Bookish Thoughts: Mirrors by Brittany Eden

Heartbooks | Book 3

Rating: Highly recommend

Eden weaves a tale of broken family, mystery, and romance alongside beautiful backdrops, decrepit castles, and beauty found in words and truth through delightfully poetic prose. A perfect read for a rainy day in with a cup of tea at hand.

Whenever I read one of Eden’s books, I just want to sink slowly between the covers and breathe the words and the world for a while. One of my favorite things about this series, though, is while the books connect within these places, each book can be read and completely understood on its own. I also love the way Eden weaves familiar notes of fairy tales into the fabric of the characters, stories, and towns.

Mirrors was a delightful return to Loirehall and Gabreville, with an uncovering of secrets and fairy tale nostalgia and some cameos and intercessions of characters from the previous books. Paige spends her time in the university library until a stranger comes looking for a rare book—a book brought up only hours later by her father’s irritating and greedy landlord. Through what appear to be chance circumstances, accompanied by a threat to her father’s livelihood, Paige ends up agreeing to archive the miraculously surviving library at the decrepit castle. The library, saved from a deadly fire years ago by residing in the stone-only portion of the castle, may hold the mysteriously rare book sought after by two people with wildly differing views.

Along the way, Paige discovers not only truths about her past, but pieces of herself and her story lodged in another: Nolan Carter. Throughout their search of the library and the castle itself, Paige and Nolan learn not only about themselves, but the reality of trust, the complex intertwining of lives and fates, and the power of forgiveness.

Some of my favorite quotes:

• “I don’t want to be the same person I was before.”
• “This morning, the world feels quiet, as it often does after worries are loud and danger visits.”
• “To feel better, first, you have to feel. It’s easy feeling nothing. But that’s all you get—nothing.”
• “Pretending a think wasn’t there never made it so.”
• “Brokenness and decay cannot overcome beauty and truth. Compassion is also its own language.”
• “‘A whole person’s life of victory or tragedy can be summed up in a book. Sad, how such a long journey called life can be passed over in a single line.’”
• “Someday and somewhere are out there. If we are willing to search long and far enough, perhaps our faith in that always-rising will become unshakeable.”
• “Everlasting things don’t find a home in mere reflection. What we behold, we become, and that is no lie.”
• “The story of books is long. But the longer story isn’t books, it’s lives. They leave pages when they end. Like every letter of their days had a memory, pages of history make forgotten books, letter by letter, line by line.”
• “What less does art require, than the pouring out of a heart? Isn’t that the best kind?”

One of the things I love about Eden’s writing is her gorgeous poetic style. It feels like poetry rendered as prose, and it recalls a more classical writing style. The way Eden crafts words together, painting beautiful imagery in evocative ways is astounding and stunningly beautiful. She has masterful skill in reflecting a character’s inward feelings and struggles in the setting and scenery without anything feeling forced. These words and worlds are the kind that I’d love to live in, the type of days and things that remind me to slow down and enjoy the journey of life, no matter what season I’m in.

Another thing I love about Eden’s storytelling is the way she handles retellings. Mirrors is a “Beauty and the Beast” retelling, but the staples of the fairy tale are woven into the story, characters, and prose in a way that’s both unexpected but absolutely right. Even without the magic inherent in the original or Disney versions of the tale, the elements of the tale are revealed and included in ways that recall it while the characters and place have a life of their own. On top of that, the slow-burn romance is beautifully woven and well done, and the air of mystery only lends the perfect atmosphere for the relationship to encounter hurdles and grow.

This is a book I will definitely be revisiting (with tea in hand), as I continue to think about it long after I’ve finished reading. It’s given me a desire to revisit the previous books in the series, and I long for the next book to release so I can live in a new story set in these two towns where fairy tales live, lives and stories overlap, and happily ever after is hard won, but absolutely possible.