Chain Reading

The first time I saw The Water Mirror I was at once struck by the artwork of Jonathan Weiner. The cover art, including the creepy back cover image of a sharp toothed mermaid, instantly made me want to pick up this book to see what it was about.

In The Water Mirror a medieval Venice is in the midst of a 36 year seige by an Egyptian mummy army who has decimated the rest of the known world. Venice has thus far escaped destruction due to the beneficence of an unseen entity known as the Flowing Queen. This Venice is not quite the same one that exists in our world. In Meyer’s Venice, stone lions patrol the city, mermaids with razor sharp teeth inhabit the canals, and the denizens of Hell itself are edging ever closer to the surface. Into this world two teenage orphan girls, Merle and Junipa, are apprenticed to a magic mirror maker. Each girl is, of course, more than what she seems, having a destiny that only just begins to unfold in this first of a trilogy of novels known as the Dark Reflections series. At 250 pages this book is a quick read, but Meyer manages to pack an amazing amount of story and detail into those pages. Magic mirrors, mermaids, flying lions, plots to usurp the Flowing Queen, thieves, phantoms, mummys, pharoahs, creatures from the underworld…The Water Mirror has these and more. The story is filled with mystery, suspense, adventure, magic, treachery…and all the while the symbolism of mirrors and reflections is interwoven making you realize that you know very little about the characters and are bound to discover interesting and possibly terrifying truths about them as the series continues. The book is filled with plot twists and enough unresolved issues to ensure many more surprises before this series is completed.

This book is translated from the original German by Elizabeth D. Crawford and I can only assume that she does a marvelous job as the story flows very well and is highly entertaining. On a few occasions sentences seem slightly odd and I wonder if this is due to translation issues. By and large though the book makes me understand why Kai Meyer is so popular in his native Germany.

The Water Mirror is indeed a young adult book but despite that has some fairly creepy descriptions of the few beings from the netherworld who make an appearance. The descriptions, though brief, instantly brought to mind the eerie, dark art of Brom. I would suggest an appropriate starting age for reading this to be 12 and it is definitely well written enough to be thoroughly engrossing to adults who love their fantasy laced with sinister suspense. Very engaging!