This short, standalone novel (a novella really) written in McKillip's usual beautiful yet elliptical style is exactly the sort of thing that I come to expect from her work.A lowly scullery maid, who's fisher father died at sea and who's mother is psychologically lost to the sea, hates the ocean and tries to put a hex on it but ends up becoming embroiled in powerful magic and the King's family who's one time tryst with the sea queen is coming back to haunt him.
Those who have read McKillip before will find the evocative prose and the opaque dialogue, in which the characters seem to talk around each other, quite familiar. Once again the emphasis is not on action but rather the emotional conflict and tension.
Not quite up to the standard of The Forgotten Beasts of Eld but a very good book nonetheless.