Mirror Bound

Verity is a phantom, a being from the mirror world who can change her face, that is until she is bound by a mage in the grounded world and is forced to live in human form. She is forced to obey the one she’s bound to and is unable to lie. Dakota is a hunter, and with her team of mages, she hunts dangerous creatures from the mirror world. Verity is able to transport herself, and others, from place to place and she’s found that each transport slowly wears away her binding, so she’s biding her time hoping to wear her binding down enough to allow her to escape and return home. Unfortunately, more creatures than ever are coming from the mirror world and the mages’ governing body, the Quorum, can’t figure out why. If Dakota, Verity and the team can’t solve the problem soon, the Quorum will take over Verity’s binding and use her in ways she would do anything to avoid.This was an interesting and unique story and the author does a great job developing the characters, with Verity, of course, being the most strongly developed character as the rest of them basically revolve around her. Dakota is one of my favorite characters and I liked how much she trusted and stood up for Verity when so many others were mistrustful or scared. While many see Verity as little more than a pet, to be tolerated, Dakota treated Verity with kindness and only hesitantly commanded her against her will. I also liked Davin and Siobhan even as I constantly questioned their motives where Verity was concerned. Deeply and vividly descriptive, action scenes jump off the page and the reader gets a good feel for creatures, magic and surrounding areas as if they’re right in front of you. In addition, Held deftly crafts the story so the reader will feel the gamut of emotions these characters endure. This is a well thought out, well done story and my only complaint is that I sometimes felt the book lagged here and there. Although many of the conversations were meant to reveal information to the reader, I felt that some of that was a little too prolonged and could have been a little more concise. With magic, romance and action, this is an entertaining read with well developed, engaging characters and a strongly built, unique world. I received a copy of this book from Booksprout and am voluntarily reviewing it.