Indigo Springs by A.M. Dellamonica – review

By now, some of you may already know that Indigo Springs has won the Sunburst Award. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has already read the book. There is a lot of excellent work here in the building of the magic and in the writing itself.

The novel begins by introducing the characters Will, Astrid, and Patience in what would be the story’s present day. Much of the tale is told to the reader as Astrid is telling it to Will. His job is to probe her for information on how to track down her childhood friend Sahara Knax, but he also has a personal stake in Sahara’s capture. His wife has fallen prey to her message, taking their children with her when she disappeared to join the Alchemite cult. Will hopes to see them again, but until Sahara is in hand, he has no way to know where his family is or whether they’re even alive.

However, despite this being the underlying reason for hearing the tale, the reader learns relatively little about Will’s predicament throughout the course of the story. Instead, much of the action takes place in the past, and the bulk of the novel details the trouble caused when Astrid discovers (or, rather, rediscovers) magic after inheriting her father’s house.

Dellamonica renders her story in quick, efficient prose. There is more dialogue between the characters than there is pure narrative. When narration and description are called for, however, the author only gives you enough to set the scene or move the action. These passages are minimal yet full of sensory description. Depending on the style you prefer, this may take some getting used to. As for myself, I enjoyed the economy of words.

Most praised, I believe, has been the magic in Indigo Springs. Dellamonica certainly takes a different route with her vitagua. The manifestation of the magic is not what one might expect, but it is aptly named. The history of magic blends into the story well as Astrid slowly uncovers the secrets of vitagua and of her own father’s life, which was masterfully masked by the assumptions others made about him.

The small town feeling is authentic, as well, and those who hail from towns similar to Indigo Springs will understand what I mean. That said, there’s not a huge amount of work put into the setting. There really doesn’t have to be. The majority of the action takes place in Astrid’s house in the past or in her containment cell in the present. While there’s some small bit of roaming in the city, it’s not so much that it needed to be described at length. And, then, there’s Dellamonica’s economical style to contend with. The story doesn’t suffer for this, however–the reader is told exactly as much as needed. Since this is a “modern” setting, the rest is easily filled in.

Now, with all that said, and all the positives of the book pointed out, I have to say that this novel didn’t particularly work for me. I liked the magic and the setting and the concept, but to me it felt slow. I suspect this had to do with the framed style. Generally, I don’t like the majority of a novel to take place as past recollection—at least, not in the back-and-forth method of storytelling used here. Because we were constantly alternating between the past and present, I was too much aware of the fact that the more immediate dangers were not included in the main story. I was much more interested in the “present” situation, where Will dealt with a strange and heavily altered Astrid, and where their facility was coming under attack. If Astrid’s story had been revealed as part of some progressive action during that present timeline, I might have liked it more. But to have more than half of the novel function as a flashback was a problem for me–I continually wanted to return to Will and Astrid in the confinement cell.

Also, I didn’t like Sahara. And I don’t mean that I progressively came to dislike her. I mean, I disliked her from the get go. From the moment she stepped onto the page, I absolutely didn’t like anything about her. Now, I suppose, there’s no particular reason why I should have liked her. Her personality was patently obvious from the beginning. But I suppose this is where I drag all of my personal experience to the novel. I’ve known people like Sahara. I suspect everyone has known someone like Sahara. And while you like them enough when they’re around, since they’re very charming, you eventually find that they’re sort of awful deep down.

However, I do recognize that her personality is tied into one of the themes of Indigo Springs—the consequence of greed—so, of course, she’s essential. But that doesn’t mean I have to like her more. All in all, the three main characters (Astrid, Sahara, and Jacks) play off each other wonderfully, each possessing a different opinion of how much magic they should use and whether using it at all is a safe thing to do. I found their behavior realistic when faced with such a strange and unexpected discovery.

Overall, Indigo Springs is fascinating and fresh in terms of the story and magic. It’s well-written and promises a potentially good sequel (Blue Magic, forthcoming in 2011), though you’ll have to decide for yourself whether or not the alternating time element works for you. As for myself, I have every expectation that the next book will feature more activity in the “present day,” which may just entice me to read it. The last few pages of Indigo Springs intrigued me the most, and I would like to know what happens to the world now that the vitagua has been unleashed.