Cover the Mirrors

by Faye L. Booth

It is 1856 and Spiritualism is at the height of its popularity. Molly Pinner has left behind her childhood in the Preston slums and inherited her late aunt Florrie’s mantle as Preston’s most successful medium. It soon becomes clear that her aunt was something far more cunning than a magnet for the spirits of the dead, but Molly puts aside her qualms and takes well to her new trade.

Molly’s relationship with her oldest friend, Jenny, is jeopardized when she begins a passionate affair with local businessman William Hamilton. Before she knows it, Molly finds herself married to a man she cannot love, and pregnant with a child she does not want. In desperation, she makes a decision that will cast her relationship with William in a completely new light.

Trapped and traumatized, and longing to regain her friendship with Jenny, Molly is about to receive a blow that will turn her life upside down. It seems Aunt Florrie lied about more than just her ability to commune with the dead: a truth hidden for years is about to emerge, and it will threaten not only Molly’s livelihood, but her very life.

Cover The Mirrors is a dark and zesty historical novel of distorted truths and suppressed Victorian desires.

• ISBN10: 0230529666
• ISBN13: 9780230529663
• Publish Date: 2 November 2007
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 4 February 2010
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Imprint: Macmillan New Writing
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

The story starts with Florrie Pinner teaching her niece Molly about her take on Spiritualism, Molly takes to the task and when Florrie dies she takes charge.

However things start to unravel when she finds herself quite quickly pregnant, despite the warning of a friend doing the same and being abandoned by the father, and the warnings of her aunt to keep independent, she marries.

Yes, the characters are interesting but I really didn't care about many of them and several of them appeared to die more to tie up loose ends than anything else. I also really didn't get a solid sense of place from the story or any real feeling that Molly learnt anything other than to be as selfish as possible.