Synopsis
Two identical twin sisters growing up in Manhatten's high society mature in very different ways as they enter a constantly changing society. From the women's liberation movement to World War I, the two girls grow from inseparable friends to adult women struggling to find their rightful place in the world.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1998-12-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 426 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.8 in | | Weight: | 25.6 oz |
Publisher's Note
In a novel that explores one of life's most powerful and mysterious relationships--the bond between identical twins--mega-bestselling author Danielle Steel tells the story of two sisters, and takes readers on an unforgettable journey set against the vivid backdrop of the First World War.
To look at one was to see the other. For family, even the girls own father, it was a constant guessing game. For strangers, the surprise was overwhelming. And for the twins Olivia and Victoria Henderson, two remarkable young women coming of age at the turn of the century, their bond was mysterious, marvelous, and often playful--a secret realm only they inhabited.Olivia and Victoria were the beloved daughters of a man who never fully recovered from his wifes death bearing them in 1893. Shy, serious Olivia, born eleven minutes before her sister, had taken over the role of mother in their lush New York estate, managing not only a household but her rebellious twins flights of fancy. Free-spirited Victoria wanted to change the world. She embraced the womens suffrage movement and dreamed of sailing to war-torn Europe. Then, in the girls twenty-first year, as the first world war escalated overseas, a fateful choice changed their lives forever.It began when Victorias life was about to become a public scandal. It led to a painful decision, and brought handsome lawyer Charles Dawson into the Hendersons life and family. Hand-picked by the twins father to save his daughters reputation, Charles was still mourning his wifes death aboard the Titanic, struggling to raise his nine year-old son alone, determined never to lose his heart again. Charles wanted to believe that, for the sake of his son, he could make an unwanted marriage work. But in an act of deception that only Olivia and Victoria could manage, the twins took an irrevocable step, which changed both their lives forever; and took one of the twins to the battlefields of France, the other into a marriage she longed for but could not have.From Manhattan society to the trenches of war-ravaged France, Mirror Image moves elegantly and dramatically through a rich and troubled era. With startling insight, Danielle Steel explores women's choices: between home and adventure, between the love for family and the passion for a cause, between sacrifice and desire. But at the heart of Mirror Image is a fascinating, realistic portrait of identical twins, two vastly different sisters who lead their lives and follow their destinies against a vivid backdrop of a world at war.
Industry Reviews
Something of a departure for Steel: Twins Olivia and Victoria Henderson wend their way through early-20th-century America, then get caught up in war and marriage.
Mayer
The raven-haired twins in Steel's (The Klone and I) latest romance wend their way through the social dilemmas and crises of conscience that abound in the lives of two motherless heiresses. Flitting around Edith Wharton's New York and its fashionable countryside (the family home, Henderson Manor, is in Croton-on-Hudson), Olivia and Victoria Henderson come of age in high style and predictable prose. Their physical resemblance (even their father is unable to distinguish between them) exaggerates their temperamental differences. The rebel Victoria smoker, drinker and suffragette recklessly gives herself to a married womanizer, Tobias Whitticomb. Olivia dutifully keeps her father's houses and acts as the anxious guardian to her "baby" sister. She also befriends nine-year-old Geoff Dawson, whose mother has died on the Titanic. When Henderson p?re decides to marry the disgraced Victoria to Geoff's father, Charles, Olivia's heart quietly breaks and the plot thickens. The convenience of the sisters' carbon-copy looks allows Victoria to run off to help the Allied cause in France and Olivia secretly to take her sister's place. Although Steel stretches credibility as the marriage heats up (Charles didn't notice that his wife was virginal again?), the reader is too busy being moved by the powerful events to quibble. Steel doesn't flinch from the realities of childbirth and war and reliably produces yet another suspenseful tearjerker. (Nov.)
Leuchtenburg
The raven-haired twins in Steel's (The Klone and I) latest romance wend their way through the social dilemmas and crises of conscience that abound in the lives of two motherless heiresses. Flitting around Edith Wharton's New York and its fashionable countryside (the family home, Henderson Manor, is in Croton-on-Hudson), Olivia and Victoria Henderson come of age in high style and predictable prose. Their physical resemblance (even their father is unable to distinguish between them) exaggerates their temperamental differences. The rebel Victoria smoker, drinker and suffragette recklessly gives herself to a married womanizer, Tobias Whitticomb. Olivia dutifully keeps her father's houses and acts as the anxious guardian to her "baby" sister. She also befriends nine-year-old Geoff Dawson, whose mother has died on the Titanic. When Henderson pŠre decides to marry the disgraced Victoria to Geoff's father, Charles, Olivia's heart quietly breaks and the plot thickens. The convenience of the sisters' carbon-copy looks allows Victoria to run off to help the Allied cause in France and Olivia secretly to take her sister's place. Although Steel stretches credibility as the marriage heats up (Charles didn't notice that his wife was virginal again?), the reader is too busy being moved by the powerful events to quibble. Steel doesn't flinch from the realities of childbirth and war and reliably produces yet another suspenseful tearjerker. (Nov.)
Publishers Weekly (10/26/1998)
The raven-haired twins in Steel's (The Klone and I) latest romance wend their way through the social dilemmas and crises of conscience that abound in the lives of two motherless heiresses. Flitting around Edith Wharton's New York and its fashionable countryside (the family home, Henderson Manor, is in Croton-on-Hudson), Olivia and Victoria Henderson come of age in high style and predictable prose. Their physical resemblance (even their father is unable to distinguish between them) exaggerates their temperamental differences. The rebel Victoria smoker, drinker and suffragette recklessly gives herself to a married womanizer, Tobias Whitticomb. Olivia dutifully keeps her father's houses and acts as the anxious guardian to her "baby" sister. She also befriends nine-year-old Geoff Dawson, whose mother has died on the Titanic. When Henderson p¿re decides to marry the disgraced Victoria to Geoff's father, Charles, Olivia's heart quietly breaks and the plot thickens. The convenience of the sisters' carbon-copy looks allows Victoria to run off to help the Allied cause in France and Olivia secretly to take her sister's place. Although Steel stretches credibility as the marriage heats up (Charles didn't notice that his wife was virginal again?), the reader is too busy being moved by the powerful events to quibble. Steel doesn't flinch from the realities of childbirth and war and reliably produces yet another suspenseful tearjerker. (Nov.)
Publishers Weekly (10/26/1998)
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