Sir James Monmouth, a traveler, returns to England to research Conrad Vane, also a traveler, who he is for some reason obsessed with. He soon learns that there is something very odd about Vane and he keeps receiving warnings to discontinue his research. Of course, he does not listen...

After reading "The Man in the Picture" by the same author I wanted to read more of her books. Unfortunately this one did not impress me too much. For a long time not much happened in the book and in the end I didn't find the story anaywhere near as fascinating and well written as "The Man in the Picture", which I loved.

This is traveling to mysteriousmummy as my #3 in the International BookXerpting. I hope you like it!

Received as part of the International Book Xcerting, Thank you.

I really enjoyed this creepy little book, not seat of your pants horror but the best sort of creepiness that all takes place in your own head.

Picked from the first sentences VBB so off to a new home.

Wow! This book arrived in Delphi today in a neat package, containing not only the book, but some BookCrossing release bags, a bag of tea, some self-made laminated cards with information about BC (very clever way to explain BC to random book finders!) and a beautiful, polite card from mysteriousmummy!

Thank you very much for your generous package, the book seems interesting too. One more new book and new author discovered due to BookCrossing! What's not to like here? : )

First Sentence : "London, and the library of my club, towards the end of an afternoon in late November, that bleak, dispiriting time of the year when the golden Indian summer days that lingered on through October seem long gone, and it is yet too early to feel the approaching cheer of Christmas."

"The Mist in the Mirror" was a very decent novel. I read it in two afternoons and quite enjoyed it, although I felt that it had potential to be much better than it was.

Susan Hill writes in an easy prose and is able to create quite an ambience which I liked a lot, but I felt she was lacking in creating a tight plot or tie everything on a decent explanation.

The main character, Sir James Monmouth, appeared quite superficial to be honest, not only because he always decides to ignore all warnings -this is a common pattern on this kind of books-, but because his behavior isn't convincing according to his background story.

I'll mention minor stuff here because I don't want to spoil it for future readers. As an example, he keeps mentioning what a nice change the new to him English climate is. He is supposed to have live on extreme heat or on monsoons all his life. He keeps mentioning he enjoys the cooler temperature and the lighter rain of England and when he finally sees snow he is greatly impressed, as it's the first time in his life (at least the one he remembers) he ever encounters snow. But elsewhere it's mentioned he has lived and traveled in most of Africa, in a good part of Asia including China and India and he ever spent Christmas once in Tibet! It appears as he, or rather the author, is completely naive on world's climate here.
Although he is supposed to be a person well-traveled in all kind of remote, diverse and exotic locations, on one hand he behaves as an Englishman growned up according to customs of the era and area and on the other hand he seems enthoused or taken aback on stuff or ignoring political correct behavior in a way mostly suitable to a cheeky teenager than a mature, respectable 40 years old man. Then, when he is troubled about something for ages and one could provide information, he simply leaves without asking. When there was a sighting or a shock of some kind, the aftermath is completely irregular. "Hey, I think I saw a ghost last night, I nearly died of terror but today is another day, let's eat a good breakfast, kill some time all day and then walk down this creepy empty lane at sunset". Not exactly logical, huh?

Then, there are many mysteries and sightings and other incidences and scenes all over the book that the author never comes back to. A couple of occasions with a mirror for example, seem to exist in the book only in order to justify its title. And there are many other details that I could mention, but I'll not. The end was quite abrupt too and I felt all the tention built came out to nothing and didn't meet the reader's expectations.


All that said, this was definately not a bad book. It was atmospheric and interesting and I will seek other books by Susan Hill. I hear some of her other novels are way better than this.

6½/10

Thank you LilyKlip and mysteriousmummy for sharing!

This atmospheric book will continue its travels to alexiapapa in Larisa who was interested to read it through the One book a month thread.
Enjoy!

The book arrived safely with a nice postcard of Delphi! Thank you! :)