The Mirror

The Mirror is the second installment in Nora Roberts’s Lost Bride trilogy, published in 2024 by St. Martin’s Press. A work of supernatural romance, the novel continues the story of Sonya MacTavish, begun in the first book, Inheritance. Sonya inherits a haunted Victorian mansion on the coast of Maine and experiences unexplained phenomena such as footsteps at night, doors slamming, and music playing. She becomes drawn to an antique mirror that she senses holds dark family secrets. One night, the mirror transports her into the past, where she witnesses a bride being murdered on her wedding day. Sonya discovers that the manor has witnessed the mysterious deaths of seven brides in her family over the centuries. It is now up to Sonya and her group of friends to break the curse that grips the manor and end the cycle of tragic deaths. The novel explores themes of The Power of Love and Courage, The Importance of Bearing Witness, and The Interplay Between Past and Present. Inheritance (2023), the first book of the Lost Bride trilogy, is a New York Times bestseller.

This guide uses the St. Martin’s Press, Great Britain, 2024 Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of death by suicide and physical and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

The novel begins immediately following the events of Inheritance, with cousins Sonya MacTavish and Owen Poole pulled into another time through a magic mirror. They find themselves in 1916 at the wedding reception of their ancestors Lisbeth and Owen Poole. Sonya and Owen know this is the day Hester Dobbs, the evil spirit who has haunted Poole Manor for two centuries, will murder Lisbeth.

Unable to intervene across time, they watch Dobbs set a poisoned spider on Lisbeth, who dies. Dobbs senses Sonya’s presence and unleashes the spider on her. Owen crushes the spider, and the two cousins run out of the mirror back to their own time.

Sonya inherited Poole Manor a few months ago, after the death of Collin Poole, her father’s twin brother. When she moved into the manor, she realized its complex history: Seven Poole brides have died under mysterious circumstances in the grand, sea-facing house in Maine. The spirits of the brides and other dead inhabitants still live there, including Dobbs, the woman who killed the first bride, Astrid, and then died by suicide, sealing the house’s curse with her blood.

Dobbs is enraged at Sonya trying to make Poole Manor her home and frequently tries to scare Sonya and her best friend and housemate, Cleopatra (Cleo) Fabares. However, the other spirits of the house are friendly toward Sonya and Cleo. A magical mirror pops up periodically, pulling Sonya into other times so she can witness important events in the manor’s history.

In the present, Sonya and Owen recount what they saw to Cleo and Trey, Sonya’s boyfriend. Sonya is rattled by the tragedy and resolves to defeat Dobbs; the key is retrieving the seven wedding rings Dobbs took from the dead brides’ hands. However, Sonya and the others don’t know where the rings are.

Cleo suggests that in the meantime, they live fearlessly in the manor since Dobbs feeds on fear. They decide to throw an open house for the entire village in June, a couple of months away. Sonya and Cleo fall into a rhythm of work and household chores, assisted by Molly, the spirit of an Irish woman who sought sanctuary in the manor, and Sonya’s grandmother, Clover, who died in childbirth when she was just 19. Shortly after Clover’s death, her twin sons, Andrew (Drew) and Collin, were separated. Sonya’s father, Drew, was adopted by the MacTavish family and never met his twin brother in real life. Sonya only learned her Poole history after Collin died and left her the manor.

As Sonya, who is a graphic designer, prepares a pitch for a big sports account and Cleo works on her oil paintings, paranormal events continue in the manor. Noises erupt every night at 3:00 am, the hour in which Dobbs died and cursed the house, often waking Sonya, Cleo, and Trey. One night, the friends see Dobbs jumping off the seawall and realize this event is a memory loop that plays out regularly in the manor.

One day, when Owen visits, the friends discover that Dobbs can be physically destroyed. The Gold Room—where Dobbs lives—opens, and Owen’s dog, Jones, rushes inside. Owen follows, and the door slams shut. Dobbs floats in the air, telling Owen he looks like his ancestors, and she will have his blood. As Dobbs moves toward Owen, Jones snaps at her, taking a bite of her dress. Outside the door, Cleo burns sage that repels Dobbs. When Owen and Jones escape, the scrap of Dobbs’s dress is still in Jones’s mouth. The friends conclude that if Dobbs’s dress can be physically damaged, so can she.

Cleo and Owen begin a romance, and the night they make love for the first time, Dobbs fills up the house with cold smoke and nearly sneaks up on Sonya. Owen has a dream in which Collin tells him that Sonya has to be the one to defeat Dobbs. However, Owen, Trey, and Cleo have a vital role to play as well. Owen’s gift for building things and his affinity for animals are important to the mission.

Meanwhile, Sonya is pulled into the mirror again, this time while walking her dog Yoda in the woods surrounding the manor. In 1805, Sonya watches Dobbs confront Arthur Poole, the patriarch who built Poole Manor, while he is riding his horse through the woods. Dobbs warns Arthur against marrying his son to Astrid, because she wants him for herself. When Arthur tells Dobbs he will never comply, Dobbs casts a spell that breaks his neck. Sonya realizes that Arthur, too, was murdered. Until now, it was believed that he died in a horse-riding accident. Sonya promises Arthur’s corpse that she will avenge him.

Sonya gets the sports account, and the open house is a huge success. Sonya’s and Cleo’s parents and grandparents turn up, along with most of the local people. Cleo’s grandmother, Imogene, gives her and Sonya protective talismans and tells them that she senses the manor is on their side. However, the spirit they are up against is powerful as well, and they will have to put up a fight. She tells them to brace themselves for the storm that is bound to follow the current, brief calm.

A few weeks later, Sonya has a dream in which she learns that Johanna, Collin’s wife and the seventh bride, was pregnant when she died. Because Johanna asked Collin to keep the fact a secret, he never told anyone, even after her death. Sonya and Owen are pulled through the mirror into 1995, the day of Collin and Johanna’s wedding. They watch as Dobbs pushes Johanna down the stairs and kills her. However, the nightmare does not end when Sonya and Owen come out of their mirror. Instead, the house fills up with the images of all the dead of the manor, in the throes of death, and the sounds of their weeping. The novel ends on this cliffhanger.