Customer Reviews

Indigo Springs

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That magic has unexpected, even perilous, consequences is not a new theme. It far predates my first encounter with it, which was Edward Eager's charming 1954 children's book Half Magic. In Indigo Springs, however, Dellamonica brings this theme to vivid--cobalt blue, in fact--contemporary life.

Unfolded in a narrative structure that at first seems fractured but reveals itself to be beautifully knitted together, Indigo Springs is the story of what happens when Astrid Lethewood and two friends discover the transformative powers of a magical spring once guarded by Astrid's father. Hint: An early allusion to the "sorcerer's apprentice" is not misplaced. The novel is also an exploration of the ties that bind families and friends, and the ways in which secrets and power can unravel those ties, or tighten them. In a style that is both lucid and rich in compelling images, Dellamonica describes a world in which reality teeters on the rim of the unreal and an alchemical war plays out in the blogosphere and on YouTube. Key characters change--or are changed--in remarkable ways, but the heart of the story is Astrid's awakening. Highly recommended.

After reading through some of the reviews I got the impression that this book was about a crazy old man that had blue magic in his basement. It's so much more than that, and so much better than it seems. Indigo Springs is one of the most unique and riveting urban fantasy books I've ever read. It's not told from start to finish, the past is mixed up with the present, and the main character, Astrid, is having a hard time keeping them straight. She's in jail for heinous crimes, and a negotiator is trying to get information on a cult leader, Astrid's friend, Sahara. The reader gets the impression that Astrid is crazy, and it seems like everyone else in her past is pretty out there as well. As the story goes on we learn more about her, get all the information on the story, and possibly change our mind about her sanity. Every character is strong, but has flaws. They are enjoyable to read about, though their actions make you want to jump through the page and yell at them to stop sometimes. The blue gooey magic is very unique, and it's use comes with consequences. The tale of Astrid exploring uses for the magic is exciting and intriguing, and I couldn't put it down. I highly recommend this book for urban fantasy fans. It may not have the action on every page kick butt heroines you are used to, but it has something more, a believable heartfelt story with deep interesting characters.

Astrid is a wizard-well tapper -- she can access the vitagua, or spirit water, that is the essence of magic. However, her ability to control the liquid is unstable, and the more she uses it, the more unstable she becomes, losing her grasp on time and reality. Pushed too far by friends who want to use the magic for their own ends, her control slips, and she unleashes the magical equivalent of a nuclear holocaust in her small town. Somehow, she has to figure out how to pick up the pieces and make things right.

I remember watching the Dungeons and Dragons movie in the theater and being completely disappointed in it, and then seeing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shortly thereafter and thinking, "This is what Dungeons and Dragons should have been." While reading Indigo Springs, I kept thinking, "This is what the X-Files movie should have been." Indigo Springs reads like an episode of X-Files in the best possible sense, masterfully conveying the sense that your version of reality is a very thin veneer over a terrifying truth. Told through a dual series of flashbacks, A.M. Dellamonica builds a remarkable amount of tension that builds throughout the story, as Astrid is being questioned by military officers who are trying to figure out what to do about Sahara, one of Astrid's friends, who has set herself up as an avenging goddess of the environment with her new magical abilities. The explanation for the existence of magic and its disappearance over the centuries taps into historical reality in a way that makes this book feel more like science fiction than the fantasy novel it is. The characters are well drawn, and the sniping between Astrid's friends as they compete for her attention and abilities resonates believably.

However, Dellamonica struggles with maintaining that tension. The story fizzles a little towards the end, as the flashbacks unfold with little new to reveal that hasn't been hinted at before. The final showdown, however, is appropriately dramatic, as Astrid takes responsibility for all that she has let loose on the world. There are also some jumps in the story that aren't well explained -- the wrapping up of the Marlowe story line seems rushed and illogical; gaining memories from touching objects isn't well explained either -- and some abilities manifest inconsistently, such as Astrid's ability to control the vitagua in her own body.

All in all, Indigo Springs is a gripping read with an interesting take on the creation of magical artifacts, and the history of magical abilities in this world. I am looking forward to seeing what Dellamonica does with the next installment of this series. Recommended for fans of contemporary fantasy.

It's the well-crafted, nuanced characters that really make Indigo Springs work. Astrid is an introverted twenty-something in a small Oregon town, desperately in love with her best friend Sahara, a flighty force of nature who has just reappeared in Astrid's life after a bad breakup on the other side of the country. Jackson is an Earthy, grounded hippie who has nursed a crush on Astrid for years, but knows that her affections lay elsewhere. When the three of them discover magically enchanted objects left behind by Astrid's father, the mystery of those objects' origins begins to unravel, ALONG WITH THE VERY FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE.

Indigo Springs had been called Eco Fantasy, but I'm a little hesitant to label it that way, because the term conjures images of some kind of Fern Gully fairy tale, where magic saves the world from global warming or some such. In this book, magic IS the blight, set loose upon the world after careful stewardship gives way to greed, love and other human frailties. It's a unique take on mixing the fantastic with the mundane world, and gives Indigo Springs an incredible sense of urgency.

Early on, the book actually started to remind me of Katherine Dunn's brilliant Geek Love. The lovestruck narrator, the private world set apart from the rest of society, the growing sense of inevitable tragedy (no spoiler here -- Indigo Springs opens with Astrid in a government cell, being interviewed by those trying to prevent an alchemical epidemic from spreading). But while Dunn's book traded in circus freaks and shock value, Indigo Springs has a much gentler core. The magic feels so real because the people do.

Indigo Springs is self-contained, and comes to a satisfying conclusion, but leaves SO MUCH left to be explored. The good news is, a sequel is on the way. Sign me up for Blue Magic as soon as it hits the stands!

"Indigo Springs" is a fantasy novel set in the real world and tells the story of the town of Indigo Springs and a young woman who discovered real magic there.

All I have to say is, wonderful. That's not true, I have much more to say. :)

I bought this book because I had read the reviews and was interested in how fantasy or "other worldliness" could be interwoven into a real world setting without being gimmicky. I guess, I planned to read it for technique. But what I found in these pages was a world wind adventure! The characters were authentic and believable, their discoveries plausible and the story brilliant. When I finished it, I wanted to follow the characters off of the pages to see what was next for them.

"Indigo Springs" delivered more than what I expected because in addition to the apocalypse, the ghost story of the town, and magic, it was also about friendship and loyalty, power and love and doing the right thing no matter the cost.

A.M. Dellamonica did a wonderful job of weaving the story together through different time lines and created a beautiful world that was rich in detail. There was no moment where I felt I couldn't see my way around a scene or felt the details were overdone.

Reading "Indigo Springs" was like watching one of my favorite sci-fi or fantasy movies, it was easy to watch, understandable and in the end I was fulfilled.

I highly recommend it.

This book gave me weird dreams, which can can only recommend it as hauntingly atmospheric. It has strange, startling details and a protagonist at once ordinary and fascinating. Astrid Lethewood brings to mind Diana Wynne Jones' Sophie Hatter - casually enchanting every day objects, and at times willfully blind to her own power. The smoke and mirrors of an alternate reality leaching into "the real world" reveal Astrid, initially wavering, hapless and recklessly hopeful, as a woman who has come to understand herself. How she comes to power, and what she does with it, make for a compelling read, and I am awaiting the promised sequel, Blue Magic.

Indigo Springs is a first novel by a writer who has been publishing short fiction for nearly two decades. It shows the skill of someone who has long practiced in making words do what she wants them to do, and also the inexperience of a first-time novelist who has a great idea but doesn't exactly know how to execute it. It's a terrific story with new ideas and a unique magic system that works. With a stronger structure and a more coherent ending, this would have been a contender for major prizes. As it stands, it is fun to read and offers great promise of even better work to come.

The story is told mostly in flashbacks, a tale told by a prisoner to a law enforcement agent who has been tasked with finding out where the prisoner's extremely dangerous friend might be, and what can be done to stop her. The agent, Will Forrest, tells us his portion of the tale, which takes place in the present, in the first person. The flashbacks are told in a third person voice, with the prisoner, Astrid, as the viewpoint character. Astrid has recently returned to her home town, Indigo Springs, to live in the house she has inherited from her father. Her stepbrother, Jackson, an artist, also lives in the house; and soon Sahara, her best friend, arrives, on the run from her cheating boyfriend in the car she has stolen from him.

Astrid's relationships with her two housemates are complicated. Jacks is in love with her, and she is in love with Sahara, who uses that love to manipulate her. This would be bad enough in a real-life situation, but it gets incredibly complicated when you add magic to the mix. Astrid has long been a magic apprentice, but she has mostly forgotten about her father's work with her and vitagua, an indigo blue liquid that is the essence of magic. Her memories start to return when she discovers her father's cache of "chantments," small items that have been enchanted to accomplish magic tasks, such as a lipstick that makes the wearer beautiful or a scrub brush that cleans a kitchen all by itself, a la The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Soon Astrid is using vitagua to make more and more chantments, which Sahara is sending around the country to those who might be able to tell them more about exactly how magic works.

But Astrid ultimately doesn't need all the advice Sahara is gathering from real witches all over the United States. A fireplace repair ruptures, spreading vitagua all over the house, contaminating Sahara and filling Astrid to the brim as she absorbs it into her body. Now Astrid knows exactly what the realm of the unreal is, and voices are giving her full information on the past, present and future. She begins to have difficulty knowing which is which, and her confusion allows Sahara to recontaminate herself.

The frame for the novel, in which Astrid is a federal prisoner telling her story to a cop, lets us know that Sahara uses the magic for evil rather than good, and also that magic can get completely out of hand, transforming plant and vegetable life into unmanageable entities that are inimical to humans. How we get from Astrid rediscovering magic to the outbreak of magic that threatens the human race and destroys Will's family, however, is not described with the loving detail lavished on the early part of the story, which is disappointing. But Dellamonica tells the story of Astrid's gradual reintroduction to magic with true panache, making for a very enjoyable read.

As the book approaches its conclusion, things become very vague indeed. The conclusion is rushed and unsatisfactory. It appears that the story isn't intended to truly end with this book, as Dellamonica has written a sequel, Blue Magic, to be published in 2011. If it's as good as Indigo Springs, with the added advantage of actually finishing this tale, it'll definitely be a winner. I await it eagerly.

In Indigo Springs, Oregon, Astrid Letherwood like most if not all the other residents assumed her father was a drunken bum. With his death, she learns the truth about her dad; he was an underground magic practitioner who created "chantment" magical objects that he gave to people he felt deserved a slight edge. He told nobody, allegedly not even his daughter, who was actually his apprentice but remembers nothing about magic since he died. He knew the witch finders stalk everyone with their burn at the stakes first and ask the charred corpse questions second.

However he was unable to keep Astrid safe as the government has incarcerated her although they improved her prison to a comfortable cage. Roche and his agents have her under arrest for kidnapping and murder. The latest inquisitioner is hostage negotiator Will Forest who actually gets Astrid to reveal a bit of what she knows, but she recalls nothing of value. Family friend Sahara Knox arrives and taps into the blue fluid vitagua that flows underneath her dad's home and is the source of magic. Unlike Letherwood who felt magic should do no harm, she employs violence turning people and animals into monsters as she wants the underground magic rebellion to come out into the open.

This is a super psychological suspense suburban fantasy starring a great bewildered lead protagonist who is center to all the goings on. Her confusion purposely leaves the story line somewhat hazy as her latest interrogator tries to get at the truth but is different from previous inquisitioners as he is first a hostage negotiator while the others were enforcers using any means. Sahara complicates a complex character driven thriller that uses the questioning of an alleged convict to establish the delightful Dellamonica domain.

Harriet Klausner

Well Done A.M.!!

Let's keep in mind that my passion is reading, NOT writing, yet I felt it necessary to pass along my congratulations to this author. Indigo Springs kept me up until the wee hours with it's unique story line and endearing characters. There best be a sequel.

Plot Summary: Astrid Lethewood grew up in Indigo Springs with the town flake for a father. When he dies and leaves Astrid a house, she moves in and invites her closest friends to live with her, never mind that Jacks and Sahara hate each other. When Astrid discovers a bag of `chantments,' objects infused with magic abilities, she has this idea that the lure of the magic will keep Sahara and Jacks in her home and at peace. Ironically, all Astrid wants is stability and normalcy, but the magic can't be used without consequences. This innocent beginning snowballs into a problem of epic proportions.

I really dig stories about magic. What else can transform unwanted orphans and nerdy men and women into cool, supernatural butt-kickers? Magic is the ultimate cool tool in any fantasy story, so I sat down with Indigo Springs by A. M. Dellamonica with tingly anticipation. After I got a few chapters in, I began to realize that magic isn't cool in this world. Oh no. It's more like a monkey's paw curse, and every good intention will slowly twist into a horrible nightmare because the magic here brings out the worst in the person wielding it. Oh yeah, and the magic has a mind of its own, and it wants to escape its prison in the `unreal.'

This is spooky stuff, and it's extremely well done. Since this is a debut novel, and I'm not sure how to classify this story anyway, I popped over to the author's website for a look. Ms. Dellamonica calls Indigo Springs an `ecofantasy,' which I admit straight up is a new term to me, but it does shed some light on how this story unfolds. The `vitagua' that carries the magic is a resource that is discovered, exploited, and mishandled by humans. It's not a big stretch to see a parallel to how we've mucked up Earth's environment.

The format was a perfect blend of flash-backs and flash-forwards. If a writer chooses this style, I have two requests; first, spend equal time in the past and the present so I'm not grasping at flimsy fragments, and two, do it in a consistent pattern so the time and place is easily apparent. In my opinion, Ms. Dellamonica does this perfectly, and the first chapter begins in the present with a sense that something has gone horribly wrong in the world. It sets the mood beautifully.

The love triangle between Astrid, Sahara, and Jacks is the kind that makes me want to poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick. Now, a lot of people would interpret that statement as negative, but that'd be a mistake. What I mean is that it's so painfully realistic and hopeless that I'm sucked into a deep emotional bond with the characters when I'd prefer to maintain a little distance. No such luck. If you're a Kim Harrison fan, and you follow her Hollows series, then you'll know what I mean, because it features a similar convoluted triangle that has me tearing my hair in frustration while I read.

This is an unconventional fantasy for adventurous types, who like to get a little cerebral with a deeper, darker story. There is a sequel in the works called Blue Magic, which will appear sometime in 2010.