written. As someone who's not typically a fan of romance, this book is really good.

Mythology can vary greatly from source to source, and I had always researched the fight between Ares and Apollo to be in relation to the legendary warrior Achilles. Apollo guided the arrow of Paris to kill the great warrior, and Ares was fighting on the side of the Trojans in the war. Their battle seems to be merely an extension of that war, and not some kind of personal vendetta between the two gods. In addition, the god Ares, who was fighting on the side of the Trojans, was responsible for the slaughter of one of the sacred serpents of the god Apollo. As mentioned before, the gods are very petty, and the grudge between Apollo and Ares was never really resolved. Their fundamental nature is in opposition to each other. Apollo embodies order, light and reason, whereas Ares embodies the exact opposite: random, senseless and brutal violence. It was only natural that these two gods were destined to clash at some point, either physically or morally. It’s not really a matter of why they fight each other, it’s more a case of the opposing cosmic principles that they are manifesting colliding.

Oh, the novels of Renaissance romance are just so beautifully, magically crafted to contain so much passion and politics and poetry. One of my absolute favorites of all time has to be The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, which, yes, is rather outside the mainstream of typical romance novels in being very dark indeed. Yet it is such an utterly fascinating and so very intense novel, and this particularly in terms of its exploration of the power of love. Written as it was by a playwright (of another epoch), the novel offers a powerful sense of drama, and remains as forceful and as moving as ever. As for arcadian romance, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit by John Lyly is another absolute treasure, above all for the dialogues which are so full of wit and of sparkle. For a more grounded exploration of the tortured conflicting feelings of love, however, it would be hard to think of anything better than Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney. The rather cardboard characters in this sprawling, rather idealized novel of a half-dozen or so love stories all involving rather knight-like shepherds are so beautifully and imperiously mapped out against the backdrop of a completely fictional idyllic rural context, with all their conversations consisting of the sharpest and wisest repartee, and their glances at each other swimming with hidden meanings. Another different approach to the romance novel of the Renaissance era is found in ‘Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit’ by John Lyly. Most readers would consider it to be outside the genre of romance yet there are many great dialogues regarding the complexities of love and friendship. For something totally different, maybe one of the most celebrated poems of the Renaissance era would be ‘The Faerie Queene’ by Edmund Spenser. Written as an allegorical romance featuring knights, damsels, enさ chantresses and fantastical quests, it is a magnificent read with lots of romance woven throughout the very moral tales of the imaginary land of Faerie. Yes, it is written in a very rich and dense language but after a while you can fall into its rhythm and be transported by a mighty wave of beautiful poetry. I love Renaissance romances, including their imperfections. The great love stories of the past are not as neat as modern tales with happy endings. Rather, they are fraught with the agony and politics of love and contain many unpredictable human interactions. Every time I return to a book I have read before, I discover something new about the human experience and the time period in which the author lived.

Occasionally I will shift to a more contemplative study of the myth of Sisyphus. We form a circle of chairs and dim the lights. There are books leaning against the walls, including a well-worn copy of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. Students of all ages arrive for tea and for thoughtful discussion. We first study the mythology of Sisyphus in order to gain insight into the myths that were used in order to caution or inspire individuals to ponder the ethics of their actions and the nature of their existence. After that, we read the section of The Myth of Sisyphus in which Camus reinterprets the myth. Sisyphus is pushed to exert himself to roll the rock up to the top of a mountain only to have it roll back down. He represents the absurdly driven individual in search of meaningful purpose in a seemingly indifferent universe. After that first foray into the literary terrain of the myth of Sisyphus, we move into thematic stations. We look at how we can use the myth of Sisyphus to understand existential concepts by looking at examples of people who engage in repetitive tasks and have jobs with low rewards and high pressure. We look at the historical representation of the figure of Sisyphus in various cultures through different artistic media, poetry, film and visual art. We can also use the myth of Sisyphus to think about pedagogy and civic engagement and to explore ways in which the myth can be used to discuss issues of resilience without glorifying burnout. This could involve students writing short position pieces or public facing posts to communicate their take on the issue to a younger audience or to the broader local community. Ideas could be developed into a podcast episode, a zine or an illustrated thread of tweets, all of which would help students to translate complex abstract philosophical ideas into language and formats that are more suited to everyday life. Much of this work gets evaluated on a reflection dikke to application basis. So I look for students to demonstrate clear thought, creativity and empathy in whatever form they choose to express themselves. Does the student’s work reveal an understanding of the myth and its connection to real life situations? Can one see that the student has also taken into consideration several points of view? Does their piece of work evoke a response or an invitation to others to enter into the work and explore it for themselves? Occasionally I wrap up our time together with a small ritual: I ask each student to write down one thing they will ‘keep pushing’ this week. These notes get collected up anonymously and sometime later in the week we read a few of them out loud in class. It’s a small but powerful move of solidarity that leaves us all in silence and hope for a little while after.