A lyrical work of stunning creative vision, Mirror Mirror is set in Renaissance Italy, where Gregory Maguire makes a connection between the poison apple in the original Snow White story and the Borgia family's well-known appetite for poisoning its foes.

Here the character of Snow White is called Bianca de Nevada. She is born on a farm in Tuscany in 1495, and at the age of seven, her father is ordered by Cesare Borgia to go on a quest to reclaim the relic of the original Tree of Knowledge, a branch with three living apples on it that are thousands of years old. Bianca is left in the care of her father's farm staff, but Lucrezia Borgia, her patroness, becomes jealous of her lecherous brother's interest in the growing child.

Lucrezia sends Bianca into the woods to have her heart cut from her chest by a hunter, but the hunter lets her go, and she (as in the fairy tale) finds herself in the home of seven dwarves - the creators of the magic mirror - who are imagined here as never before.

In the masterly tradition of his earlier novels, Gregory Maguire's evocative fourth novel brings fresh eyes to a beloved classic tale.

Gregory Maguire's first three novels, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Lost, have all appeared on bestseller lists nationwide and have earned him high praise and a solid literary readership.