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The Medici Mirror
The Medici Mirror
Sep 11, 2025 5:17 AM

Author:Melissa Bailey

The Medici Mirror

‘I have heard, but not believed, the spirits of the dead may walk again…’

A hidden room

When architect Johnny Carter is asked to redesign a long-abandoned Victorian shoe factory, he discovers a hidden room deep in the basement. A dark, sinister room, which contains a sixteenth-century Venetian mirror.

A love in danger

Johnny has a new love, Ophelia, in his life. But as the pair’s relationship develops and they begin to explore the mystery surrounding the mirror, its malign influence threatens to envelop and destroy them.

A secret history

The mirror’s heritage dates back to the sixteenth century, and the figure of Catherine de Medici – betrayed wife, practitioner of the occult, and known as the Black Queen.

The Medici Mirror is a haunting story of jealousy, obsession, and murder, perfect for fans of Kate Mosse and Barbara Erskine; a story about the ability of the past to influence the present and of love’s power to defeat even the most powerful of curses.

Reviews

A wonderful piece of storytelling... with fantastic characters and a thrilling denouement. I highly recommend this to fans of the ghostly, the historical and the time-slip.

—— Lisa Reads Books

This is a brilliant novel and an impressive debut. I really look forward to reading Melissa Bailey's next book and would rate this as a five star read.

—— Book Babblers

This is a wonderful book that will haunt you long after you finish it.

—— Brighton & Hove Independent

Melissa Bailey is a wonderful talent... the words flow and the story is beautifully crafted... For a magnificent and atmospheric blend of old and new, past and present, along with the odd death thrown in for good measure, The Medici Mirror will not disappoint.

—— Milo Rambles

If you like spooky, sexy mysteries with a historical flavour then The Medici Mirror is for you. Melissa Bailey is undoubtedly a name we will all become familiar with.

—— Byte the Book

clever variation of a time-slip novel...recommended

—— Historical Novel Society

The Medici Mirror is a dark book that explores the themes of revenge, jealousy, betrayal, death, yearning, vulnerability and love. As a debut novel it’s a strong well-rounded book and if you’re a fan of ghost stories it’s well worth a read.

—— Culturefly

The Medici Mirror is a dark book that explores the themes of revenge, jealousy, betrayal, death, yearning, vulnerability and love. As a debut novel it’s a strong well-rounded book and if you’re a fan of ghost stories it’s well worth a read.

—— Culturefly

An amalgam of social satire and noirish thriller...vintage Ackroyd

—— Ian Thomson , Financial Times

Consistently intriguing

—— Edmund Gordon , Times Literary Supplement

Superb... [Ackroyd] makes the familiar deliciously mysterious

—— Saga

In a slender novel, London's great fictional mapper Peter Ackroyd has woven together a rich spread of tales of the city

—— Tina Jackson , Metro

Ackroyd writes about the capital, from Camden to Chelsea, like no-one else and he captures the sense of the sixties perfectly, with high-society and low-life London so dangerously close to each other. Full of twists and turns, this is Ackroyd's most exciting novel to date

—— Good Book Guide

A classic Ackroyd tale that will not fail to please

—— Victoria Clark, 4 stars , Lady

With its distinctive language, structure and narrative approach, Lenin's Kisses presents a distictive version of 'rural china' and 'revolutionary China', even while establishing a new literary 'native China'

—— Contemporary Literature Commentary

Yan Lianke sees and describes his characters with great tenderness . . . this talented and sensitive writer exposes the absurdity of our time

—— La Croix

Sophie Hannah is a real star.

—— Daily Telegraph

Sophie Hannah has quickly established herself as a doyenne of the 'home horror' school of psychological tension, taking domestic situations and wringing from them dark, gothic thrills.

—— Financial Times

Hannah is a master of intense psychological thrillers . . . Full of twists and turns, and terrifying, too.

—— heat

She grips from start to finish - a grip which held me against my will because the sustained atmosphere of mild hysteria is hard to take . . . I couldn't put it down.

—— Literary Review

Pynchon’s latest novel is a historical romance set in during the internet’s infancy in the spring of 2001.

—— Jo Ellison and Violet Henderson , Vogue

Bleeding Edge is a romp. On full display are Pynchon’s trademark linguistic and imaginative acrobatics… It may sound frivolous but an emotional maturity counterpoints the silly songs, deliberately bad puns, and pop-cultural references

—— Irish Examiner

When he’s in his hardboiled vein, [Pynchon] writes the most entertaining dialogue in any year.

—— Tom Stoppard , Guardian

Pynchon's best novel since Mason & Dixon, an exhilarating shaggy-dog private-detective story that punctured its own garrulous charm with sharp stabs of betrayal and threat. Astonishing, too, that that a 76-year-old should produce a novel with such wild and slangy bounce.

—— Tim Martin , Telegraph

Pynchon at his most hilarious, it gave way to more sombre realities involving a suspicious Silicon Alley tech company and its possible links to international terrorism and who knows what else.

—— Uncut

Suspenseful and darkly humorous.

—— Michael Dirda , Times Literary Supplement

Intriguing, and probably the most straightforwardly readable of his books.

—— Gordon Brewer , Herald

A thrilling ride through the first tech bubble, filled with "bleeding edge" technology... Accomplished, funny and digressive.

—— Financial Times

Pynchon's take on the attack on the Twin Towers. Will he reject the conspiracy theories of the "truthers" or spin some new conspiracies of his own? I think the answer is both. But I wouldn't swear to it.

—— Gordon Brewer , Scotsman

· Pynchon delivered a piece of typically raggedy brilliance with Bleeding Edge.

—— Stuart Kelly , Scotsman

Engrossing, hilarious and shocking.

—— Jonathan Jones , Guardian

Pynchon’s high-energy writing crackles with dark wit and foreboding

—— Mail on Sunday

Playful and paranoid New York noir

—— Adam Boulton , New Statesman

Readers will have to decide for themselves how they feel about an open-ended mystery, but for those who don’t care so much about the destination, the journey is more than worth it

—— Stephen Joyce , Nudge
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