Shattered Mirror by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Atwater-Rhodes, Amelia. Shattered Mirror.
Laurel-Leaf. 2002.
ISBN: 9780440229407.
$6.99. Paperback. 227 pages.

Readers Annotation
Teenaged Sarah Tigress Vida is a witch and vampire hunter who finds herself attracted to Christopher until she discovers that he is the twin brother of Nikolas, the vampire she hunts.

Plot
Sarah Tigress Vida looks like a normal teenage girl. However, she comes from a long line of witch vampire hunters. Christopher Ravena is a vampire that has foresworn drinking human blood. When the two meet they are drawn together by mutual attraction. Sarah has sworn to kill the vampire Nikolas, but is shocked to discover that he is the brother of Christopher and Nissa her two new friends. Human and vampire struggle to come to terms with their mutual attraction until Sarah’s mother and sister discover their tentative romance. Banned from contact with her vampire friends, Sarah pursues information about local vampire parties. Injured during her first contact with Nikolas she becomes more determined to destroy him. Sarah is continually thwarted in her plans. She knows that she is headed for disaster, but she cannot seem to stop her determined effort to make a name for herself by destroying the vampire Nikolas. Breaking every rule of her calling, Sarah is dismissed from service and sent away from her family. In a last desperate attempt to save herself, she makes a final attempt on Nikolas. Instead, Christopher and Nikolas turn her into a vampire. Sarah now has eternity to choose between a vampire life with her new love Kristopher, or to end her undead life.

Critical Evaluation
For this novel Atwater-Rhodes borrows again from author Laurell K. Hamilton’s “Anita Blake Vampire Hunter” novels. Although Atwater-Rhodes has borrowed from Hamilton’s novels, she has also created something new by making her character a witch from a long line of ancestral witch vampire hunters. For this novel too, Atwater-Rhodes, pays homage to Hamilton’s blurry lines of good and evil. Both Sarah (and Anita) start off believing in the ultimate evil of all vampires, and like Anita, Sarah is attracted to a vampire, and comes to care for him and his sister. It is most interesting that Atwater-Rhodes would choose to also explore the nature of good and evil in this novel because it is a recurring theme in the Hamilton books. While Anita maintains her humanity while dealing with the monsters, Atwater-Rhodes transforms Sarah into a vampire, thereby making her a mortal enemy to her family. What will Sarah and her family do now that she has turned into a vampire? It is a question that is never answered in this book. This book is part of the “Den of Shadows” series.

Information about the author
Born in 1984, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes began her writing career at age 13. She currently attends college and plans on becoming a teacher. You can find out more about her here.
You can find out more about the “Den of Shadows” books here http://www.nyeusigrube.com/.  The site is maintained by Atwater-Rhodes.

Genre
Paranormal. Witches and Vampires.

Curriculum ties
None

Challenge Issues
Paranormal. Occult.

Challenge defense ideas
· Become familiar with the book and its content.
· Refer to the collection development policy of the library.
· Refer to reviews from Booklist, School Library Journal, and Publisher’s Weekly available for viewing on amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Mirror-Shadows-Amelia-Atwater-Rhodes/dp/0440229405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258231456&sr=8-1
· Try to get reviews of the book from teens that have read it.

Booktalking Ideas
1. Discuss the reasons Sarah wants to take on Nikolas.
2. Talk about Sarah and Christopher’s mutual attraction.
3. Discuss Sarah’s transformation from human witch to vampire.

Reading Level/Age
Young adult. Ages 15 and up.

Why I included this title
This title is included in Teen Genreflecting, 2nd Edition (2003), as an example of a “Paranormal: Vampire” book.