The Lady of the Mirrors and the Lady of Numbers – a review of the books “A Winter’s Promise” and “The Missing of Clairdelune” by Christelle Dabos

Since an unfortunate accident in her childhood, Ophelia has always been a scandal and a slightly upside-down person. Nothing in her life is simple, so it is not surprising that even the relationship in which she got involved is quite unusual. What does the appearance of the mysterious fiance from the Pole mean, and why was Ophelia destined for him?

The Mirror Visitor Quartet series is very popular on the market and among Bookstagram girls. It seems that with her story about a girl with unusual skills and a world that has gone through a tear, the French author Christelle Dabos has hit the tastes of many readers and critics (this title was won by the competition for a youth novel organized by the prestigious Gallimard publishing house in cooperation with Télérama magazine and RTL station from on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the creation of the children’s and youth literature section). Also me, encouraged by positive opinions and even amazing cover designs, decided to get acquainted with her debut story.

You can read everything

He is in his teens and comes from a family of Animists (people who can bring things to life), dominated by women. She is a descendant of Artemis, the Spirit of the family in love with heaven and the stars. However, she herself has two additional skills – one of them is a very well-developed gift of reading objects (so good that she has to wear special gloves, otherwise she would read almost everything she touches) and a unique talent for moving with the help of mirrors. Meet Ophelia, a girl who has just arranged a marriage with an extremely unsympathetic, inaccessible and cold stranger from a distant land – the Pole. These two do not even expect that they will face many different adventures, tests of character, and even fights for their own lives.

Expectations of others vs self discovery

The first volume of Mirror Visitor is an excellent introduction to the multi-layered and multi-threaded history of a world full of magic and non-obvious heroes. The main character herself is very unusual for a teenage fantasy novel. A docile, calm, eloquent observer with a penchant for old clothes, a storm of curls and glasses (which often have accidents) is a very pleasant breeze of freshness in the taboo of perfect and strong teenagers, who are endowed not only with great powers, but also with beauty. Ophelia speaks softly, she wears a scarf animated around her neck, and her love is the museum. The girl runs them on her home Anime – Ark, which is one of the Earth fragments that survived the Great Tear (i.e. the collapse of the globe for reasons unknown to anyone). In addition to Ophelia, of course, it is worth mentioning her fiancé – Thornie, a cool and haughty man, speaking extremely rarely and not very politely. Here, too, the creation of the character is surprising, because he is not a standard handsome bad boy, but rather rejecting the character and appearance of a bureaucrat, i.e. a very non-obvious choice for the male hero of the series for young people. These two create an extremely interesting combination, and their relationship is one of the unique and memorable. Of course, the story also includes a whole range of characters: from the conservative and at the same time caring aunt-chaperone, to the Family Spirit from the Pole, who is all-powerful, but has memory problems, to the ambassador, a brawler and a playboy. Each of the more important characters is presented in a very visual way, and you can see that the author has thoroughly thought through their emotions and behaviors before putting them all on paper. In addition, over time, it gave many of them the opportunity to develop and choose the paths they want to follow along with subsequent events. Despite the fact that Ophelia is too obedient at times, which can get on my nerves,I read the A Winter’s Promise with unwavering interest. The idea of ​​placing all my life and so many different magical abilities on floating pieces of earth drifted in the air completely pulled me in and convinced me.

An investigation and a few fairy tales

The second volume is a detailed description of places, behaviors and a rather slow, but interesting plot, but in addition, the author gives us a few tips saying that this story has a deeper bottom. The content tells about a puzzle straight from a detective novel – people disappear from the manor house at the Pole for unknown reasons. Ophelia and several others try to find out what is happening while fulfilling Farouk, the Spirit of the Pole family. Of course, to some extent, the relationship between the self-imposed brides also evolves here. In this part we have less humorous inserts, but this does not affect the reception of the book, which is structured as well as its predecessor. The only things that bothered me were the events taking place too slowly and long descriptions, but after the first volume I already knew

Another type of magic

The Mirror Visitor Quartet turned out to be a surprising reading, not using standard solutions and creations of heroes. There is a place here for light humor, adventures, but also for difficult decisions and discovering your own path. The created characters are very well refined, the world is full of unprecedented magic, and everything – saturated with the mood of a mystery that is impossible to discover and understand. I highly recommend!