A young woman chosen as the crown prince's bride must travel to the royal palace to meet her new husband--but her world is shaken when she discovers the dark truth the royal family has been hiding for centuries--in this lush fantasy debut perfect for fans of Song of Silver, Flame Like Night and Violet Made of Thorns. Princess Ying Yue believed in love...once upon a time. Yet when she's chosen to wed the crown prince, Ying's dreams of a fairy tale marriage quickly fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won't explain. Worse still are the rumors that swirl around the imperial palace: whispers of seven other royal brides who, after their own weddings, mysteriously disappeared. Left alone with only her own reflection for company, Ying begins to see things. Strange things. Movements in the corners of her mirror. Colorful lights upon its surface. And when, on the eve of her wedding, she unwittingly tears open a gateway, she is pulled into a mirror world. This realm is full of sentient reflections, including the enigmatic Mirror Prince. Unlike his real-world counterpart, the Mirror Prince is kind and compassionate, and before long Ying falls in love--the kind of love she always dreamed of. But there is darkness in this new world, too. It turns out the two worlds have a long and blood-soaked history, and Ying has a part to play in the future of them both. And the brides who came before Ying? By the time they discovered what their role was, it was already too late.
The concept of this story with the mirror world and reflections with their own minds and dreams (some not quite so good, but you can't blame them because their curse is pretty darn awful). I was more interested in what Mirror Ying was up to though, and not quite so much the real Ying who was, how shall I put this? A caricature of a teenage girl. She only had the most extreme of emotions, from something like, "oh, the prince brushed my hand, now I am eternally in love with him and life is not worth living if he is not by my side, to I am in the pits of despair because I was betrayed, and then, oh. the other prince touched my hand, now I am eternally in love with him!". Though I liked that she did not feel her maids were not important enough to save/help. The roller coaster of emotions and the not thinking before running into bad situations really did put a drag on the story, and even the dragons could not save me from not liking Ying.
But I did finish the book because I was interested in the mirror world and the people living in it. I think the story would have been more interesting with more history about them and the Crimson emperor, than Ying's trials to become the savior of the real world.
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