Imagine your Book of Life being placed before you on a desk. The opening paragraph tells of your birth. The final paragraph of the final chapter details exactly how, when, and where you’ll die. All relevant aspects of your love life, family, career, and health are set out within the chapters; everything significant about your time on Earth. There are only two options: either you read the whole book from cover to cover, or you throw the book on the fire without reading a single word.
Joe believes such a book could never exist. But he also believes that breaking a mirror is unlucky. Join him on his whirlwind adventure through London, unearthing clues and solving riddles as he strives to discover the truth.
I never really intended to write a novel, certainly not a trilogy, but then I had an experience ... a truly mind-blowing experience. The Breaking Mirrors Trilogy is an allegory of that experience.
I live with my wife in Dorset, on the sunny south coast of England.
Thanks for stopping by ... and enjoy your reading.
Genesis by Adam Wilson is the first of the Breaking Mirrors Trilogy and was my 18th book of 2018. I purchased this book sometime ago when spotting it on Amazon, but it has sat on my kindle unread for sometime.
Joe is an 18 year old orphan who has finally found a home with foster parents where he felt at home. He is a courier for a London ticket tout, has few friends, his work colleagues and especially Ellie and Sam his foster parents other child. For his 18th birthday Joe receives a gift delivered by his social worker which she had been entrusted to deliver by his mum, a dream catcher with a key attached. From that day forward Joe experienced a dream every night where he couldn't break the mirror at the end of it. This dream develops in to a set of riddles which he believes that he has to solve. This sees him travelling across London past and present.
I have really struggled to feel how I feel about this book, it is the start of a trilogy and parts have made me think that I do want to read more, but at stages in the book I just felt like the story was a little slow and not really going anywhere, which makes me think do I really want to lose more time. I always judge a book on how much I pick it up when I have a spare moment and ultimately how long it takes me to read it and this took me 3 weeks and the Kindle sat abandoned for periods of time.
The book is well researched and I have learned a great deal about the history of London that I didn't before. The hook for me to buy this book was because it was set in London, but if I am honest in general this book left me a little cold.
I've struggled to rate this book as I liked parts but didn't others. I've settled for a safe 3, but it in parts its a 2 and others its nearer a 4.
I've rated this two stars because I did find myself really wanting to like the book all the way through.. but I just never quite got there. It gave me a fascinating history of London don't get me wrong, right from things I had already learned in school to a deeper history that (for me) could only be found on Wikipedia. I'll be honest it really got to a point where that is actually where I believed I was reading from. If you like history and Dan Brown books (perhaps this is what the author was actually going for) then give this a go. For me it fell flat, particularly at the end, there was nothing that had me craving to follow onto the next two books even though I had bonded with a couple of characters.. albeit for only a short period.. A lot of interesting dark London history but doesn't quite make it as a novel.
3.5* rounded up to 4* Well, this was interesting. Different. I was back at school in a history lesson of London. A story with pictures! (that was actually a nice touch). Enjoyable, but for me, a bit more character development would have helped, however an elderly Russian was very engaging and gave me a giggle. A very open ending so not recommended as a stand alone (as some series can be). It's part one of a trilogy and it had me gripped enough to read part two.