Inkspell Tintenblut
This time the journey takes Mo and Meggie into Dustfinger’s world. Medievally dark and dangerous, but at the same time fascinatingly strange and bewitching.
Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of the extraordinary events of Inkheart, and the story whose characters strode out of the pages and changed her life for ever.
But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater torn from his world of words, the need to return has become desperate. When he finds a crooked storyteller with the magical ability to read him back, he sets in motion a dangerous reversal that sees the characters of Inkheart transported to a charmed Inkworld, about to be fought over by rival rebels and princes.
But can Meggie, Farid and Fenoglio ‘write’ the wrongs of the Inkworld in time to avert disaster?
- First published 2005
- Reading age Age 10
- Illustrated by Cornelia Funke
- Publisher Chicken House
- Available at IndieBound.org
- Also available as Audio Book
It was bright. Sunlight filtered through countless leaves. Shadows danced on a nearby pool, and a swarm of tiny red elves was whirring above the dark water. I can do it! That was Meggie’s first thought when she sensed that the letters on the page really had let her through and she wasn’t in Elinor’s house any more, but somewhere very, very different. I can do it. I can read myself into a story.
She really had slipped through the words, as she’d so often done in her mind. But this time she wouldn’t have to slip into the skin of a character in the story – no, this time she would be in the story herself, part of it. Her very own self. Meggie. Not even that man Orpheus had done it. He had read Dustfinger home, but he couldn’t read himself into the book, right into it. No one but Meggie had ever done it before, not Orpheus, not Darius, not Mo. Mo.
Meggie looked round almost as if she hoped he might be standing behind her, as was usual when they were in a strange place. But only Farid was there, looking around as incredulously as she was. Elinor’s house was far, far away. Her parents were gone. And there was no way back. Quite suddenly, Meggie felt fear rise in her like black, brackish water. She felt lost, terribly lost, felt it in every part of her. She didn’t belong here! What had she done?
She stared at the paper in her hand, so useless now, the bait she had swallowed. Fenoglio’s story had caught her. The sense of triumph that had carried her away just now was gone as if it had never been. Fear had extinguished it, fear that she had made a terrible mistake and it could never be put right. Meggie tried desperately to find some other feeling in her heart, but there was nothing, not even curiosity about the world now surrounding her. I want to go back! That was all she could think.
This is the second part of Inkheart — and I never planned to write it! I thought the story is told, but my characters just wouldn't let me go.
And so, like me, you will meet Dustfinger again and Farid (right at the beginning, on a lonely road in Italy) you will learn about Mo, Meggie and Resa, about Elinor and Darius — and Fenoglio of course, who lives in his own story and is quite irritated, because the story didn't go on like he wanted it to.
You will meet Mortola and Basta as well — and many new characters too, some to love and some to hate — the Black Prince, Clouddancer, Cosimo, the Fair, Rosenquarz, a glassman, the Adderhead, the Piper...and many others. Robbers, Nobles, Fairies and fireelves...
Inkspell will take you into the book, Dustfinger once came from, and let's see whether you will like to stay there for a while or not! I just hope that you will enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
It will be a dark ride, but I promise, in the third part it will all find a happy ending.
Oh, one more thing — if you get a chance, listen to the audio-book as well. Brendan Fraser's recording is so wonderful, that you won't ever forget Dustfinger's Scottish accent or the glassman cursing in French!
Other books in the »Inkworld« series
