The Mirror Chronicles: The Bell Between Worlds

This debut novel, the first in a projected trilogy, has already received some gratifyingly positive pre-publicity. And indeed the story itself has potential, concentrating on 12-year-old Sylas and his search for a mother whom his wicked uncle has told him is dead. Lured on by the chimes of a vast bell, he travels to another world known as the ‘other’. There he is faced by appalling dangers as he struggles to find a girl called Naeo in the knowledge that if he fails the entire new world in which he now lives will totally collapse.

So far, so quite good. But what constantly lets the story down is the poor quality of the writing. Shop-worn phrases drawn from second rate fantasy adventure stories over the ages far from being sent packing are instead welcomed onto the page. Once again blood runs cold or else drains from faces, teeth are razor-sharp and Sylas is allowed a ‘quiet smile’ as opposed, I suppose, to a noisy one. His friend and guide Simia, meanwhile, is described in one astonishing sentence as ‘gritting her teeth and yanking them out of the water.’ A second reading reveals that ‘them’ here refers to a pair of oars mentioned at the start of a previous sentence. Had the author allowed himself a total re-write, this story might just have had a chance. As it is, the accumulated weight of its clichés and stereotypes render it near unreadable for anyone with the least sense of respect for writing as a craft to be taken seriously whatever the age of the reader.