Yzabel / April 28, 2015

The Singular and Extraordinary Tale of Mirror and Goliath by Ishbelle Bee

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

1888. A little girl called Mirror and her shape-shifting guardian Goliath Honeyflower are washed up on the shores of Victorian England. Something has been wrong with Mirror since the day her grandfather locked her inside a mysterious clock that was painted all over with ladybirds. Mirror does not know what she is, but she knows she is no longer human.

John Loveheart, meanwhile, was not born wicked. But after the sinister death of his parents, he was taken by Mr Fingers, the demon lord of the underworld. Some say he is mad. John would be inclined to agree.
Now Mr Fingers is determined to find the little girl called Mirror, whose flesh he intends to eat, and whose soul is the key to his eternal reign. And John Loveheart has been called by his otherworldly father to help him track Mirror down…

Review:

(I got an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

Hmmm. A hard one to rate. I liked it, but not as much as I thought I would. Maybe 3.5 stars / between “I liked it” and “I really liked it”?

The setting, characters and writing had a twisted fairy tale-like quality, rather close to what I’d expect from authors I love (like Neil Gaiman). Victorian England, for starters, with a dash of the Egyptian craze. An Egyptian princess whose soul may have travelled to another human vessel via a clock. A clockmaker who makes very specific implements using inhuman means. A group of young boys raised by the Lord of the Underworld, all ending up twisted in various ways. People fighting against death and aging, going against time, ready to whatever it takes to prolong their own lives. All this against the backdrop of the Ripper murders, which are given a different take her.

I liked that the story went in a roundabout way. As I usually say in such cases, it’s both a good and a bad thing. Good for readers like me who enjoy it when a novel doesn’t necessarily follow its characters chronologically, because it’s like a puzzle and it’s amusing (at first, it’s not so obvious why this or that character becomes the focus, but then those subplots gradually tie together). Bad, because if you don’t have a lot of time to focus on the story, it’s easy to feel lost after a while. After all, we aren’t always able to read a book in one or two sittings only… So, I enjoyed trying to piece things together, but I’ll also admit that it wasn’t very easy at times, as I’d somewhat lose my train of thoughts about the novel as soon as something else popped up.

Mr Lovehart was one strange, mad fellow. And the kind of persona that tends to grow on me: crazy, clearly evil in many ways, yet with a heroic bastard streak that went well with his killing antics. And eccentric clothes. Somehow, it just worked.

I also really liked the relationship between Mirror and Goliath, fierce protector as he was. Just like White and to a certain extent Walnut, he provided a strong, honest counterpoint against the depravity of other characters. I’m not so fond of the ending and of what it implied when it came to Mirror and Goliath, though, considering that she “grew up” pretty fast, but that nothing is said about her mental growth. Especially as she wrote her letter, it felt like she was still quite a child in her mind, and so it made things rather… weird, to say the least.

The same goes for Pomegranate’s story, that didn’t tie as well with the other characters’. Or maybe that was just me. Maybe I happened to read her chapters at a moment when I wasn’t focused enough. (See above.) And there were moments when I felt that the characters in general ween’t so well-defined, that they would’ve deserved more fleshing out.

I’d still recommend this novel to readers in search of whimsical settings and characters, with magical realism and enchanting prose.