To be a selkie... For orphaned Silas, it's welcome oblivion to loneliness and grief, but instinct keeps forcing him back to human form, first to conceive a daughter, and later to guard and deliver her sealskin. For Silas's daughter Alise, it's a cage she can't escape, stalked by obsessive Elliot who hopes to possess her by stealing her pelt, and madly in love with Douglas who has no idea his young wife is a selkie. For Alise's daughter Ellie, it's a death sentence, unless she can find her missing sealskin before a weakening illness destroys her. The fate of three generations of selkies depends on the success of Ellie's quest, the power of love and desire, and a spell for calling a selkie back to land: Seven tears in the sea.