Ingo

This novel opens with the story of a mermaid and a tragic relationship with a human creating the tension of the two worlds to be explored here. Sapphy and Conor lose their father in a presumed drowning but as they begin to be drawn into a magical world within the sea and experience Ingo, the hope remains that their father is still alive. There are many pleasures: the creation of that underwater world and the effects of moving between worlds, the wise Granny Carne and the talking with bees, all magical. It has sections where the power of fantasy is suddenly striking, often in sudden images such as the eyes of the owl, and the physical presence of creatures. It is the humans who are less plausible and, despite the flashes when the fantasy comes alive, the real world upon which it hangs is often pedestrian, the dialogue plain and repetitive. There is a sequence promised but this is one occasion where you are left wishing the fantasy hadn’t been spread so thinly. AJ