Mirror Girls

By: Kelly McWilliams

Narrated by: Deanna Anthony, Carmen Jewel Jones, Robin Eller

A thrilling gothic horror novel about biracial twin sisters separated at birth, perfect for fans of Lovecraft Country and The Vanishing Half

As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia.

Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from mirrors—the sign of a terrible curse. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Charlie's beloved grandmother falls ill. Her final wish is to be buried back home in Georgia—and, unbeknownst to Charlie, to see her long-lost granddaughter, Magnolia Heathwood, one last time. So Charlie travels into the Deep South, confronting the land of her worst nightmares—and Jim Crow segregation.

The sisters reunite as teenagers in the deeply haunted town of Eureka, Georgia, where ghosts linger centuries after their time and dangers lurk behind every mirror. They couldn’t be more different, but they will need each other to put the hauntings of the past to rest, to break the mirrors’ deadly curse—and to discover the meaning of sisterhood in a racially divided land.

Critic reviews

"a moving story about sisterhood and perseverance in the face of a society that tells Black girls they are worthless."—Booklist

"Steeped in atmosphere, equal parts ghost and sororal love story, McWilliams has written a pitch-perfect southern gothic thriller about race, family, and what it means to call a place home."—Christina Hammonds Reed, award-winning author of The Black Kids

"[A] spooky Southern gothic ghost story. "—BCCB

relatable

I loved it. Especially when I had to think about the metaphors. This was the most interesting.

The believability of the story

I loved all of it, the story draws you in from the beginning. It had just the right amount of spookiness.

Reality as fiction

This book is good. Many of the happenings in this book are representation of stories heard over time from the elders

Good story, not so good narration

Let me start by saying I do not listen to a lot of fiction, this may only be the 2nd or 3rd time so I dont have a lot to compare with. I kept trying to get past the women narrating and hear the words as written (one has the worst souther accent ever and the other reads with little to no emotion or nuance). The story was interesting and I believe had I read it and not listened to it I would have found it really beautiful. For that reason I have to give this four stars though my heart tells me this audio version is really more like a 3. Do yourself a favor and read the story, don’t listen to it.

Good, not great

First thing, to her credit, the narrator for Charlie at most points sounded like Michelle Obama reading to us. That is a mismatch for this story. 2nd, I don’t understand the dispersement of the curse in the manner it did. Overall it’s ok