When we think of mirrors, one of two things perhaps comes to mind: our reflections in them, or the evil witch who keeps asking, “Who is the fairest of them all?” In this story, mirrors are used as gateways, portals that can take you anywhere you want to go, so long as you can picture your destination in your mind’s eyes. Eva only dimly remembers her own past, however, although it becomes more vivid as the novel proceeds: On a childhood birthday long ago, her family home suddenly catches fire—and her mother, in an effort to save her, pushes her through a mirror.
Evyn uses flashbacks throughout to take us back and forth between Eva’s pre- and post-mirror life, giving us backstories for all those characters responsible for pushing the story forward. But the novel proper begins on a later birthday of Eva’s. She celebrates it at a friend’s house and leaves early to go home to her unofficial boyfriend, Clay (who doesn’t make it to said party, offering to make it up to her at home).
As she arrives there, she is grabbed from behind and breaks free. Her assailant claims she is in danger, asking her to come with him. Eva tells him he is the real danger, backing up the front porch and asking Clay to open the door. The door opens and she falls into something wet and soggy. The stranger, whose name we learn is Bash, rushes to her aid even though she doesn’t look like she needs it. Having grown up with her father’s militaristic training, it is she who takes the kill shot on the clay monster lurking behind the door—much to his surprise. In this scene, the author shows us that Eva really isn’t the helpless damsel in distress—hotheaded, yes, but a damsel, no. The further significance of this fight is that it tells us that, whatever mission Bash has come for, it is as much Eva’s fight as it is his. It is the first time we see them work together for a “greater good,” but it is not the last.
Reluctant to follow a stranger, even one with whom she has just slain a golem, Eva demands an explanation. It is in this moment that her life starts to unravel amid Bash’s revelations: She is no ordinary human but a fae with magical powers, just as her parents were. She is betrothed to the son of the False King—her anima, or soul mate, whom she must marry at all costs in order to save both their realms from the curse that was ignited by the False King when he assumed the throne by treachery. Naturally, Eva scoffs at all of this: magical powers, betrothed princes, faeries, anima, fate of the world. But Bash brings her attention to the amulet on her neck and removes it—only for Eva to have a wild reaction to her now-unbound magic. She faints. The removal of the amulet around her neck parallels or mirrors the unravelling of all that was kept hidden from her this whole time.
These two settings, the human realm and the fae, act more like a tangible past and present for Eva, the latter being the human realm and the former being the fae. She must face both in order for the two to intersect productively. Not yet having done so is the reason that much of her past has kept flashing back into her mind: She must come to terms with this past she can’t fully remember, and reconcile with it, in order for her future to move forward.
Alongside this self-discovery, Eva finds herself opening up to Bash effortlessly, and vice versa—something they haven’t done with friends or people in their lives. As they traverse the fae realm in their quest to reunite Eva with her anima, it’s not long before they share a kiss or two, the connection between them growing but stifled by Bash’s sense of duty (what with the fate of the world being in balance). They eventually reach Morehaven, the city where Eva’s anima resides, and—after emotional goodbyes to Bash and his friends—Eva finally meets him, this son of the False King.
She wills herself to make it work, falling into her role as the fae realm’s saviour. She tries to form a bond with her anima … but something about him isn’t right. It’s the way he restricts her to her room, the unromantic ways he commands her: On the surface, he seems like a kid who was traumatised by an evil father who wanted to usurp the throne, who then locked him away for fear his son might in turn take it from him. More follows, although there is a cliff-hanger ahead of the sequel.
All of this places the novel firmly in the tradition of the fairytale retelling. In this case, the novel seems to draw from many tributary rivers to offer its ocean of possibilities. But upon closer analysis, one can see that it takes most of its inspiration, if not all, from the 2016 movie The Huntsman: Winter’s War, itself a sequel to a retelling of Snow White (2012). We can almost describe TOSM as The Huntsman in a parallel universe. The main characters from The Huntsman, Eric and Sarah, are similar to Evyn’s two central characters: Both have militaristic training and both are orphaned in their childhood by an evil witch called Freya—who, much like the False King, ruins everything she touches. In this case, it is the whole fae realm, which becomes unrecognisable, its magic all but disappearing in defiance of his kingship. Like Eric and Sarah, Bash and Eva are on a mission to retrieve and hand over something—the only difference is that Eric and Sarah are to deliver a mirror to their respective “bosses,” while in TOSM it is Eva that is being delivered to the False King, like a lamb to the slaughter (a betrayal which Bash commits unknowingly). Both Eric and Bash are accompanied on missions by a pair of friends, Bash by the closely bonded Yael and Rivan and Eric by two dwarfs, Nion and his half brother Gryff.
Many further similarities can be seen in both stories if we delve deeper, but one important similarity is the use of animals. Witches often have a familiar which is like an extension of them. In The Huntsman, the character of Freya has an owl as hers, normally perched up on a tree spying on her “children,” her “star pupils”—that is, Eric and Sarah—while the False King has a fox as his familiar and spy that he uses to track Eva. We can pay attention to the characteristics of these animals to understand the characters: The owl has been associated with intelligence, representing Freya’s in cultivating an army from the children she orphaned, while the bird’s binocular vision and binaural hearing gives her an all-knowing and all-seeing ability. Likewise, owls are solitary and we see Freya with no one by her side, content with her solitude. Meanwhile, foxes are smart, secretive creatures, destructive, known for trickery and deceit. Their cunning nature has made them a symbol of shrewdness. This really helps us understand the False King, since within him lie many secrets to Eva’s past. In witchcraft, familiars are commonly spirits that serve witches, and can take the form of any animal; in this story, the author uses personification to attribute personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman.
Still, there are reputedly only seven basic plots and all of them have been told already a thousand-and-plus times. Perhaps what distinguishes a writer from another is not primarily the subject matter of their work, but how a particular writer has presented a story. In this sense, Evyn has shown mastery in her interpretation of a famous classic, borrowing from here and there to make the story her own: Instead of an actual mirror being the center of her story, she takes Eva as the mirror that is given unto the prince; it is Eva who proves to be the true heir of the entire fae realm; whereas in The Huntsman it is Ravenna’s thirst for beauty and power that saw her kill her niece and go into the mirror, in Evyn the False King intends to use Eva to maintain power and youth.
Though a retelling of a retelling, then, The Other Side Of The Mirror stands on its own as a story of loss, love, and trauma. Evyn’s creativity is shown through invoking emotions within us—and leaving us wanting to know what happens in her second book, in which Eva’s final fate, and that of both the human and fae realms, may be revealed.