Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire. It is 1502 and Bianca De Nevada is seven years old. She and her father, Vicente De Nevada live in Tuscany in the hills on a farm with Primavera Vecchia, the cook and Fra Ludovico, the priest. One day the son and daughter of the Pope, Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, come to visit and order Vicente off on a quest to find a branch of the Tree of Knowledge, which is protected in an ancient monastery on the Holy Mountain in Thessaly. He leaves Bianca in the care of Lucrezia who sends her off into the woods with the hunter to be killed. The hunter takes her out and leaves her there to find her own fate. She stumbles upon the dwarves cottage where she is taken care of until Lucrezia learns from the mirror that she is still alive. Years pass and Vicente returns to the farm with the famous relic to learn that his daughter "ran away and has died".
Mirror, Mirror, is the adult "so to speak" version of the classic Snow White. I enjoyed the new spin on the tale and have read others by Gregory Maguire, such as "Confessions of an Ugly stepsister" and "Wicked", which is the wicked witch's version of The Wizard of Oz. I have just finished reading "Lost" also by the author, which was supposed to be a new tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, but I just got lost reading it. It was more about some chic who is infatuated with her cousin. Ugghh.
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