Susan Richardson travelled round the coast of Britain following the breeding season of the seals which oddly occurs at different times, being later as you go round clockwise. I really enjoyed the history and mythology of human interactions with seals and discovering how conservation and education about the species varies depending on the human land ownership of the seals different breeding, moulting and haul out sites. 
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 The book unfortunately also follows Richardson's private life and her dad's health problems. Her writing could not make me care about her as much as I cared about seals and by the end I was skim reading the personal sections. When she started relating her and some other upper-middle class white women's shamanic rituals I decided she wasn't for me and should spend more time learning about cultural appropriation than seals!
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 If it was just a book about seals I'd really recommend it as the nature writing is excellent but the memoir aspect was dull and her constant comparison of her dad to a rehabilitated seal was weird and felt like she was trying too hard to make two very separate stories meld together.