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A Mystical Time
Indigo, The Deep follows a group of people united by the strange magic that gathers around Dipitous Beach during the autumn equinox. What draws you to write for teen and young adult readers?
Coming-of-age stories are where I’ve found joy and consolation throughout my life. Teen stories are the great connectors of the generations. If we’re young, we’re living it; if we’re older, we’ve passed through it, hopefully with a few helpful lessons learned. I love writing about the sparkling energy of teens, reminding all of us to stay curious and embrace new perspectives. After all, life is a bold adventure, laced with grief and pain, but ripe with wonder-filled mysteries and happy surprises, too.
What drew you to setting the story around the autumn equinox and its sense of transformation?
Ah, the changing of the seasons is a mystical time. The shift in light, weather, and tides alters human rhythms, calling us to what we cannot comprehend. Nature smiles, taps us on the shoulder, and whispers in the wind… everything, you know, is always changing. The tide folds, the light blends, shrinking the long light-infused days of summer into the golden days of autumn. During the equinox, the scene is brilliantly set for mystery. The turning of the seasons is when the magic happens!
What did you enjoy most about writing the bond between Condi and Firth?
Condi and Firth are thrown together in an unlikely set of circumstances. When they resist their uncomfortable living situation and see one another as only annoying, a palpable tension arises. I love writing about tension and how it often leads to growth! When Triponica, the wise leader of the Beachlings, points out that Condi and Firth are very much the same, the story begins to change. Firth, fearless and reckless, dives into the deepest of the sea caverns, determined to push his limits. Condi, hoping to mend a broken heart, takes unnecessary risks with her surfing. As the story unwinds, we come to know that Triponica was right. Their bond is unmistakable.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
The next book in the series takes us back in time. What the Surf Master Knows explores life in Dipitous Beach in the seventies. Triponica, mysterious leader of the Beachlings, is a young healer. Andy Marshall, the enigmatic surf master, and Grand Ella, Condi’s insightful yoga teacher grandmother, are teens. Once again, they are swept into strange adventures, encountering the ocean’s wild and mercurial magic.
The prospective release date is the summer of 2027.
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Fifteen-year-old Condi Bloom knows the magic will happen again. The autumn equinox is looming. Strange currents are sweeping through her coastal town. Tides are turning wild, and a mercurial mist cloaks the lonely rock tower known as Windy Hollow, long believed to be haunted.
When a silent threat glides into the cove, altering the fragile ecosystem and drawing sharks close to shore, Condi ignores the danger. A fierce surfer, she insists on pushing her skills to the limit, hoping to heal a broken heart. Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Firth Cristo, a bold free diver, is tormented by a past he cannot reveal. Guided by the Beachlings, the mystical women who teach the secrets of the deep, he dares to explore remote underwater sea caverns, navigating the pulsing tides of a shimmering enchantment.
Inspired by the certainty of wonder and the uncertain nature of time, Condi and Firth dive into their rawest places, discovering that healing-of nature, of others, and of themselves-is found in the bounty of a limitless sea.
Indigo, The Deep
Indigo, the Deep is a coastal fantasy about young people, old healers, marine life, grief, courage, and the strange magic that gathers around Dipitous Beach during the autumn equinox. Kellye Abernathy builds the story around the ocean as both a setting and a living force. The cove has dolphins, tide pools, sea caves, a research sanctuary, surfboards with mysterious marks, and a looming biomedical ship that threatens the balance of the water. At the center are Condi, Firth, Marley, Isaac, Tad, Lorelei, Kait, and the Beachlings, each tied to the sea in a different way.
The book has a dreamy, sensory style that fits its world well. The ocean is never just scenery. It teaches, warns, hides, reveals, and heals. One of the simplest lines captures the book’s whole rhythm: “The sea will do what the sea will do.” That idea runs through the story as characters learn that control is limited, but attention, trust, and bravery still matter. Abernathy’s descriptions are lush without feeling detached from the plot, especially when the story moves through caverns, reefs, storms, and underwater passages.
Firth and Condi give the book much of its emotional pull. Their bond grows through risk, stubbornness, rescue, and shared wonder, and their different ways of meeting the water make them interesting together. Firth’s free diving and connection to Triponica bring in the book’s healing traditions, while Condi’s surfing and grief connect her to the past and to the people she’s still learning how to love. The supporting characters add warmth too, especially Tad, whose emotional colors give his scenes a tender honesty.
What makes the novel feel distinct is the way it blends environmental danger with personal healing. The threat from the pharmaceutical ship gives the story urgency, but the book is just as invested in quieter battles: letting go, growing up, protecting someone vulnerable, and making peace with loss. The line “The people that we love never leave us” sums up the heart of the novel without flattening it. Love in this book isn’t simple comfort. It’s a current that keeps moving, sometimes pulling characters into hard truths before carrying them forward.
Indigo, the Deep is a warm, mystical, ocean-soaked story with a strong sense of place and a generous heart. It’s the kind of book that invites readers to slow down and listen, not only to the characters but to the tides, animals, dreams, and old stories around them. Abernathy gives Dipitous Beach the feeling of a place where ordinary life and wonder keep brushing against each other, and by the end, that wonder feels earned.
Pages: 298 | ASIN : B0H3M8TGHD
