Review Blog

Jul 11 2012

Stormswept by Helen Dunmore

HarperCollins, 2012. ISBN 9780007455416.
(Age: 11+) Highly recommended. Morveren lives with her parents and twin sister Jenna on an island near Cornwall, a place that is completely surrounded by the ocean except at low tide. One day, Morveren finds a teenage boy in a rock pool down by the sea, stranded after a storm. Going to his rescue, she is amazed to find that he is not human, but a Mer boy. Her sister Jenna, the sensible one, refuses to face the truth, until their Air and Mer worlds collide.  
This is the fifth book in the award-winning Ingo Chronicles, although it doesn't begin where the last book left off. Instead, it involves exciting new characters in the same world. This is good, as it makes the story more refreshed while keeping the same familiarity of the past four books. Helen Dunmore has a knack for writing beautifully lyrical prose that suits the themes of the book perfectly, as most of this story takes place in or around the ocean. This is the main thing that will draw you into the book: incredibly vivid descriptions of majestic underwater worlds. It's an excellently written novel.
The book is a little hard to get into at first, but once the fascinating underwater world of Ingo is introduced, it's a book you simply cannot put down. The author has managed to weave a very convincing and utterly enchanting world that will have you guessing what really lies in the depths of the ocean.
A fantastic read from a very talented author, this is a book that will cast a spell over you with beautifully vivid descriptions of another world.
I highly recommend this book.
Rebecca Adams (Student)