Swimming with Seals

'This isn't really a book about swimming at all, but a book about how we are controlled by the voices of the dead; about how the whole of life is necessarily a seance. That's a humbling perspective' Five Books. 'She writes beautifully of selkies and mermaids' Guardian. 'The first thing that hooked me into this story was the sea ... An unusual [memoir]' Evening Standard. 'Absorbing and thrilling' Ella Foote, Outdoor Swimming. 'Intelligent, wide-reaching memoir ... somehow refreshing, and calming, even in its introspection' The Bookseller. 'A tale of redemption through nature and water's powerful ability to heal' Outdoor Photography. 'An eloquent celebration of swimming in the cold waters of Orkney and a fascinating memoir' Half Man Half Book. 'The author's descriptions of the coastline in Orkney and the savannah in Kenya, where she spent some of her childhood, are sharp and original ... enjoy wallowing in the richness of her theological, philosophical and literary knowledge' The National. 'Each little dreamlike postcard in this captivating book takes you deeper into the world novelist Victoria Whitworth experienced as a sea-swimmer in the wild waters of Orkney' Sainsbury's Magazine. 'Wonderfully evocative ... fascinating' The Scotsman. 'I finished this book wanting to find a cold lido, or jump into a lake, or walk into the cold sea and stay there for as long as I could stand it, and then do it again' Guardian. 'Attentive, astute and beautiful ... I adored it' Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun.