The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath (Notebooks of John Loveheart, Esq)

by Ishbelle Bee

John Coulthart (Cover Designer)

1888. A little girl called Mirror and her extraordinary shape-shifting guardian Goliath Honeyflower are washed up on the shores of Victorian England. Something has been wrong with Mirror since the day her grandfather locked her inside a mysterious clock that was painted all over with ladybirds. Mirror does not know what she is, but she knows she is no longer human.

John Loveheart, meanwhile, was not born wicked. But after the sinister death of his parents, he was taken by Mr Fingers, the demon lord of the underworld. Some say he is mad. John would be inclined to agree.

Now Mr Fingers is determined to find the little girl called Mirror, whose flesh he intends to eat, and whose soul is the key to his eternal reign. And John Loveheart has been called by his otherworldly father to help him track Mirror down…

An extraordinary dark fairytale for adults, for fans of Catherynne Valente and Neil Gaiman.

File Under: Fantasy [ Shapes Shifting | Inside the Clock | A Tasty Little Girl | 12 Dancing Princesses ]

• ISBN13: 9780857664419
• Publish Date: 4 June 2015 (first published 2 June 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 18 November 2024
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Angry Robot
• Edition: New edition
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

The Singular and Extraordinary Tale of Mirror and Goliath

The cover of The Singular and Extraordinary Tale of Mirror and Goliath caught my eye at MidAmericaConII last year while I was visiting the Angry Robot table. Sadly they didn’t have any copies of the book, but I am grateful my #OTSPSecretSister granted one of my wish list books within the past few months.

The Singular and Extraordinary Tale of Mirror and Goliath attempts to create a new fairy tale or something—to be honest, when I finished the book, I wasn’t quite sure what I read. Hell, I still don’t know what I read. The story seems disjointed, unclear, unfinished. I didn’t get it. I felt stupid. I strongly dislike books that make me feel stupid.

What was Mirror? Did Goliath really turn into different animals? Why did he turn into different animals? Why did the book have so many fragmented points of view? Children’s souls in clocks, what?! Is there time travel or not? Color me confused.

The Singular and Extraordinary Tale of Mirror and Goliath is certainly unique. It blends a couple of known myths (Persephone) and fairy tales (The Twelve Dancing Princesses is mentioned), but the mess of points of view leads to a disjointed tale that in the end left me feeling like the dumbest reader on the planet because I just didn’t get the point.

[chrssym]

Whimsical, dark, and so very interesting! Unique and wondrous. Big fan.