Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Publisher: 1stBooks Library
Release Date: May 2003
ISBN: 1-4107-3108-1
Awards:  
Format Reviewed: Hardcover
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Genre: Fiction – Chick Lit
Reviewed: 2004
Reviewer: Kristin Johnson
Reviewer Notes:  Kristin Johnson, the founder of PoemsForYou.com, released her second book, CHRISTMAS COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING, co-written with Mimi Cummins, in October 2003. Her third book, ORDINARY MIRACLES: My Incredible Spiritual, Artistic and Scientific Journey, co-written with Sir Rupert A.L. Perrin, M.D., is now available from PublishAmerica.
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A Mirror Image
By Lynette Butler Borhman


      It’s ten o’clock. Do you know what your sister is doing right now? Think you don’t have a sister? So do Chelsea Lane Tanner and her twin sister, Serena Wilcox Shepherd, both married on the same day to husbands who absolutely go mad with desire.

     Trouble is, Serena (born Christy Lane), finds that her husband Adrian’s lust only kicks in if he can rape her and beat her senseless before, after, and during sex. On the flip side, Chelsea’s temper flares all too quickly for a newlywed bride of an adoring and near-saintly, if lascivious, husband, Tristan. In addition, Chelsea sees and hears Serena in her mirror, and suffers mysterious physical trauma from Adrian’s abuse of Serena and to Serena’s heartwrenching miscarriage. While Adrian displays complex moments of neediness and abandonment, he is otherwise the perfect, handsome, sociopathic monster, or the Devil as Serena calls him.

      Chelsea and Serena/Christy are the classic doppelganger figure. Serena’s abused-wife nature, planted by her adopted mother who stole her at birth and kept Serena sheltered, and her meekness seem to be absent in the firebrand Chelsea. The scenario is reminiscent of the classic “Enemy Within” episode of the original “Star Trek” series, in which Captain Kirk becomes split into two halves: a kind, gentle, and compassionate wimp and a passionate, commanding, but amoral and abusive jerk. While Chelsea is loving and caring, she does have the tendency to go off on beleaguered “knight in shining armor” Tristan, whose name echoes his gallantry and his insatiable desire for his wife. Like the classic Tristan, this hero momentarily suffers weakness when another woman (there are two Isoldes in the story) enters the picture, but love of course conquers all, and sisterhood is forever. Interestingly, Chelsea falters when Adrian threatens her life while Serena at last recovers courage the way Josephine Muscat does in “Chocolat.” At the end of the novel, all is hastily and happily resolved, and balance is restored to the universe.

      While melodramatic at times, A Mirror Image, with its story of love, family betrayal, and triumph, does indeed make you appreciate your sister.