FernFolio

Sapphire and her older brother, Conor, live with their parents in a small cottage at the edge of the sea.  Together, Sapph and Conor spend their summers climbing down the cliffs to the small sandy cove near their home, where they explore the narrow caves, study the tidal pools, swim in the ocean, and eat picnics on the beach.  Though they must watch for the changing tide, so they won’t be caught by the its rip and swept out to sea, the two stick close together, looking out for each other, as they have promised their parents.
Their father, Mathew Trewhella, a fisherman and photographer, shares their love of the sea, but cautions them to respect it; their mother, Jennie, is terrified of it, having been told long ago by a fortune-teller that she would die by drowning.  Though her parents occasionally fight about Mathew’s fascination with the sea, and her mother’s fears, the family seems happy enough until one summer, when Sapphire is ten, Mathew go out in his boat, the Peggy Gordon, and never returns.  After the Coast Guard’s search ends, and the Peggy Gordon is found wrecked upon the rocks, the family is forced to accept that Mathew Trewhella is dead.
Their father has been gone just over a year, and Sapph is still struggling to adjust to the changes his absence have brought to the family.  Her mother, who used to be at home full time, is struggling to pay the bills by working long hours as a waitress.  Her mother’s growing friendship with Roger, a diver, has Sapph feeling resentful and uncertain.  When Conor starts avoiding her to spend long hours on his own down in the cove, Sapph follows him and discovers that him talking with a dark-haired girl out on the rocks.  Confronted by his sister’s assertion that he’s been gone for hours, Conor seems bewildered.
When her brother takes off on his own again, Sapph returns to the cove and find a boy Conor’s age sitting on the rocks.  The boy beckons and she joins him, only to discover that he isn’t a boy at all, but one of the Mer folk, half boy and half seal.  Faro tells Sapph that Conor is away in Ingo with his sister, Elvira, and invites her to go there with him.  With her hand on his wrist, the two dive into the sea and swim into an alien world of breathtaking beauty that enchants Sapph.  With Faro’s careful coaching, she discovers that she can survive in Ingo without air, and that she seems to understand what the Mer folk are saying. Indeed, at times she feels that she can even comprehend the fish and the dolphins.
But the more time she spends in Ingo, the more Sapph struggles to remember her life up in Air, her mother, her brother, Conor, and the cottage.  When she returns home, the hours and days seem out of balance; at times, long hours passed in Ingo are minutes on land, at others, short visits with Faro have her brother frantic with worry, trying to explain away her absence of more than twenty-four hours to their mother.  Though Conor has enjoyed his visits away in Ingo, the underwater world exercises a pull on Sapph that she finds increasingly hard to resist.  When he brother insists that she stop her visits to Ingo, Sapph is torn between her love for Conor, and her need to escape the sadness and confusion of her father’s disappearance in the oblivion of the sea.  Then danger threatens the family’s fragile stability, and Sapph must make a final, desperate journey away to Ingo.
Written by Helen Dunsmore, Ingo is a beautiful and moody story about grief and loss, and a girl’s journey in search of understanding and acceptance.  Sapphire, her brother, Conor, and their Mer friends, Faro and Elvira, are nuanced characters whose strengths and weaknesses are entirely credible and compelling.  Ingo is magic!
FernFolio Editor