Mirror, Mirror

Again
By Diana Murdock
Diana Murdock (2010),
Mobi format for Kindle
Rated 3 stars of 5 possible

Lady Catherine is a 16th century noble woman bound to marry the knight, Sir Galen, but in love with Jonathan, a merchant who is nowhere near her social equal... the eternal love triangle. Catherine's 21st century counterpart is Eryn Rexford, married to Bryce, whom she has come to realize she does not love, but Eryn is not willing to settle for less than being head-over heels in love with someone, especially after she meets a handsome stranger whom she is sure she has seen before. The story is told by Eryn and Lady Catherine in turn, flipping between one time period and the next, which is disconcerting enough, and then you discover that nearly all the main characters have a mirror-image in the other century.

I found the characters well developed and interesting (for the most part); their reactions to each other mostly believable. However I think the over-the top jealousy displayed by Bryce and Galen, though probably realistic in some ways, was carried a bit too far to make this story really good and believable. The unexplained antagonism that Brandi (a supposed friend to Eryn) displays is also a bit much. Catherine's sister, Sara is clearly Brandi's 16th century counterpart, right down to the same antagonism. In fact, that jealousy and antagonism almost entirely ruined this story for me because it was carried to such extremes. With some moderation, jealousy and or antagonism in one or even two characters can be believable and even a decent literary device...

If you believe in reincarnation (or if you can pretend, for the moment, that you do,) then this story might work for you and perhaps be good entertainment.  If you don't believe, and cannot pretend to believe, then the story falls flat, like it did for me. I honestly cannot recommend this debut effort, but will be keeping an eye out for this author's next novel, as I believe she does have potential to be really good, if not outright a great storyteller.

The author of this novel sent me a Smashwords 100% off discount code so that I could download my choice of formats and read this novel free in exchange for this review. This review has been simultaneously published on Dragon Views, LibraryThing and Amazon.com.