The Mirror Visitor Quartet
Hi (: I'm here with another review of an entire saga.
Check out my last review about Mr Mercedes by Stephen King :)
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The review of today is of the saga of The Mirror Visitor (Le Passe Miroir in French and L'Attraversaspecchi in Italian) by the French author Christelle Dabos.
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The first book of this quartet is called "A Winter's Promise" (Les Fiancés de l'Hiver / Fidanzati dell'Inverno). The story follows the new world after "The Rupture" that shattered it into many floating celestial islands. These places are now known as Arks, 21 that developed in distinct ways and where on each of them a spirit of an omnipotent ancestor abides.
Ophelia lives on Anima, an ark where objects have souls and are (as the name suggests) animated. The young girl has the power to read and communicated with these souls just by touching them with her bare hands (that's why to protect herself from involuntary readings, she wears gloves), and the ability to travel through mirrors. Things changes, though, when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, from the powerful Dragon clan. Because of this, she will have to leave her family and move to her fiancée's ark: The Pole. Why did they chose her? Why can't she say who she really is, but must hide her true identity?
The second book instead is called "The Missing of Clairedelune" (Les Disparus de Clairdelune / Gli Scomparsi di Chiardiluna). Our heroin, Ophelia is being promoted to vice-storyteller by Farouk, the spirit of the Pole, which will put her into the public spotlight and everyone will know her special gift. She will have to read his Book that it's including all his memories in an unknown language that no one can understand. This will lead to the grudge of the other citizens that will see her as a threat. She discovers that the only person she may be able to trust is only Thorn. As one after another influential courtier disappears, Ophelia finds herself implicated in an investigation that will lead her to see beyond the illusions of the Pole to find the actual truth.
The third book is called "The Memory of Babel" (La Mémoire de Babel / La Memoria di Babel). This time Ophelia finds herself on another ark, the magical city of Babel, guarding a secret that may provide a key to the past and future.
After two years and seven months biding her time on Anima (I'm not going to spoil the ending of the previous book, just going to say that because of something that happened, she gets sent back to her birth ark), it's time to act on what she discovered in the Book of Faruk. She changed her identity using the name of Eulalia to live on Babel, a cosmopolitan ark where androids have taken over human's jobs. Under this ideal life, though, unrest chaos fed by memories of a purge and the inhabitant fear of being replaced. Will her talents as a reader be enough to enter into the Memorial of the town?
The last book of the saga instead is called "The Storm of Echoes" (La Tempête des Échoes / Echi in Tempesta). Ophelia and Thorn discover that the truth they have been seeking has always been hidden behind the mirror.
Finally the distrust between them has been overcome and now they love each other passionately. But they can't show their love, because of the fake identities they've created on Babel. Only like that they can continue their journeys to understand the indecipherable code of God and the truth behind the mysterious figure of the Other, whose responsible for the fall of the arks, plunging thousands of innocents into the void.
Their journey leads them to the Observatory of the Deviations, where Ophelia will be a sectioned patient. There they will hope to discover the truth that will hopefully bring the world back into balance.
