You know what today is? It's RELEASE DAY for Through a Shattered Glass! HUZZAH! I'm so excited that y'all can finally read this book — it's honestly one of my favorite things I've written. If you preordered the ebook, it should be showing up in your Kindle, and if you've been holding out for the paperback, you can go forth and purchase that now! As a reminder, if you order the paperback today, you can still request your set of character art stickers. (Or, if you preordered the ebook but haven't requested your stickers, you can still do that through the 26th.) And if you still need to know why you should buy the book . . . well, I have a list of five reasons for you over on Light and Shadows.

Now, this might be my past as a fanfic writer and forum roleplayer talking, but one of my favorite character development experiments is thinking about how characters from different stories and storyworlds might interact: which characters get along like a house on fire, which ones hate each other on sight, and everything in between. And today, I wanted to celebrate all the Broken Mirror stories by sharing my thoughts on how Alys and Kai, the main characters of Through a Shattered Glass, might react if they met their counterparts (and the rest of the casts) from the other books in this release. As a side note, I'll be referring to Alys and Kai at different points in their respective timelines throughout the post, since I'm looking for the most interesting results. If you read the book, you'll understand why.

About . . .

Through a Shattered Glass

Drop the mirror and you break the world in two.

Alys hasn’t set foot in Wonderland in years. Not since the White Queen’s mirror shattered; not since her best friend, Kai Hatter, was killed; not since Alys fled back to her own world with a shard of enchanted mirror in her eye. She’s done her best to set aside the past and move on — until a red-painted rose appears in her room, and the portal opens once more.

Simultaneously desperate for hope and terrified of what she might find — or cause — Alys ventures back through the mirror. But the Wonderland she finds is not the same one she left behind, and though Kai is less dead than she thought, he still might be past saving. To make matters worse, the mirror shard is still in Alys’s eye, and Wonderland is all too susceptible to its corrupting power.

Only Alys can save the land and friend she loves — but if she’s not careful, she might be their doom instead.

A dark portal fantasy remix of The Snow Queen and Lewis Carroll’s Alice duology.

Find it on: Amazon || Goodreads

A Meeting of Mirrors

Snowfield Palace

I'll tell you up front: this is the hardest of the books to talk about without giving away spoilers. What can I say? If Alys ended up in Snowfields during the actual plot of the book, she would probably make things go very sideways very quickly — though she might manage to prevent quite a bit of pain in the process, as her particular abilities would mean she'd spot the villain's true nature long before things came to a head. On the other hand, the Bethims and their household — with the exceptions of Ginny and Kaimund — are such a mess that Alys would probably end up overwhelmed. As for specific counterpart pairings, well . . . I don't think Alys and Ginny would dislike each other, but I suspect Alys would end up avoiding Ginny for her own protection, because while Ginny is an absolute sweetheart, she does not have good self-esteem, and Alys's abilities mean she is not particularly healthy for people with those types of problems to be around. On the upside, Kai would probably get along very well with his counterpart — they can bond over roses and disaster families and generally have a nice time.

Shattered Reflection

One thing's certain here: Alys and Kai would both sympathize heavily with Princess Nordica. Having your mind and heart twisted against you? Being used as a tool to cause pain to those you're meant to care about? They understand her plight all too well, and they'd probably be more than willing to do what they could to help her, though Alys would be very concerned about just making everything worse. When it comes to counterpart relationships, Alys would probably be more than a little envious of Layree's faith — it's been a long time since Alys felt she could believe in anything. She'd probably relate much more strongly to Breac, whose struggle is a little bit closer to hers. Kai and Loren would probably be friendly, but I doubt they'd end up close friends; aside from their shared role in the fairy tale, they don't have a ton in common.

Of Ice and Roses

Oh dear. I do not think Alys and Gemma would get along at all. It's no fault of Gemma's — she's a sweet girl — but I suspect her personality and situation are just such as to rub Alys in the worst way. On the other hand, Kai would sympathize a great deal with his counterpart in much the same way he would with Princess Nordica. Other than that, I don't think they'd have strong feelings on the rest of the cast.

Christmas Games

First things first: Alys, who grew up in our world and knows about technology and video games and VR, would find the world of this story fascinating. However, she has also absorbed enough second-hand knowledge of shows where people get stuck in VR worlds that she would want no part of the actual plot, even if she was invited. Kai, for his part, grew up in Wonderland, so everything here is new to him. I think he and Alys would both get along reasonably well with their counterparts (as well as Alys gets along with anyone these days), but since the story is so short and I haven't read the main series it's attached to, I'm not really sure what else I can say about them.

Are you excited for Through a Shattered Glass? And, if you're a writer, how do you think your characters might get along with some of the Broken Mirror characters? Please tell me in the comments! Thanks for reading!