SHATTERED MIRROR
Amelia Atwater Rhodes
Delacorte Press
Young Adult
ISBN: 0385327935
240 pages

Okay let's get the facts out of the way first. Amelia Atwater-Rhodes wrote her first novel, IN THE FORESTS OF THE NIGHT, when she was 13. DEMON IN MY VIEW was written two years later. SHATTERED MIRROR is the latest novel from the teen Anne Rice. Note: I will not let the fact that she is a highly successful novelist and I am just a shlumpy old loser affect my review in the least.

In SHATTERED MIRROR, Atwater-Rhodes does Buffy one better. The protagonist of the story is Sarah Tigress Vida, is a vampire hunter AND a witch. Double occult whammy! Her whole family are vampire hunters --- have been forever. Sarah is a totally hard-core, tough girl. A loner, she prefers the company of the night stars to actual humans. Sarah is proud to be a Vida witch and loves all the honor that name conveys. She would never consort with the enemy...or would she?

Trouble starts brewing when Sarah meets two charming vampires posing as high school students. Christopher is a "harmless" vampire, living off animal blood or willing human donors. He is artistic, kind and, of course, really cute and Sarah reluctantly begins to find herself crushing on him bad. Christopher returns the feelings by writing her love poetry and giving her sketches he has made.

As we all know, love can be quite confusing. Sarah is thrown completely off, not just by her raging hormones, but also by the fact that the boy she cares for should, technically, be on her "Dead" list. Sarah finds herself questioning her entire life and all the traditions of her family. She can't get her mind around hunting vampires anymore, as her family has sworn to do. Can a vampire hunter and her undead prey learn to love each other?

SHATTERED MIRROR takes a crazy twist just as readers will be hoping for Sarah and Christopher to get together. Turns out Christopher is actually Kristopher, twin brother of one of the most hated and hunted vampires of history, Nikolas. The fiend Nikolas is famous for carving his name into his victims and Sarah wants to be the Vida to take Nikolas down. Will her new feelings for Christopher cause her to change her mind? And will they lead her to a dangerous decision, a decision that would tarnish her family's reputation --- and cost Sarah her mortal soul?

All these questions and more will be answered, promise. Fans of Atwater Rhodes will be pleased to see the return of characters like Caryn Smoke. Fans and non-fans alike will be totally engrossed in this story about the battle between love, evil and tradition. I give it four stakes!

   --- Reviewed by Serena Burns

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