Three Women in a Mirror, by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

 Great cover! I mean really, love it.

Even the blurb looked good. 

 Anna [sic], Hanna, and Anny. Three young women, free spirits all, each one at odds with the age in which they live. Despite the centuries that divide them, their stories intersect—a surprising narrative technique that lends increasing tension and richness to this novel, which builds to a thrilling crescendo of unexpected revelations.

 Spoilers below:

So I expected "a surprising narrative technique," but what I got was simply chapters-by-threes. First one set in the 1500s, the next in the early 1900s, the last today. Then chapter four, back to the 1500s, and so on... What's surprising about that? 

A "thrilling crescendo"? Really? An actress played the 1500 woman based on a bio written by the early 1900s woman? Thrilling because the first one was burned at the stake, the second one cheated on her husband and became a psychoanalyst/biographer, and the third was a drug-adled actress who found the perfect role? Whoopie-do. 

There were mirrors in this, but really, this book could have been titled Three Women and a Linden Tree, because the tree had more to do with this story than the mirrors. I kept hoping for some magical realism, Anne (the blurb misspells her as Anna) somehow transferring through the broken mirror (or the linden tree?) into Hanna, or even Anny? Oy, who the hell knows. 

And the editing needed quite a bit of work. Just some examples:

...I let others invaded me.

...still wondered it such a thing...

...others to deplored it.

...by the all the saints of Bruges...

The owners and waiters and hurried around...

...not express an void in...

...Anny would could actually say...

...see how you is a look like mermaid.

"What you mean?"

...beer would a nice consolation.

Anne refuse to accept... 

...than the any of the lazy... 

She and Ethan they had sworn... 

 And there were some issues other than syntax or grammar:

...drinking the murky beer brewed from hops...  Uh, you can't brew beer from hops. Hops are a bittering agent.  

 February 29, 1906.  Uh, there was no leap year in 1906.

Spoilers done.

Two and a half stars. Not lower because there were a few beauties in the writing, like this one:

The birds were deaf to the sorrow of men and played tag among the trees.

It's also #1 on my Books in Translation Challenge.