The Brides of Rollrock Island

Praise

Publishers Weekly Best of Children’s Books 2012

Kirkus Reviews Best of Teen’s Books 2012

Tor.com, September 1, 2012:
“I’ve not been more moved by a book in years…It’s a wistful book, but wondrous. It will break your heart, and remake it.”

Starred Review, Booklist, June 1, 2012:
“A haunting, masterfully crafted novel that, as one should by now expect from Lanagan, isn’t a bit like anything else.”

Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2012:
“Bracing, powerful, resonant. . . . Earthy, vigorous characters and prose ground the narrative in the world we know, yet its themes are deep as the sea.”

Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, July 2, 2012:
“Powerful. . . . A beautifully written story featuring a thoroughly realized setting and cast.”

Starred Review, The Horn Book, September/October 2012:
“Lanagan’s world is busily, passionately alive. Seal, human, sea, sky, and the rocks themselves animate this powerful story, a blend of folk tale and pungent, sharply observed—or invented—regionality.”

Starred Review, The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, September 2012:
“Like Lanagan’s previous Tender Morsels, this eerie, evocative story breathes mesmerizing life into familiar fairy-tale constructs as it explores issues of power, agency, culpability, freedom, and love within a deceptively quiet atmosphere of intimate horror.”

School Library Journal, September 2012:
“Lanagan’s writing is undeniably gorgeous. Her phrases and pacing almost demand that readers stop and admire their beauty…A natural audience would be readers who enjoyed the literary qualities of Christina Meldrum’s Madapple, Franny Billingsley’s Chime, and E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News.”

“I am in thrall to Margo Lanagan’s voice. This is a marvelous book, full of magic and cunning.” ―Kelly Link, award-winning author of Stranger Things Happen, and founder of Small Beer Press
 
“Margo Lanagan’s writing is dangerously beautiful; it knows how to dance, and it knows how to fight.” ―Mal Peet, winner of the Carnegie Medal for Tamar
 
“A brilliantly written and fascinating novel from the weird but wonderful mind of Margo Lanagan.” ―Garth Nix, bestselling author of the Old Kingdom Chronicles
 
“Breathtaking. Margo Lanagan raises the bar with every story she tells.” ―Melina Marchetta, winner of the Printz Award for Jellicoe Road