Content levels
Positive tags
Heroine archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Tropes
Themes
Synopsis
A young woman on the eve of her wedding sees her life turn into a nightmare of supernatural horror in which she is forced to break the most elemental of taboos. The mirror is a full-length looking glass in a grotesque bronze frame of talonlike fingers, brought from China to SanFrancisco in the late 1800's, and it's evil. When Shay gazes into The Mirror's depths on the eve of her wedding, she is transported back in time, awakening in the same house, but in another body, that of her grandmother, Brandy. And the independent, tempestuous Brandy is transported as well-from 75 years in the past into the present body deserted by her granddaughter, Shay. Plunged into a primitive, nineteenth century mining camp, condemned to a living hell of knowing the future and being forced to endure it unalterably, Shay finds herself marrying her own grandfather, giving birth to her own mother, and astonishing everyone by predicting the future-a future which is all too cruelly her own family past. As Shay struggles through the trials of her grandmother's life, Brandy awakens to the extraordinary destiny that now awaits her and discovers, in a stunning, eerie climax, that she can neither break nor defy the ancient, supernatural spell of The Mirror.
Is The Mirror appropriate for my child?
Suitable for most readers 16 and up.
This supernatural time-travel novel contains disturbing body-swap horror elements including forced marriage to one's own grandfather, pregnancy, and themes of predestination that create psychological horror. The incestuous situation (though technically involving different bodies) and loss of bodily autonomy may be deeply unsettling.
What to know going in
This book has mild violence, moderate sexual content, and mild language. Content notes include incest, captivity, and body horror (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Teens fascinated by time-travel paradoxes and gothic horror will be gripped by this eerie tale of a woman trapped in her grandmother's body in the 1800s.