A Glass Darkly: An Ingamald Fantasy

Description

188 pages
$14.95
ISBN 1-894283-69-4
DDC jC813'.54

Year

2006

Contributor

Reviewed by Susan Kemp

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

Review

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.

Citation

Sobat, Gail Sidonie., “A Glass Darkly: An Ingamald Fantasy,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed October 14, 2024, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/22949.