Book Details
Author: Christelle Dabos
Published: June 6, 2013
Fantasy
Reading Level: 10th-12th grade
Plotline: Spoiler-Free
A Winter’s Promise follows Ophelia, a boring animist girl with more to her than meets the eye. Ophelia has many things about her that make her special. She is not just an animist; she is a reader. She can take an object and trace back all the emotions of people who have touched it. This is a rare enough gift but rarer still is her ability to travel from one place to another through a mirror.
Everything was going smoothly for her as she ran her museum on Anima until the leaders of her Ark betrothed her to Thorn. Thorn is blunt and rude, and he takes her away to the pole to live out her engagement period accompanied by her aunt Rosaline. Both Ophelia and Thorn share a mutual distaste for one another. But this fades over time.
The Pole is very different from Anima. It’s very cold and the family powers of the descendants of Farouk are much different than those of her family. Not only does she have to deal with the family powers, but she also has to deal with being locked up in Thorn’s Aunt’s mansion. She must navigate all this while figuring out how to fit into court at the pole.
Even though Ophelia and Aunt Rosaline are kept in the mansion for their safety, Eventually Thorn and his aunt Berenilde are forced out of Berenilde’s mansion and into the diplomatic sanctuary of Clairdelune. There Ophelia lives in disguise as a valet waiting on Berenilde and Aunt Rosaline. She makes friends with another valet who helps keep her out of trouble.
During her time in disguise at Clairdelune Ophelia learns about the Pole and how to navigate it. But she also must learn to navigate Thorn’s budding feelings for her.
My Thoughts on The Mirror Visitor a Winter’s Promise
This is a well-written Beauty and the Beast story. Ophelia is taken against her will to live with a strange man that she doesn’t know or like. In a twist, it seems like Thorn doesn’t like her all that much either at first. Ophelia realizes that Thorn was probably forced into this as well as she.
The whole idea is a new twist on a classic story. I like the magic Christelle Dabos used to bring the story to life. It was very creative to have the world shattered into pieces and have each piece be ruled by a different family spirit that has passed their magical abilities onto the inhabitants of their arc.
The characters were great, it seemed like Christelle Dabos put a lot of thought into each of them. Ophelia is certainly a well-thought-out protagonist who grows throughout the story. I felt like I was growing with her as I was reading the book. She has to overcome a lot, such as her physical clumsiness, and she does it with a lot of grace.
Thorn is a fun character because he is surprised by how well Ophelia deals with everything that is going on. Not only is surprised and intrigued by her. He slowly develops feelings for her throughout the book.
There were a lot of characters that were introduced right at the beginning of the story that weren’t used again. I suspect that they will make appearances in the next book in the series but I think it would have made sense to have fewer characters or have had them in the story more.
Perhaps my biggest complaint about the book was the lack of time given to thorn. He seems to be absent for a large part of the story. I would have liked to see more of him developing these feelings. It kind of seemed like he just showed up one day with these feelings. Or at least that’s how it felt from Ophelia’s POV and I agree with that POV. I wish I could have understood Thorn’s thought process.
Recommendation
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
This book was super well written. Each sentence seemed to flow nicely. It was originally written in French and you can kind of tell because some of the word placement is different than a native English speaker would use but overall, I had no complaints.
The classic Beauty and the Beast story was told well and had a fun spin with the magic. The magic system was well thought out and seemed to have rules that made sense.
The characters were great. Ophelia and Thorn were well thought out. There are a lot of characters in the book but most of them aren’t involved in the story hardly at all. I wish they had been in the story more though I do understand why she wrote it without the characters being involved as Ophelia was ripped away from most of them.
Thorn and Ophelia have a strange relationship and I wish more time in the story was given to the development of that relationship.
Ultimately, the story was great. It kept me engaged turning the pages. I enjoyed the book and am glad that I bought it.
