Dark Mirror

The best book I have read so far. The characters, the adventure, the mystery it was all just fantastic. The Book starts out in 1803 England with Lady Victoria Mansfield. All is going perfectly well she is set to be married to Edward Harford and live a life of complete bliss. That would have happened had her mother not discovered her floating above her bed after getting caught up in a dream. Turns out her mother's family had a wee bit of magic in the blood. At this time mages, commoners with magical abilities, were accepted only in the lower classes if you were an aristocrat it meant condemnation. Victoria continues to deny that there is anything wrong and in an act of desperation uses he magic to save her nephew. She is sent away to Lackland abbey where she discovers not all condemn magic but embrace it. She becomes one of the Irregulars and learns to control her powers. When the headquarters is raided she is swept away to WWII through Merlin's Mirror. I like the parallel the author uses in the book between Napoleon and Hitler. They both wanted to conquer the world and both failed to do so. I liked how she used Britian and  the "middle man" that stood in the way of success for both. That made it interesting. The story itself was really clever. I like how she used Dover Castle as the central idea for the story and how during Operation Dynamo there was perfect weather for evacuation which is where she claimed the idea for magic being responsible. That was really clever thinking. Also, I like how she parallels the Irregulars to the future government of England. Instead of it being divided by blood, gender, or family names they are all on an equal level. One in the same. Eventually that is what becomes of the English Government. I'm a history buff so this type of thing makes the story more interesting. Another thing that was different about this story was that the focus was on Tory as an individual and her struggles for identity. The story didn't focus on romance as much as it did self discovery and the journey of honesty. I liked that with each character something new was added to the group as a whole not just ability but the character development made it easier to relate too. I was surprised and cannot wait to read the sequel and find out what happens to Tory and her friends!!