Rating: 4 1/4 stars
If you like your fantasy dark and twisted, you'll love this book. Jacob's father is missing and it is when Jacob is poking around his office that he discovers there is way through the mirror into an entirely different world: Mirrorworld. So Jacob begins to live two lives: one in our world with his brother Will and mother and the other as a treasure hunter in the dark and dangerous but thrilling Mirrorworld. Then comes the day that Will follows him in...and something terrible happens. He is infected with a dark curse that is turning his skin into stone and making him become part of the race of Goyls--a stone-skinned people who are waging war on the humans. Even worse, the Dark Fairy who consorts with the Goyl king particularly wants Will because his skin is turning to jade--and there is a legend about the Jade Goyl who will protect the king from death. So it becomes a race--can Jacob find a way to stop the stone from creeping through Will's skin before the Dark Fairy finds him and uses him for her own purposes? And can Will's girlfriend Clara and Jacob's companion Fox help? The story is fast-paced and full of dark magic and hard choices, and fans of this kind of plot will be drawn in. Fans of Funke's InkWorld series will find much to like in this book.
