Review Dark Mirror by M. J. Putney

Lady Victoria Mansfield, youngest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Fairmount, is destined for a charmed life. Soon she will be presented during the London season, where she can choose a mate worthy of her status.

Yet Tory has a shameful secret—a secret so powerful that, if exposed, it could strip her of her position and disgrace her family forever. Tory’s blood is tainted…by magic. When a shocking accident forces Tory to demonstrate her despised skill, the secret she’s fought so hard to hide is revealed for all to see. She is immediately exiled to Lackland Abbey, a reform school for young men and women in her position. There she will learn to suppress her deplorable talents and maybe, if she’s one of the lucky ones, be able to return to society.

But Tory’s life is about to change forever. All that she’s ever known or considered important will be challenged. What lies ahead is only the beginning of a strange and wonderful journey
into a world where destiny and magic come together, where true love and friendship find her, and where courage and strength of character are the only things that determine a young girl’s worth.

Dark Mirror combines several elements that make it difficult to categorize it in one neat genre. At one end of the genre spectrum are the magical qualities and time travel that places it firmly into the fantasy genre, but M. J. Putney also includes historical events from two very different eras making this a very unique historical fiction as well. Finally, the story includes a budding romance, which is enough for some to also consider it a romance. While I have never read a book with elements that include fantasy, historical fiction, and romance I found the combination engaging on all levels.

Beside the fact that I really like all three elements of the different genres in Dark Mirror, another aspect that kept me engaged throughout the book was the various conflicts that propelled the story forward. First, we have Lady Victoria Mansfield, Tory, whose perfect future is destroyed when her magical abilities are revealed. She is sent to Lackland Abbey to be cured and life as she knew it changes forever.

As a conflicted Tory wrestles with being exiled, she does eventually becomes friends with other students at Lackland, who instead of shunning their abilities as London society does, secretly meet in the tunnels underneath the abbey in an effort to hone their skills. Together these students are looking for ways to use their abilities to prevent Napoleon’s army from invading England. When the tunnels are raided one night by school authorities, Tory finds herself transported, via Merlin’s Mirror, to 1940 where she is taken in by relatives of Jack Rainford, a student at Lackland and a weather mage. Learning of the German invasion of France and the drear fate of over a 100,000 British soldiers cornered at Dunkirk, Tory returns to 1803 and enlists the help of her friends who become instrumental in helping with the evacuation of the British forces across the English Channel.

Added to all of the above conflicts, M.J also entangles Tory with Allarde. Their attraction and their future together definitely kept me intrigued, but I would have liked it better had  M.J. spent a little more time fleshing the romance out more. Perhaps that will occur in a sequel. Still, I felt M. J. did a fantastic job weaving so many conflicts together into a coherent and compelling story. I especially liked how Tory and her friends were able to merge their magical abilities to help with the Dunkirk evacuation and learned a little history along the way.

The story is a little long on background and short on action, but I never felt that the pace dragged.  I also thought that M.J. captured the two different eras realistically through her characters and description of the settings.

My final opinion of Dark Mirror is that it is an ambitious YA debut that boldly attempts to combine several different genres by telling a story that melds magic, history, and romance. I would have liked it better if there had been more attention to characterization and hope that this occurs in the next book. I am also very interested in finding out more about Merlin’s Mirror and seeing where else Tory and her friends might end up traveling. 

 Source: Received ARC copy from publisher for review

ReviewCate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein

Lady Catherine is one of Queen Elizabeth's favorite court maidens—until her forbidden romance with Sir Walter Ralegh is discovered. In a bitter twist of irony, the jealous queen banishes Cate to Ralegh's colony of Roanoke, in the New World. Ralegh pledges to come for Cate, but as the months stretch out, Cate begins to doubt his promise and his love. Instead, it is Manteo, a Croatoan Indian, whom the colonists—and Cate—increasingly turn to. Yet just as Cate's longings for England and Ralegh fade and she discovers a new love in Manteo, Ralegh will finally set sail for the New World.

Seamlessly weaving together fact with fiction, Lisa Klein's newest historical drama is an engrossing tale of adventure and forbidden love—kindled by one of the most famous mysteries in American history: the fate of the settlers at Roanoke, who disappeared without a trace forty years before the Pilgrims would set foot in Plymouth. (Publisher's summary from Goodreads)

Over the course of several years in my teaching career, I taught a couple of sections of eighth grade social studies, which consists of early American history. The mystery behind the complete disappearance of the settlers at Roanoke has always intrigued me. Lisa Klein’s Cate of the Lost Colony provides not only an interesting and even probable explanation to the settlers’ fate, but also a keen look into Queen Elizabeth’s court and politics.

While the story primarily centers around Cate, a fictional character whose father’s service to Queen Elizabeth lands her a position as the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, Klein skillfully weaves both Sir Walter Ralegh’s and Manteo’s, a Native American Croatan, into the fiction, providing the reader with a fascinating account of the events that lead up to the colony’s extinction.  Although, the story’s pace is slow, I appreciated how Klein alternated between Cate’s point of view and both Ralegh’s, and Manteo’s thoughts. I felt this provided a more in depth view of the events without bogging down the story and gave it a more personal feel. 

But what worked best for me was Cate’s characterization.  Cate is a strong and a very courageous young lady. She is honest to a fault and does not fit well into the intrigue of Queen Elizabeth’s court. There were however, times when I thought Cate’s optimistic views were unrealistic. Still, I felt that Cate’s yearn for adventure more than made up for her ability to overlook the treatment dealt out by both Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Ralegh. 

In the end, I felt that Klein’s hypothesis of what occurred during the three years the ill-fated colonists struggled to survive was well thought out and as accurate, a fictional account could be. It is clear that Klein’s novel was extensively researched, and she is adept at bringing together fact and fiction in an entertaining and enjoyable way. For those who like a little romance with their historical fiction Klein provides that too.