At the age of only ten, Iris lost her mother in a fire that yielded more clouds of smoke encircled in mystery and unanswered questions than it did flames from the smoldering building. Her mother, Katherine, was a published author of two books – books about the world of fantasy and mythological Selkie creatures of Irish origins. Little Iris laps up these stories each evening as her mother tucks her in and never tired of the tale that always began “In a time before the rivers were drowned by the sea, in a land between the sun and the moon….”

There is a mystery to be solved – many, in fact – but the beauty of the story (at least for me) was in the picturesque fables that unfolded on the pages of this book as Iris’ mother’s stories of old were seductively retold. It was in the midst of the sea foam and the spray of the ocean’s mist upon the rocks that you capture your first glimpse of the Selkies (or at least in your own imagination) and you can completely understand the fascination that could be born in the mind of a child exposed to these stories.

It is somewhere between the Land of Nod, when a mind is mere inches from drifting off to slumber, and the first light of dawn peeking its head over the horizon that you realize maybe – just maybe – these stories are projecting more than a fairy tale but instead, the life of a girl-turned-woman in disguise.

The story is immersed in images of hotels - old hotels, antiquated hotels, some with years of neglect and the inability to modernize to today’s standards, and yet you feel at home between their walls and breathtaking views. But some hotels hold secrets – etched, buried and otherwise. Iris’ father was a manager of Hotel Equinox – a hotel that lies at the center of the story in an area hardly touched by time. Like its name, Hotel Equinox is equally protecting secrets founded in the day and in the night and the truth lies “in a land between the sun and the moon….”