Review: Mirror Image by Michael Scott and Melanie Ruth Rose

A mirror that feeds on human souls wreaks destruction on those around it in this new novel from internationally bestselling author Michael Scott and Melanie Ruth RoseIn an auction house in London, there is a mirror no one will buy. Standing seven feet tall and reaching four feet across, its size makes it unusual. Its horrific powers make it extraordinary. For centuries, the mirror has fed off of the lives of humans, giving them agonizing deaths and sucking their souls into its hellish world.
When Jonathan Frazer, the wealthy owner of a furniture and antiques shop in Los Angeles, buys the mirror at an auction, he believes he is getting the bargain of a lifetime. With its age and size, it is easily worth eight times what he paid for it. At this point, the mirror has sat dormant for years. But within days of Jonathan's purchase, the deaths begin again. One employee is crushed when the mirror falls on top of him. A few days later, the corpse of another is found in front of the mirror, brutally stabbed. A third is burned beyond all recognition. All the while, an enormous man with a scarred face is following Jonathan, demanding that he give him the mirror and killing any police officer that gets in his way.
The police are becoming desperate. As the death toll rises, Jonathan himself becomes a suspect. He knows there is something wrong with the mirror. He knows it's dangerous. But he cannot bring himself to get rid of it. Everyday he becomes more captivated by the mirror.
For the mirror is awakening, and its powers are resurfacing.

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.