I am so glad I did – I loved this book! It’s a very simple story – after a girl’s father disappears and is believed drowned, she finds her brother beginning to be drawn irresistibly to the sea as well. I’ve been meaning to read this book for so long, but only picked it up this month because I was doing a talk on retellings of mermaid tales, and thought I should catch up on recent additions to the genre. But when her brother, Conor, starts disappearing for hours on end, Sapphy starts to believe she might not be the only one who hears the call of the ocean.
Perhaps that is why she imagines herself being pulled like a magnet toward the sea. She misses him terribly, and she longs to hear his spellbinding tales about the Mer, who live in the underwater kingdom of Ingo. Sapphire's father mysteriously vanishes into the waves off the Cornwall coast where her family has always lived. Altogether a thoughtful book with emotional resonance.I wish I was away in Ingo, Far across the sea, Sailing over the deepest waters, Where love nor care can trouble me.
The under-the-sea imagery is elegantly handled. Loss and language are poetically blended. Dunmore's sense of place, of the natural world, is particularly evocative. The marine imagery gives the story a wonderful sprinkling of the nautical and the magical.
Publishing NewsĪn enchanting, modern twist on the Hans Christian Anderson story of the little mermaid. It's a haunting, beautifully written book which creates a totally believable parallel world. Helen Dunmore is an exceptional and versatile writer and she writes with a restrained, sensual grace. Helen Dunmore may have a few drowned readers on her conscience, so enticing and believable is the underwater world she creates in Ingo. The electric thrill of swimming with dolphins, of racing along currents, and of leaving the world of reason and caution behind are described with glorious intensity. Ingo has a haunting, dangerous beauty all of its own. Though the first in a series, this book works perfectly as a standalone title, with a satisfying resolution but enough left hanging in the air to make the characters and situations live on in the reader's mind.
As ever, Dunmore's characters are beautifully drawn.
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