this is Number 4 in the Lewis Barnavelt series, featuring angsty, geeky youngster Lewis and his tomboy best friend Rose Rita. this is the second solo adventure for Rose; in this one, she and wizened old witch Mrs. Zimmerman are transported back to rural Pennsylvania Dutch country, 1828, and must solve various issues involving both white and black magic. this was by no means a bad experience, and as a children's adventure, it is fine...but for me, i have to admit that the magic has faded a bit.John Bellairs died in 1991; he wrote the first three novels of the series, the rest of which were completed by Brad Strickland from Bellairs' notes. Strickland is not a bad writer. he is able to attain the resolutely realistic, prosaic tone combined with a genuinely creepy creepiness that made the earlier three books a unique delight for me as a kid. these are no fun, delight-filled magical adventures; they are the stories of growing up slowly, a day at a time, with magic acting less as a wondrous gateway to adventure and more as a foreboding sign that there is actual malice and evil in the world. so that is not lost: good job on that, Strickland.unfortunately, Strickland makes some misjudgments here and there that are off-putting: on a minor note, the regular references to past books feels amateurish; on a major note, Mrs. Zimmerman puts Rose Rita in genuine danger - and that is seriously out of character! Strickland also seems to be setting up an inevitable romance between Rose and Lewis, which is just too tidy. the three prior books were not pat affairs, they felt choppy and real and things were left unexplained. although everything was rather charming... there were also many genuinely disturbing moments. sadly, such is not the case with the resolutely tidy Ghost in the Mirror.
What do You think about The Ghost In The Mirror (1994)?
I thought this book was good and ok. It had everything you need in a suspenseful story, but it wasn't good as in general. I recommend this book to people who like to read not as SO scary type of book but has a bit of suspense, and fiction. This book would take you back in the 1800's, which is another world for the people who ended up there, and will have to stop the evil guy and save all the good people. I would have rated it a five star, but to that, it needed lots more suspense, and I needed to be wanted to read the other chapter. When Rose Rita, the main character, entered to the other world, the author said this," They were marooned in a strange enchanted world, a world that Rose Rita could not understand, a world where she instinctively felt that anything might happen. If you want to know how she ended up there and what happens next, read the story to find out.
—Poleth Mercado
