Ingo

By Helen Dunmore

There is a legend in Cornwall of a man who fell in love with a mermaid, a man who swam down into the sea one night and met his Mer love. He was never seen again. Sapphire knows the legend well. Her father disappeared at sea, and now her brother, Conor, keeps vanishing by the shore, too. Sapphy also feels the inexorable lure of the ocean, a temptation that reveals the truth of the legend and opens a beautiful world beneath the waves: the enchanted, undersea realm known as Ingo.

But there’s a dark and dangerous side to Ingo, and Sapphy must face its power or lose touch with everything—and everyone—she loves on land.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 16, 2010
• ISBN: 9781443405829

Helen Dunmore

Helen Dunmore was an award-winning novelist, poet and children's writer, who will be remembered for the wisdom, lyricism, compassion and immersive beauty of her writing. In her lifetime, she published eight collections of poetry, many novels for both adults and children, and two collections of short stories. She won the Orange Prize for Fiction with her novel A Spell of Winter, and her novel The Siege was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Fiction.

Reviews for Ingo

[heatherlinc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a lovely story. The author did an amazing job of creating Ingo I loved her descriptions of this underwater world.

[jennafox-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well, Where do I start. I put four stares, for very good reasons. This is an amazing book that I wish it never ended, with adventure and thrilling chapters. You can never predict whats going to happening, and it's nothing you'll expect.They are a happy family with great lives, but that all changes once there dad does not come back from sailing out at sea. Everyone believes he is died, but not his daughter Sapphire, who knows he is still alive. Along side her big brother Conor, who also believes he is till alive, will stop at nothing to find there father. I would recommend this book to those sea lovers out there, and adventures people.

[mirandalg14 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Kind of slow. Not too entertaining.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sapphire and her brother Conor live in Cornwall beside the sea and tragedy starts the story with the disappearance of their father, when he goes out in his fishing boat. Then the story takes a stranger twist when the two children start meeting with Merrows or Merpeople, who take them to explore their strange underwater world and the two children have to make a choice between life on land and life in the water.It's an interesting exploration of the myths and legends of sea people and the relationship those people have with land-people. It's interesting and the story flowed well. I'm looking forward to exploring more stories by this author.

[aniroom042009 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ingo, is about a girl named Sapphire and her brother Conor.They by the sea in Cornwall.Conor starts dissapearing for hours.Sapphire, worried follows him to his location.Suprisingly it is at a cove.She hears voices, who is he talking to?the rocks?himself?Together they discove the world of Ingo-an dagerous wolrd beneath the surface of earth and the waves, all you can breath is adventure...

[aalibrarian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A different kind of fantasy , instead of the usual wizards, elves and pixies two young people are enticed into the sea by mer people. I highly recommend this story as it creatively explores the issue of pollution and how we care for the environment.

[jenson_aka_dl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sapphire and Connor have grown up on the coast of Cornwall with the ocean as a constant companion. Although their family wasn't always in harmony, they were always together. Connor like their mother and Sapphire like their father. Then one day their father went to the ocean and never returned. Now they're a family of three and Sapphire feels the emptiness in her life every day. Then something new came, a calling that Sapphire and Connor can feel in their bones. The call of another world that meets but is always separate from our own. An ocean world where mythology is real and secrets are discovered.I really enjoyed this story of another world which lives beside our own. I also liked the two main characters of Sapphire and her brother Connor. Although they did have the customary sibling squables I really thought the trust and support they showed to one another gave the story its emotional depth. The author has created an interesting and unique mythology of earth magic and sea magic which seems as though it might warrant re-visiting in the form of a sequel. Although the ending did seem that it could be finite many of the answers I thought we would discover at the end of the story were left to speculation, but this did not ruin my enjoyment of the story. I wouldn't hesitate recommending it to Harry Potter fans that might wish to venture into fantastic realms other than the wizarding one.

[marnattij · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sappy's father disappears one night into the sea under mysterious circumstances. Since then, she is drawn to the sea and discovers the Mer living right off the coast of Cornwall. In the first of a trilogy, Sappy learns of this new undersea land, realizes she is part of the Mer, and helps save the man who is courting her mother.It will be interesting to see where this trilogy is headed. The undersea world seems more realistic than that imagined for most mermaid stories and makes this pedestrian story more intriguing than it might otherwise be. Although a little draggy in parts, this book will be enjoyed by mermaid fans and by girls who enjoy strong female characters. Older elementary, middle school.

[oldbookswine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As Sappy and her brother search of their missing fisherman father, they learn of the domain of the mermaids/mermen and their connection to it.

[rivercassini · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Taking as its backdrop the deep romance of the Cornish coast, Ingo - the first volume of a planned trilogy for children- is a tale of enchantment and reality in equal measure, qualities which are reflected in the struggle between the worlds of land and sea. The young heroine's circumstances are very modern and very realistic: her father has apparently abandoned his family, leaving his wife to struggle to keep the family and finances afloat.But Sappy and her elder brother Conor know better. They don't believe the official explanation that he was lost at sea nor the whispers of neighbours that he has run off with another woman. Dunmore builds upon a traditional Cornish tale of a young man seduced by a mermaid. Sappy's longing for her father is infused with the tales her father told her of the mermaid of Zennor who fell for a human man but couldn't live with him on land. She would swim up the stream to hear him sing and then, one day, the young man swam out to sea with her to join the people of the Mer in their underwater forever. As Sappy and Conor take their search for their father to the edge of reality first Conor, and then Sappy, are enticed into the bewitching and mysterious world of the Mer by the enigmatic merman, Faro, and his mermaid sister.The sea and Ingo - the underwater world of the Mer - are powerful and ever-present: menacing for those who don’t understand or respect it, enchanting to those few who, like Sappy and Conor, know of its existence. Ingo is full of adventure and danger, steadily but surely rising to a magnificent and magical underwater battle which tests Conor and Sappy mentally and physically. Ingo builds on themes that will be resonant to many children today. Sappy's desire to go back to a time when childhood was innocent is something all can relate to and her difficulty in accepting her mother's new boyfriend will also strike a cord with many. The meat of the book is however in the struggle between to worlds, between two types of living, neither of which Sappy really understands.The plot is fast-paced and involving - a real page-turner. But there is enough of substance created by Dunmore's balance of reality and fantasy to provoke reflection among even the least imaginative of us. Parents will enjoy reading Ingo with their children as much as the youngest will enjoy keeping its magical world to themselves.This is the first Helen Dunmore's books I've read since A Spell of Winter, which won the very first Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996. I'm glad I did. Don't read this if you don't have room for another favourite book on your bookshelves because this one will demand a place.

[rjc146-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I really tried to read this book, but I just could not get into it. I mean what person who loves reading old stories with a new twist would pass up a story about mermaids? I certainly tried to read this book because I love anything mythical, but I couldn't get past the first couple of chapters. I can't even really remember what I did read. That's just sad :(