John Bellairs.
The Face in the Frost.
Open Road. 1969
The Face in the Frost is a fantasy classic,
defying categorization with its richly imaginative story
of two separate kingdoms of wizards,
stymied by a power that is beyond their control.
A tall, skinny misfit of a wizard named Prospero
lives in the Southern Kingdom—a patchwork
of feuding duchies and small manors,
all loosely loyal to one figurehead king.
Both Prospero and an improbable adventurer named Roger Bacon
look in mirrors to see different times and places,
which greatly affects their personalities and mannerisms
and leads them into a myriad of situations
that are sometimes frightening and often hilarious.
Hailed by critics as an extraordinary work, combining the thrills of a horror novel with the inventiveness of fantasy, The Face in the Frost is the debut novel that launched John Bellairs’s reputation as one of the most individual voices in young adult fiction.