A Glass Darkly: An Ingamald Fantasy

Susan Kemp is an instructor at the Queen’s School of English,
Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.

Ingamald (2001), the first book in the Ingamald trilogy, introduces
readers to a 16-year-old budding witch who ends up eating her mother, a
cruel sorceress bent on destroying everything. In the second book, A
Winter’s Tale (2004), Ingamald, now a powerful witch, takes on the
formidable Morton Winter, who is trying to control the people of her
world, Hinterlьnd. In A Glass Darkly, Hinterlьnd is frozen, and it is
up to Ingamald and her young charge, the six-fingered (on each hand)
Yda, to find a means to thaw it. To do this they must pass through a
glass device created by the evil Lord Winter into the land of Gyllden, a
mysterious otherworld. But the mere fact of undertaking such a journey
is fraught with peril—children are disappearing in Gyldden.

Strong principal and secondary characters (including a long-winded
librarian, some carnival performers, and talking trees) and well-written
prose hold the reader’s attention from the beginning to the end of
this wonderful fantasy. Though the story can be read as a stand-alone,
reading the first two books will definitely make reading the third one a
richer experience.

Gail Sobat is a teacher in Edmonton, and the founder and coordinator of
a summer writing camp for young people. A Winter’s Tale was a finalist
for the Ontario Library Association’s White Pine Award. A Glass Darkly
is highly recommended.