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Summary: A lyrical work of stunning creative vision, Mirror Mirror is set in Renaissance Italy, where Gregory Maguire draws a connection between the poison apple in the original Snow White story and the Borgia familys well-known appetite for poisoning its foes. In Mirror Mirror Snow White is called Bianca de Nevada. She is born on a farm in Tuscany in 1495, and when she is seven, her father is ordered by the duplicitous Cesare Borgia to go on a quest to reclaim the relic of the original Tree of Knowledge, a branch bearing three living apples that are thousands of years old. Bianca is left in the care of her fathers farm staff and the beautiful--and madly vain--Lucrecia Borgia, Cesares sister. But Lucrecia becomes jealous of her lecherous brothers interest in the growing child and plots a dire fate for Bianca in the woods below the farm. There Bianca finds herself in the home of seven dwarves--the creators of the magic mirror--who await the return of their brother, the eighth dwarf, long gone on a quest of his own. In the evocative style of Maguires earlier novels, Mirror Mirror is a fresh, compelling take on a beloved classic tale.