I'm a huge fan of fairytales and fairytale retellings, however this one just didn't capture me the way I wished it could've. Nonetheless, it was well written but probably too on the fantasy side for me to enjoy.

A Mirror Mended kicks off with our main character, Zinnia still traveling through The Sleeping Beauty tales, helping princesses. After a particularly eventful happily ever after, Zinnia sees a face in a hotel mirror and gets pulled into another story. Oddly enough, it isn't Sleeping Beauty. She gets pulled though the mirror by the Evil Queen in Snow White. Wanting to escape her unavoidable end, the Evil Queen enlist Zinnia to help her escape her story. Adventures ensue.

This story was interesting, seeing them travel to other versions of Snow White. I liked that we ended up with another character from the previous book. I also liked that the Queen ended up getting to tell her own story and be more than just an evil villain.

I didn't necessarily like the "romance" in this one. The start of it felt forced, but the ending was sweet. I just wish it was laid out more.

Overall a nice, quick read. I will continue the series if there will be more.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Venture into the whimsical world of "A Mirror Mended," where Alix E. Harrow weaves a spellbinding narrative that challenges the boundaries of fairy tales. This feminist retelling takes us on a journey with Zinnia Gray, a fairy-tale fixer who's grown weary of the repetitive rescue missions for snoring princesses.

Zinnia, facing her own looming fate due to an environmental disaster, discovers that not every fairy tale is as magical as it seems. Her birthday party, hosted by her best friend Charm in a tower adorned with rose petals and a spinning wheel, catapults her into another land—a land where Princess Primrose rejects the traditional fate of a hundred-year sleep and Prince Charming's unwanted advances.

What unfolds is a captivating exploration of societal expectations imposed on young women, the limitations of predetermined narratives, and the quest for autonomy. Zinnia and Primrose, determined to shape their destinies, embark on a journey to disrupt the traditional fairy tales and challenge the medical prognoses that hang over them.

The narrative beautifully blends the magical and the feminist, inviting readers to ponder the constraints placed on women and their resilience in forging their own paths. Harrow's storytelling captivates, offering a fresh perspective on well-known tales and intertwining them with modern dilemmas.

For fantasy enthusiasts seeking a delightful twist on fairy tales, "A Mirror Mended" is a compelling and thought-provoking read, empowering readers to question and redefine the stories that shape our lives.

These fun and slightly zany retellings are the perfect one-sitting pleasure, and also a delicious little treat to entertain readers in between Harrow's longer works.

thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the e-ARC!

as someone who eats fairy tale retellings for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it's always ten times better when said retellings are written from a queer perspective.

Part two, Zinnia who is typically bouncing between Sleeping Beauty fairytales, finds herself in a new fairytale... one with a wickedly gorgeous Evil Queen.

Zinnia has to uncover how she ended up in a new story, how she can fix it... and what these odd feelings are that she has everytime she looks at the queen.

I love the Fractured Fables tales, they are short reads, super fun, and FEMINIST asf. I enjoyed A Mirror Mended even more than book one, and it was such a fun read. I can't wait for more in the series!

*Gifted by Netgalley & Tor Books - thank you! All opinions are my own.

I love Harrow's stories. They're intricately woven, and just so pretty to read. This was a lovely followup to Zinnia's first story, tying up a few storylines and baking it a solid duology.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Alix E. Harrow is without a doubt my favorite author of all time. I stumbled up her book, The Once and Future Witches, and it was truly one of the best books I have ever read. I can’t put it into words, but she has this magically ability to take a story and make you forget that any other book exists. When I read her writing, I feel like I am falling in love with literature all over again.


This time around was, of course, no different. I am a huge fan of all things Disney or Fairytale related, so when I got the opportunity to read a retelling written by Harrow, I was so pumped. I am not going to lie, I didn’t realize it was the second in a series until I was already a good way through, but I didn’t feel too lost. There were times where I was waiting for things to be explained, and that is when I realized I had skipped a whole book. Despite that, I basically filled the gaps myself and moved on.

I also didn’t realize how short this book was going to be, so I was suddenly very impressed with myself for reading it within a few hours, until I looked up the page count. Ha! Still, even if this had been giant book, I still would have sat in my reading chair, my cat asleep on my legs, and read the whole thing in one sitting.

“She lived happily.”

Me, knowing that I cannot live inside this book
I think I highlighted a passage on every other page of this book. There were so many fantastic quotes, but this one just hit me differently. I honestly think I am going to end up getting this tattooed on me at some point. This whole book was about Zinnia’s struggle to figure out how to get back to her story and away from the Evil Queen, but she realizes that maybe, just maybe, she needs to rethink the story a little. She has dedicated herself to saving other princesses, but what is she really doing?

My biggest issue currently is doing everything in my power not to spoil a single aspect of this book, while also conveying to you how much I think everyone should read this book. The concept of a version of Sleeping Beauty trying to be sure that no other princess has to wait around of a man to save her is awesome enough, but this took it to a whole other level. Zinnia is so focused on staying in motion and doing everything she can to forget about herself, and I really relate to that. This is honestly one of the best stories I have read in a long time. It is hilarious and surprisingly heartfelt. So many books try really hard to have a deep meaning behind it, but it is stories like this one that stay with you forever. The message isn’t forced, it is just so incredibly poignant and true that you cannot help but feel it in your bones.

A super fun conclusion to A Spindle Splintered. We have a time jump, a bitchy queen, and Zinnia Gray jumping through all sorts of fairytale dimensions. Alix E. Harrow is seriously one of the best authors ever. I love her sun fantasy genre range and her prose is absolutely beautiful. I would read 30 more of these novellas.

3.5 stars

A very cute & creative multi-verse fairy tale retelling novella! I need to go back & read the first in the series.

[What I liked:]

•So creative! In this story, I’m actually not annoyed by the multi-verse & world hopping! It was fun to get to know the MC & her challenges & goals. Her motivations made sense & fit with the plot well. I enjoyed the creativity of the multiple versions of each fairy tale.

•This book made me laugh! There are so many witty lines in the dialogue & narration, & plenty of situational humor & comic relief.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•I have a hard time with novella-length romance stories because I feel like there just isn’t enough time to truly develop the romance & not make it feel rushed. There just wasn’t enough between Eva & our MC for me to 100% buy into their relationship, which gives the ending less emotional impact than it could’ve had.

•The bits about the fairy tales leaking into each other & there being issues with the space-time continuum getting messed up was not explained enough. Why is it happening? How does the MC know how to fix it? It needs more explanation for it to be fully believable.

CW: death, child death, child abuse, murder, torture, suicide, terminal illness, cannibalism

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

Not every fairy tale is as magical as it seems in the telling. That's a lesson Zinnia Gray discovers. Zinnia was involved in an environmental disaster that means she is living under the promise of an early death. In fact, no one with her condition has lived past twenty-one. Once Zinnia was old enough to understand her fate, she fell in love with the story of Sleeping Beauty. If only she could sleep for a hundred years while someone found the answer to her medical issues.

Her best friend Charm throws Zinnia a party on her birthday in a tower decorated with rose petals and a spinning wheel just like in the fairy tales. But when Zinnia pricks her finger on the spindle for a joke, she finds herself transported to another land where Princess Primrose is about to undergo a hundred year sleep although she wants no part of a Prince Charming coming to wake her with a kiss. Even worse, in older and darker versions of the tale, the prince does more than kiss the woman who has no ability to consent and that is Princess Primrose's greatest fear.

Together, Zinnia and Primrose are determined to do whatever it takes to disrupt the fairy tales and the medical prognoses and find a way to live the life they want, not the one that is granted to them regardless of their personal desires. Readers will be fascinated with this feminist retelling of how society hems in young women and forces them into shapes and lives they never asked for. This book is recommended for fantasy readers.

I was extremely excited for this set of novellas, because I've liked Alix E. Harrow's previous works and I always love books that use fairytales in some shape or form. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of this as a sequel, nor was I a big fan of these novellas overall either.

As a sequel, I just didn't think this worked for me. I liked parts of what A Spindle Splintered did, and how it set up the ending, but it was extremely jarring to come into this book and be basically shown how all the conclusions drawn at the end of the first novella were just plain wrong. I also really didn't like who Zinnia seemed to have become. She felt extra selfish and rude, and horrible to all the people she had just saved and fought to come back to in the first novella. It just made the first novella feel so shallow and worthless in a sense, because this one tried so hard to just overturn it all.

On top of that, I still just wasn't a fan of how everything blended together. Urban fantasy can be hit or miss for me, and unfortunately it just missed entirely here. It felt like it was too entrenched in slang and popular culture, and it kept taking me out of the actually world/story. It also just made the entire story feel much younger, even though I knew Zinnia was an adult and off doing adult things, so it didn't mesh well on that front either. In the end, the writing style just didn't work for me at all here, which is still such a surprise considering I did enjoy Harrow's previous books, and the writing contained in those. I'm not sure if this series will be getting any more novellas, but I think this sequel showed that the series just isn't for me unfortunately!

I'm a big Alix Harrow fan, the Once and Future Witches is one of my all time favorite books.
This would have been 5 stars for me if it was longer, I just wanted more!

While no one would want to be in Zinnia Gray's shoes on our earth, I've actually never been more jealous of a book character in my life. Harrow puts together a fabulously short but oh so creative story that transports you through the broken universe of fairy tales.
This book, in all its 130 pages, paints a whole slew of different pictures while maintaining friendships, making new ones, getting into trouble and finding a way out of trouble, and so much more. The characters are unwittingly funny, crass at times, and endearing in others. This book keeps you on the edge of your seat, allowing you to feel as though you too are solving the riddle that are fairy tales.

An excellent sort of retelling mash-up of a few fairytales! I love the previous book but this one was amazing.

I also love that it is relatively short, I felt I got a good fix but would love to see more of the characters in the future - another book, please????

Alix E Harrow quickly became one of my favorite authors after The Ten Thousand Doors of January, and I was so excited to see a new installment in her Fractured Fables series. While A Spindle Splintered can stand on its own, A Mirror Mended explores “Happily Ever After” in an innovative way. I love when authors dig further into fairytales, and look at the lesser known versions (I’m constantly on the hunt for more books like Seanan McGuire’s Indexing series).

Using these variations in fairytale versions, Harrow challenges our perception of hero and villain in this novella. While A Mirror Mended is short, I was constantly impressed by how much was packed into its pages. Eva was such an intriguing character, and I loved seeing more of Zinnia. I think some readers may not like the ending, but I absolutely adored it.

Like A Spindle Splintered, A Mirror Mended was just straight up fun to read. There’s magic, mayhem, and maybe just a little bit of murder. Oh, and a pretty excellent love story. I’d recommend this one to fantasy fans! One note - you really do need to read the first one to fully understand this one.

A Mirror Mended is just what the doctor ordered. Alix E. Harrow is reliable in delivering a beautifully written, humourous, and at times tender fairytale. The audiobook was wonderful as well and I feel like the narrator did a great job of bringing these characters to life.

I think that the shift from saving the princesses to saving the villain was fantastic--I was rooting for the Evil Queen without a doubt and loved the story between her and Zinnia Gray, our resident sleeping beauty.

As I've said before, I would happily devour a multitude of stories set in this universe and I hope that Harrow at least considers it! I loved this story so much. 4 stars.

Beneath Zinnia’s sarcastic, knowledgeable voice, A Mirror Mended—just like Spindle—keeps up a serious critical engagement with the tropes of Western fairy tale, and puts its characters through exacting arcs while keeping to novella length. With more complexity in fleshing out the different worlds’ settings, or a wider range of characters with their own folkloric subplots to fulfil, each book could have been a novel on its own. As novellas, both tell Zinnia’s story—and convey just enough of the critical framework she applies to these tales which have shaped her—to suggest that there would be much for her to fix in the worlds’ other tales, too.
--Catherine Baker

A Mirror Mended is another strong story from Alix E. Harrow continuing her version of well-known fairy tales. Instead of another princess, however, Ms. Harrow chooses to focus on the Evil Queen, which is a clever twist as we get to question just what makes a person evil. I love these Fractured Fables so much. They upend these well-known fairy tales, giving them back some of the grittiness and depth lost once they were made into a Disney movie. Plus, they allow readers to fall in love with Ms. Harrow's writing as much as I have.