I can understand why pre-teen would have enjoyed this book. Adult me though got fed up with Shay super quick and the idea of this all just...nope.

There was another book I read (A Will of Their Own) around the same time that also dealt with a trio of women throughout the 20th century. Vastly different circumstances though.

Partially I'm not fond of hearing about the bygone way folk lived*. I did find it fascinating as the town/environment that Shay remembered so well changed so much in the 70ish years she was Brandy. It slowly grew into the world that Shay was familiar with, but by the time the world caught up to the kind of life Shay was comfortable with, she couldn't appreciate it as much.

In the end I'm glad to have reread this, equally glad it's an ebook. While it's not to my tastes any more, it's long bugged me I couldn't remember enough of it to think on WHY young me loved it. ( )

On the eve of her wedding, Shay's father delivers a full-length antique mirror as an early wedding gift. When her grandmother Bran visits her bedroom she seems strangely agitated by its presence, and then Shay suddenly blacks out. When she comes to, in another time and place, she realizes that she now inhabits the body of her grandmother, on the eve of her wedding...in 1900.

This 1978 novel came to my attention only a year or so ago when it was mentioned in the publication BookPage. I was a little worried about how well it would hold up, having been written the decade I was born, but it was actually delightfully riveting and engaging. Its weakness, sadly, is the ending, as though the author wasn't sure how to conclude what had up until that point been a surprisingly strong and compelling story. With about 25% to go it first goes off the rails, and then kind of fizzles out. However, for me the book's strong points, including well-developed characters and forcing the reader to contemplate what it would be like to have been in either Shay's or Brandy's situation, continue to make it a worthwhile read, particularly for fans of time travel stories. Bonuses: It was fun to see the unfamiliar Cornish accent depicted and attempt to "hear" it. I have also not only recently been to Nederland, Colorado, which features heavily in the book, but to the very cemetery mentioned. ( )

I want you to think about the next time you see your grandmother how it would be if you would wake up in her body when she was young and then have to marry your own grandfather and give birth to your mother. That's sounds quite insane I know, but that is what happened to Shay Garrett in this book. She wakes up in the year 1900, in her grandmother Brandy McCabe's body.

This book cured me of any romantic notion about time-travel. I don't know what's worse going back in time having to live your grandmother's life or going forward and living your granddaughter's. Either you know too much that is going to happen or you are totally lost in the future. And, poor Shay's mother and Brandy's daughter Rachael that is the one that has to live with a mother that is her daughter and a daughter that's her mother.

It's a really good book, not perfect, I found the parts in the book about Shay in the past and Rachael growing up the best. But the ending with Brandy in Shay's body was just not as good. I mean I felt for her, but personally, I found it was far more interesting to read about someone getting used to life in the past than life in the future.

But it sure was an interesting book to read and I recommend this one to anyone that likes time-travel books!

Thanks to Open Road Media and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ( )

I believe that this was one of the most interesting and intriguing books that I have read this year, or perhaps any year. My library was putting some of the books that they had more than two copies of on the shelf that they have to sell them for a little bit of nothing... and I was lucky enough to be there to grab it up. Lucky, lucky, me! There are some unexplained deaths in the book and a supernatural plot, but it's not really horror. It's actually more of a time travel book, much like Jack Finney's famous Time and Again, which I have also read several times. Finney's book had a murder mystery plot, and this one doesn't. This mirror is an Oriental mirror of unknown origin that travels from one place to another, enticing its victims. It hums and crackles with anticipation, pulling the victim in to either drive them insane or to switch them with someone else either decades in the past or into the future. That was one of the things that I found extremely fascinating. Image being a young woman of the twenty-first century with equal rights and the freedom to do pretty much what you please and suddenly finding not only are you in someone else's mind and body and the rights and freedoms you enjoyed in 2022 are no longer yours and you may even face death if you object or attempt to pursue them. I absolutely loved it. I believe that The Mirror is going to be one of those books that really stands the test of time. ( )

**** REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS *****

This was a really strange book - sort of "Back to the Future" meets "Freaky Friday." The premise was fascinating but the story was unevenly written. At first the whole timeline didn't make sense to me, until I realized that it was published in the 70's - and this also made me wonder if the author was maybe enjoying some herbal refreshment at the time.

It's hard to even explain this crazy plot but I will make an attempt. A mysterious, evil Chinese mirror has been around for centuries, messing with people who look into it by showing them scenes from the past or the future; or actually teleporting them around in time; or in some cases just outright killing them.

During its tenure in the Garret family, the mirror decides it would be fun to send Shay Garret, the "modern" 1970's girl, back in time to become her own grandmother. Shay's part of the story is quite interesting, with vivid descriptions of life in turn-of-the-century Boulder, Co. I had a hard time getting past the "ick" factor of someone essentially having sex with their own grandfather and giving birth to their own mother and uncles.

I less enjoyed the story of Brandy, Shay's grandmother, who is transported to the future to become Shay. Her experiences could have been fascinating but the story completely derails here (following my earlier hypothesis, this may have been when the author graduated from weed to the harder stuff.) Before Brandy inherited her body it turns out that Shay had become pregnant; and she is already engaged to Marek, the baby's father. Marek seems like a successful, nice guy who genuinely loves Shay. For reasons that are never explained, Shay's parents REALLY don't want her to marry Marek. Now that Shay has been acting "crazy" - because she is really Brandy, trapped in Shay's body and having trouble making sense of the situation and the modern world - when her parents find out about the pregnancy, they decide to have her committed and forced to have an abortion. WTF?? Shay/Brandy overhears the conversation where this is being decided, and she runs away.

She somehow ends up living on a ramshackle farm with some old dude who lost his mind when his beloved wife passed away. He buried his wife in the backyard and names all his cats and farm animals after her. More WTF-ness.

Shay's parents and fiance have been searching for her this whole time. Eventually they find her, and she gives birth to twins. Then inexplicably, despite Brandy having spent her whole time in Shay's world uninterested/repulsed by Marek, the novel ends with a completely out-of-nowhere sappy romantic ending.

So I really don't know what to make of this crazy thing. Sometimes it was really interesting, but long stretches were boring and in general it was just a big mess. ( )