I bought this book for my seven year-old daughter, having read a couple of Dunmore's adult titles and knowing quite well the part of Cornwall in which the story is set. The book is an unmitigated joy: utterly captivating and - here is its genius - believable in a way that, say Harry Potter is not. Sapphy and Conor's entry in to the magical world of Ingo, the marine world that lies just off of the cove near their home, is told so imaginatively, yet credibly, that one cannot fail but to be drawn in to the story. The one problem with the book is that it is so gripping, is such a page-turner, that getting my daughter to put the book down and switch her light off at bedtime became even more difficult than normal.
Perhaps the strongest proof of the power of Dunmore's story-telling is that we have just returned from a Cornish holiday during which my daughter wanted to visit Zennor,try to find the cove, and see if she could find Faro and Elvira, the Mer-people, for herself. Perhaps, just perhaps, those silhouettes we could see at the foot of the rocky headland were them.....who knows! Buy this book, neither you nor your children will regret it.
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