Mirrors have played a predominant role in horror movies, books, and nightmares. For as long as mirrors have existed, so have superstitions about them. From 7 years bad luck for breaking a mirror, to stealing your soul. From not reflecting vampires because they have no soul, to being a portal to otherworldly dimensions. I have always been fascinated by such stories and so I jumped at the chance to read Mirror Image. This is the story of an antique mirror and the ancient evil secrets it holds.
Johnathan Frazer, a family man, unhappy in his marriage, just knew he had to have this mirror as soon as he saw it. Perhaps the mirror also knew that it just had to have Johnathan! Oddly, he happens to be the only bidder on this mirror at auction and thinks he is getting a fantastic deal. He no sooner has it delivered when the gruesome and grisly deaths begin. Johnathan knows there is something evil about this mirror but as it begins to exert it's power over him his will to get rid of it grows ever weaker, and the danger to Johnathan and his family heightens as the mirror grows stronger.
I received an advance copy for review ( )

Review from Tenacious Reader: http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2016/09/01/review-mirror-image-by-michael-scott-a...


We all know, if you want creepy things, you have to hit the auction houses, right? Where old, dirty, dingy, creepy finds lurk in the shadows waiting for bids. OK. Typically it is just antique or faux-antique objects, but hey, this is a horror book, and so there have to be horrors to be found. An auction house sounds like a great place to uncover something that would be better not found. Our protagonist frequents auction houses as he took his family’s antique business and evolved it into a very successful interiors business for high end clientele in Los Angeles.

Seeing as there’s more history and antiques across the pond, he makes a yearly trip to auction houses there to find those unique and interesting pieces that he can fix up and sell for a considerable mark up. In a small auction house, his last stop in London, he happens upon a huge mirror. The frame is unremarkable but the glass is quite old and valuable. He instantly is drawn to it and has to have it.

After winning the auction, he returns to Los Angeles and remains drawn to this mirror in a peculiar way. He also becomes frightened as suddenly mysterious, sometimes violent, deaths are occurring within its vicinity. It seems cursed, and the death toll continues to rise. It becomes clear that this mirror is more than just a mirror, and it is both creepy and evil. It is also doing what it can to gain power and is trying to get our protagonist under its influence.

I have to take a moment here to mention that this book will not be for everyone. If you are disturbed by violence or gore, or are sensitive to rape or sex, you might want to give this one a pass. But, if those are not triggers for your, and you are comfortable reading the uncomfortable moments, then I found this to be a good, creepy book. It definitely has scenes and moments I would not expect. I don’t think this book holds anything back, and for me it worked. I was very curious about the mirror, how it worked, how it came to be, and most importantly, what they could possibly do to keep it from killing. Our protagonist starts out as a decent, together sort of guy. But the mirror begins taking a real toll on him between the stress of having an object that appears to be able to cause deaths, and also becoming obsessed with it. Is he under the mirror’s control or is he just going a bit insane? It is an interesting question to think about as the chaos ensues.

Mirror Image is the tale of a horrific and deadly mirror that tallies quite the body count in its quest for power (and whatever else it’s end goal may be). I definitely enjoyed this one and recommend it to fans of creepy horror that don’t have any of the sensitivities I mentioned above. ( )

I was excited to make a start on Mirror Image because mirrors are one of the few things that easily freak me out. I was looking forwards to immersing myself in a story that had the potential to put me on edge, unfortunately, that didn't happen. It took me 4 days to read 325 pages, kinda says it all really.

The book started off well but I soon found my attention wandering. I couldn't bring myself to care for any of the characters, they were flat and unappealing. The reasonings behind the characters actions were insubstantial, I felt like they were just going through the motions for the sake of the story. Where was the fear? The inner conflict? The panic? There was nothing of substance driving them, they came across as puppets playing out a story rather than real people living through the story.

Throughout the book the reader is taken back and forth between several different timelines. The timelines reveal the history of the mirror, how it came to be, and the characters that have been a part of its story before the present timeline. For this format to work the different timelines need to come together, to flow into each other and build a bigger picture, a more in-depth understanding, but in this case they felt disjointed and too separate from one another. The ending felt rushed and thrown together. I think I was holding out hope that things would come together in the end and that it would at least be worth the reading time invested. It wasn't, it lead to even more disappointment

There was also quite a few inconsistencies and plot holes, as well as many spelling mistakes, typos, wrong words etc, which really didn't help improve the reading experience.

Not one I would recommend. ( )