The novel takes place on Rollrock island and is told to a large extent from the perspective of the antihero, Misskaela.
Misskaela is rather plain young girl who comes from one of the many fishing families on the island of Rollrock. Life on the island is uneventful and the usual routines of country life, with most of the men on the island fishing for a living and the women staying home to take care of children. Most of the families on the island live in relative poverty, subsisted only by their income from fishing, and Missakaela's family is no exception.
However, Missakaela is a morbidly obese woman and is thus the object at which many of the villagers on the island poke fun at. Filled with vengeance, Missakaela heads out to the beach one day, where she finds that she magically possesses the ability to communicate with and command seals to shed their skin and appear on land in human form. Once on land, she is able to command the seal people to do her bidding. With this newfound knowledge, Missakaela engages in coitus with the seal man she just brought ashore.
Within 9 months, Missakaela gives birth to a half human half seal baby. She is able to hide her pregnancy from the rest of the villagers due to her obesity. However, she soon discovers that her baby cannot survive on land and needs to be returned to sea. She does so and in the process hatches a plan to take revenge on the villagers for mocking her all her life.
With her powers, she calls upon mystical seal women to come ashore, and sells them to the men of the island who are all smitten with the idea of having a gorgeous seal woman as a wife. This turns the remaining women on the island against Missakaela as they are now discarded by the men of the island, a fact that Missakaela revels in.
The men of the island keep the seal women ensnared ashore by hiding the seal skin from which they emerged. This prevents them from returning to seal form and much to their dismay, they are unable to return to sea. After some time, the seal women give birth to half human half seal children, who also share in the plight of their mothers.
Eventually, the seal women and their children rise up against oppression form their male human husbands and hatch a plot to steal back their seal coats. They are successful and the novel ends with them returning to sea with their children, leaving the men of the island with little left.
