I love Dhonielle Clayton, but this series is just such a bummer. If you're in the mood for a book without a happy ending I definitely recommend this series and this book in particular, but I just wasn't feeling it.

The Mirror: Shattered Midnight is book 2 of the four book Disney Publishing YA Fantasy series, "The Mirror", a four book series focusing on a family over several generations as written by four women of color authors known for their other YA SF/F works - Julie C Dao, Dhonielle Clatyon, J.C. Cervantes and L.L. McKinney. The first book, Julie C Dao's "Broken Wish" (my review here), told about the start of the family (or well two families at the beginning) in 19th century Germany and ended with the creation of the series' eponymous archetype, a magic mirror. It was a fine, but unexceptional story, with some notable omissions from the setting (Religious prejudice was bizarrely absent) but a solid start.

This second book shifts the story to 1928 (Prohibition era) New Orleans, and features a Black (well mixed race, but mostly Black) girl who loves Jazz, and who has a combination of music and magic in her veins, dealing with racism, interracial love and fears of what she can do. And again the book features a strong lead protagonist, and a really strong setting as it investigates the racial atmosphere of 1920s New Orleans through its Black protagonist and her White love interest. It's also really short and nearly novella length, so it won't take long to read. Still, a lot of what happens within is predictable, and by nature of being the second of a four book arc, Shattered Midnight is limited in terms of where its ending can go, which prevents it from being a clear recommend for those looking for YA reading. I'll still probably try out the third book at this point though, for what it's worth.

----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
Zora Broussard is basically alone in New Orleans. In her old life, under her real name, she had a good family in New York, with an Oma (grandmother) who taught her about the magic in her blood, magic that comes out when Zora makes music - the love of her life. But now her Oma is gone, and Zora's magic came out in an accident that resulted in disaster for her family, and forced her to flee to her Aunt and her uncaring cousins in New Orleans - an Aunt who doesn't care for music and just wants Zora to be a proper lady.

But while Zora fears her magic, she still wants nothing more than to be free to make music - the Jazz that her father taught her to love so much. And so, despite it being dangerous for a black girl in 1928 in New Orleans, she sneaks out at night to a club where she moonlights as a jazz singer, where she can let loose with a fellow friend.

And it's at this club that she meets Phillip, a well off white boy with a tremendous skill on the Piano - and an attraction to Zora that she knows at once is mutual. But it's dangerous for a black girl - even one mixed in ancestry - to love a white man in 1920s New Orleans, and anyone discovering their tryst could get them killed. And then there's Phillip's family heirloom, a magic mirror that seems to foretell a grave future for Zora, one he is desperate to stop.

Will Zora's magic result in her destruction as she fears? Or will it be the mundane prejudice of New Orleans? To fight off both, Zora will have to make choices she could never have imagined, ones that will change her fate and that of her bloodline....forever.
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Okay that's way too long of a plot summary for this book, I admit, especially for a book this short, but I wanted to hit all the important points - and honestly the Mirror isn't an important point in this book, but it's the name of the series so I felt I had to fit it in. Still, you get the picture: this is a classic setup mixed with a bunch of other elements that provide some freshness to the story: so you have a Cinderella like restricting Aunt and Cousins....except the Aunt really does think she's doing what's best for a young black girl and the cousins may be not friendly but they are understandable in their desires....you have a magical girl except she fears and dislikes her magic due to what it's done....and you have a girl loving music but threatened by the racial prejudice in prohibition era New Orleans.

It's a setup that honestly could fit a longer book, and the book probably could use more page length, but Clayton does pretty well with the space she has here. Zora is a girl easy to love and root for - her conflicted feelings about her magic, her conflicted feelings about the idea of loving Phillip (vs her aunt's preferred beau for her, a seemingly kind black man named Christophe), and her love of music are all really easy to understand and make her a character with depth, who struggles with her emotional issues - because in more than a few ways, she does agree with her aunt that her magic is a bad thing and that she's not sure the danger of Phillip is worth it....at least at first. And Philip is a realistic mix of privileged White boy underestimating the dangers of his being with Zora (and underestimating the problems his best friend Rocco is involved with) and someone sweet and charming who you can easily see Zora falling in love with. And the setting (which also includes a conjure woman as you might expect from this version of New Orleans) provides a really strong set of conflicts for them.

Still the shortness of this book does prevent this book from hitting the next level, most notably by limiting the development of all the characters who aren't Zora or Phillip. And so while the minor characters get moments that make them feel real, whenever they have major story affecting plot decisions they feel kind of jarring and out of nowhere, because the book doesn't really develop those characters enough to make those decisions understandable - so a pair of really nice good characters make mean turns out of nowhere (that you could understand if there was a few more pages dealing with them, but there aren't) and a mystery antagonist who shows up 2/3 of the way through doesn't actually do anything....although I suspect that antagonist will show up in future books. And the ending you just know, especially after book 1, can't be entirely happy, because otherwise it wouldn't lead properly into the next book. There's a lot to like here, and with another 50-100 pages - and perhaps a separation from this series - you could see how this would be a really big winner.

Still there's enough here to like and enough craft that I'll try to get around to book 3, to see where the story takes successive generations. This book is probably a bit better than book 1, so if book 3 also shows improvements, it could be well worth the wait.

Contemporary take on Disney classics, a thrilling YA page turner that elevates the princess heroine. Creative and fun, this novel will appeal to a broad audience.

Shattered Midnight is a YA page-turning thriller, reminiscent of classic heroine tales like Cinderella and The Princess and the Frog.

Thank you Disney Hyperion and NetGalley for this suspenseful fantasy digital ARC.

Broken Wish was one of my favorite reads last year. It was true to the German fairy tales it had to have been inspired by, and was lush and gorgeous. I loved it. And with the way it ended, I was beyond thrilled to read the second book in the series.

This one wasn't as good as the first one, but there was still a lot of things that were great about it. The setting-1920s New Orleans, with jazz clubs, magic, and romance, ticked all the boxes for me. It was fast-paced and exciting, with high stakes.

Zora as a character was fascinating, but I do wish her magic had been explained better. I did really appreciate the primary conflict of the novel--that Zora is Black, while her love interest is white. There are a lot of problems caused for the characters, and it wasn't sugar-coated. I think that's really important for readers to learn about and discuss.

I also really loved the flashbacks to the first book. I really wanted a solid conclusion to that book, but I'll just have to keep reading to get the whole story. I'm excited for book 3!

This spring I went to the virtual US Book Tour. I stopped at the Disney table and they had a free book to take for review. I was really excited for it. It was YA and seemed like something I would like. Plus I honestly like anything that Disney Publishing puts out. I couldn’t wait to read it.

It is 1928 in New Orleans. Zora is trying to get used to living here. She has been sent here by her mother after she was involved in a situation that required her to get away. She is a gifted and talented musician. She can play any instrument that she touches. She starts to sneak out of the house at night and goes to a club and sings. She falls for a white boy named Phillip and her whole world changes. This book was so good. I binged it in large sections. My only real qualm about it that bumped it down a star was the fact that it ended so abruptly. Like it gave a epilogue but it was basically nothing. I know that this is book two of a 4 book series but I wanted to know more. I didn’t read the first book in the series. However, I didn’t find anything that left me wondering what was going on so I don’t think you really need to read it.

I loved the adventures that Zora went on. The sneaking out and singing at a club. It was exciting. The descriptions of the gorgeous dresses that she would wear made them come alive in my mind. The way the author also wove the magic that Zora had to learn to control was amazing. The fact that musical notes flowed from her when she let it loose was so cool. It touches on some things that were important in the 1920’s the prohibition and bootlegging alcohol were the big ones. It also shows how important debutante balls were. I do have the first book in this series and I think I am going to read it just to expand more on the story and see if it lends more to Zora’s story.

I loved this story and the magic throughout the story. I loved how it connected to the first story in the series. I was figuring out throughout the story where who connected to who and loved that. I loved the stark contrast between the first book and this one, especially with there being the Black experience embedded in this one! I'm a huge fan of Dhonielle's work and this story was no different for me! While this book is apart of a series, it could also make sense as a standalone but with knowledge of the first book, it gives more context/perspective into the history of the characters/families in the story!

I was really excited for this book since I loved the first mirror novel. This one was so different but in a good way. I loved the setting of prohibition era New Orleans and the inclusion of social justice issues (and not making light of it either).

This book is a great continuation but also a good standalone too. I was worried about having a different author but the transition was seamless and good for the new characters introduced.

Clayton's gift for writing period pieces set in New Orleans carry this story which rushes through character development & scene change for the sake of pushing forward the plot. The part I enjoyed most was the furthering of the family magic started in the first book of this series - their misfortune serves for an interesting tie to the past & future.

Full disclosure: I knew that this book was a part of a series, and that in theory, you could read it like a standalone.

I wouldn't recommend doing that. I felt lost a lot of the time in this one, and that fault is mine and mine alone. Regardless, that colored my enjoyment of this book. I also expected it to tie into the movie The Princess and the Frog (TPATF) more but I recognize that wasn't promised in the book's synopsis.

That being said, there was quite a bit about SHATTERED MIDNIGHT I enjoyed. Clayton does a fantastic job taking the reader back in time to Jazz Age New Orleans, with all the music, food and culture involved. I enjoyed that immensely as I love visiting NOLA and I am a fan of TPATF, and the author's writing style has a magical, transportive quality to it that let me get lost in Zora Broussard's world. Clayton also does a great job not letting her readers get lost in this world without pointing out the reality of Black Women not just in NOLA in the 1920s, but in America as a whole. Issues of segregation. anti-miscegenation and racism starkly affect Zora's life and story in this book, and that is something that we can't look away from. I really liked the romance between Zora and Phillip. It has a real star-crossed lovers quality, a them against the world feel that is exhilarating. I do wish that there had been more detail to how Zora's magic worked and to see her work to master it, but I may have missed context not reading the first book first. Serves me right. But overall, I liked this one.

Shattered Midnight is the second novel in the YA fantasy series The Mirror, a series where each novel is written by a different hit YA author telling the story of a different character from the same family plagued by a curse throughout the generations. You actually don't have to read the first novel before this one, but I found it enhanced the story. This one is set in the 1920s in New Orleans when segregation is at it's peak and jazz can be heard throughout the streets. Dhonielle Clayton's writing is beautiful and truly paints the scene in a remarkable way. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Sadie changes her name to Zora and runs off to New Orleans to live with her evil aunt and cousins after a tragic accident occurs caused by her magic. Zora's aunt wants her to be a debutante, but Zora just wants to blend in and perform at a local jazz club. She meets a white man Phillip with ties to magic of his own. Their connection is deeper than they realize. Will Zora learn to control her magic or does she have to get rid of it entirely? The forbidden romance is swoon-worthy. The characters are very well-developed. There are touches of Cinderella, Snow White, and The Princess and the Frog throughout, yet it also feels like it's own fairy-tale entirely. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys YA fantasies. This is definitely one not to be missed!

Zora has been forced to flee New York. After a terrible accident, one she caused by losing control of her magic, Zora has fled to New Orleans with nothing more than a pair of magic shoes to keep her safe. Luckily, her aunt takes her in, even if Zora doesn’t really fit the ideal of a perfect young lady. After all, women, particularly black women, know that they have to be good and obedient so they can find a husband. But Zora is nothing like that. She doesn’t want a husband, or to be obedient. Instead, she’d rather keep sneaking out to the local Jazz club, singing under her pseudonym and releasing the music she bottles up inside. She never expects to meet a particularly dashing piano player, nor to have the curse follow her all the way from New York to New Orleans.

I received an advanced reading copy of Shattered Midnight in exchange for an honest review.

Shattered Midnight is a fantasy novel by Dhonielle Clayton. It’s also the second novel in The Mirror Series, which started off with Broken Wish by Julie C. Dao. I absolutely loved the concept for The Mirror as soon as I heard about it, which is a single family, several generations apart, all tied together by one curse. Plus, we get some fairy-tail-esque retellings in each book (or, at least, so far), which I’m also a fan of. So, of course I was excited to get a copy of Shattered Midnight to review.

I’ve read other books by Dhonielle Clayton and enjoyed them, so I knew I was in for a good time once I picked Shattered Midnight up, and I wasn’t wrong. The story might take place over the course of several months, but I only needed a bit more than a day to devour the whole thing, and find myself deeply interested in the story.

The book was a combination of both plot- and character-led, where both led the characters along through the story. Zora was often backed into corners, but her decisions on how she got out of them were very much distinctly hers and nobody else’s. I really came to like Zora throughout the book, from how she dealt with the PTSD of the accident in New York, to how she handled the day-to-day. She was braver than she appeared at first, and she shows it through the entire story.

It’s fairly easy to call the romance here as well, but I really won’t spoil it for you guys just in case. I will say I enjoyed reading about it, and there was one surprise here that actually, well, surprised me! Again, not gonna say what it is, but if you read it, you might quickly know what it is. As for the other characters, they also surprised me, but not in good ways. There’s two I’m thinking of especially: Jo and Christophe. I was getting a really good idea of who they were as characters, and then they did a complete 180, and I was just floored. Based on their characterizations, I just did not expect their stories to end the way they did, and (THIS IS A BIT OF A SPOILER SO PLEASE SKIP AHEAD TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH) I just didn’t expect Zora’s reaction to be so calm after everything that they had done and that she’d done in return. I expected her to feel much more emotional, especially after Jo, but I guess the plot was moving all too quickly by that point to really stop and think about it. I really wish she’d done that, though.

Shattered Mirror was an exciting continuation to The Mirror Series, and now I guess I’ll have to check out the next one! While the story stands on its own, it’s very clear that there is something that comes after it, and I hear the next book takes place in the 60’s, which should be a lot of fun!

Shattered Mirror will be released October 5. You can pre-order your copy from Disney Hyperion here.

This was a super quick read. The story was fast past and definitely held my interest.

Zora is running away from something horrible that she did, and it's a while before we know exactly what. She's living with her aunt and cousins in New Orleans. Her aunt desperately wants to marry her off.

I liked Zora and her interactions with her suitor, with Jo and with Phillip.

It ended rather abruptly and I feel like the story was not quite complete. I do love this author's writing style and still enjoyed the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Disney Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Shattered Midnight is part of a series, however I did not read book 1 and was not lost. While the books have connections I was not at a major disadvantage. Now, if I had read book one I may have seen some things sooner but I usually miss that kind of stuff no matter what!

The book follows Sadie, now known as Zora, to New Orleans to start over after an “incident” in New York City. She lives with her aunt and cousins and this situation gives off some evil stepmother and step sister vibes. Now they aren’t as terrible as those Cinderella characters, but this series is paying homage to fairy tales so it seems like a fair comparison.

Zora is struggling with her magic, music, and men. Things get crazy, and she has to ale some decisions that will further change her life course.

In addition to fairy tale allusions and magic, the author is able to interweave issues of social justice and history, including the treatment of Black people in the south in the early 20th century, colorblindness, and racism.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read, it did drag in the beginning, but once I got at least halfway, it was a quick read.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book to review.

Shattered Midnight is the second book in a series, each written by different authors, and detailing different members of the same family, across time and locations. This one takes place in 1920s New Orleans, and the writing instantly pulls you into that colorful and lush setting. I felt like I was there, and the narrative itself was very realistic, other than the magical elements of course. The magic is very subtle and interesting, coming out through music notes, paralleling the main character’s love of music. I’m not one for swoony romance stories but this one was just so sweet that I couldn’t resist. I’m not sure if this is meant to be a fairytale retelling or not, but the love interest definitely has Disney prince energy and I’m here for it. I did not read the first book in the series, so I felt like I was missing a few things, but it definitely still stands perfectly on its own. I want to go back and read the first book now, as well as the rest in the series when they come out.

This magical mystery set in New Orleans in the 1920s takes on passing, colorism, segregation, interracial relationships, and the many ways people can love and hurt each other. A sequel of sorts to Broken Wish by Julie C. Dao, this book brings the descendants of her characters together in a wholly new story. However, it shares that book's central issue: the topics are young adult in nature, but the book reads like a middle grade novel. The many strands of the ambitious plot come together too simply to be fully satisfying, leaving the reader just a bit empty. A book where the execution does not live up to the premise.

A great fast-paced read with romance sprinkled in. I really enjoyed the main character, Zoya, in this book. She wasn't just a wallflower and I appreciated her journey. I also liked that she had more to her than just who she was interested in romantically.

The book is set in 1920's New Orleans and deals with segregation from the viewpoint of Zora, a black woman & our heroine. Her magic caused a disaster for her back home and she was forced into hiding to try to find a way to control it. Along the way she meets friends at the nightclub she sings at as she tries to decide whether or not to give up her magic forever. Definitely would recommend for readers of YA who like a story with fantasy and magic.

This is the second book in a series. I have not read the first book, and I think that may have been a reason I didn't enjoy this more. I felt like I may be missing some backstory. I liked the setting of 1920s New Orleans, and how the book addressed issues of race during that time, along with the jazz culture and fantasy aspects of the story. I found the character of Phillip to be pretty naïve about the reality of racism, given that he spent so much time in jazz clubs. I wanted more backstory about his family, how they came to be in possession of the mirror, etc. I felt like those parts of the story were rushed, and a lot wasn't explained. Clayton is always good at writing characters who can make the main character suffer, which makes for good tension.

While reading this book I was thinking about two Disney movies. Because of the location being in New Orleans I was imagining scenes from The Princess and the Frog and because of the mirror I was envisioning Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. At times parts of the story also made me think of Cinderella as Zora was being treated poorly by her aunt, being locked in a room. What I really liked about this story was the support and encouragement between Phillip and Zora and the bond they had with music. There was also a good mix of suspense that kept me hooked and wanting to know what was going to happen next.

I’m going to be a bit different from the vast majority of reviews for this book by saying that I didn’t super love it.

Clayton is genuinely a lovely writer, who paints an amazing story -- I picked this up specifically because I love her other works. I think that she had a lot of ideas for this, but it also felt like too many ideas squished together in a book. I really wanted to love the book and definitely sped through reading it, looking for answers. However, I did feel overwhelmed by everything being used, from the backdrop of New Orleans, the mystery of background, the mystery of the magic, the segregation, and racism, the lack of control, the fairytale retellings… the list goes on. It made me start to detach from the story and from Zora. I also felt like Phillip was a very one-dimensional character throughout the book and wasn’t really bought into his personality or their relationship. The ending was disappointing/unsatisfactory, and I probably won’t pick up the first book based on this read, nor will I continue with the others.