Mirror Visitor Quartet by Christelle Dabos

      I first came across this series while I was browsing at the library. On a top shelf there it was, the first book, A Winter’s Promise. This quartet was written in French originally and translated into English. It’s an excellent translation, and the books have a French feel. Almost from the first page I felt transported into a different world. Christelle Dabos is a master at creating immersive fantasy systems similar to Diana Wynne Jones’ — strange and whimsical, beautiful and dangerous.

       Book one introduces us to Ophelia, our protagonist. She lives on an Ark—one of twenty-one different land masses all suspended in air—called Anima. Anima gets its name from being home to Animists, those who can put life into objects. Ophelia has reached marriageable age and her mother is desperate to marry her off, though Ophelia would rather spend all her time in the museum she runs. Ophelia has the gift of “reading”, the ability to sense an object’s past and the past of whoever has touched it. She’s happy in her little life, working in her museum and spending time with her Great-Uncle, one of the only members of her family who understands her. Unfortunately, after she’s turned down two offers of marriage, the Matriarchs of Anima have decreed she be betrothed to a man from another Ark, the Pole. When her fiancé arrives, it becomes apparent Ophelia isn’t the only reluctant one in the arrangement, with Mr. Thorn’s greeting of her cold and scornful. Too soon she is swept off to the Pole with her fiancé and her Aunt Rosaline acting as chaperone. Thorn brings Ophelia and Rosaline to his Aunt Berenilde, whom they will be staying with until the wedding. Once there she finds out that her fiancé is a bastard born, and hated by all of his family. By being Thorn’s betrothed, Ophelia has an automatic target on her back and she, from this point on, is thrown into a flurry of danger and intrigue, court politics, a sociopathic youth, unexplainable phenomena, and mysteries she cannot ignore. 

       I rated each book in this quartet a five out of five stars. I absolutely love it and recommend it if you are prepared for a weird and darkly whimsical world. Each book builds in complexity and I found the entire series very satisfyingly executed. 

       For vibes think Howl’s Moving Castle, steampunk, little sci-fi, Over the Garden Wall, along with Victorian feeling court politics and backstabbings. It’s unconventional enough I know it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you take the chance to try it please let me know what you think! 

Happy reading!

Geneva