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The Mona Lisa Mirror Mystery, by Latayne C. Scott
(Into the Art Series, Book 1)
Night at the Museum meets A Wrinkle in Time!
Addy’s three friends don’t know what to think when Addy tells them she “whooshed” right back into time and met a quirky Leonardo daVinci. Is it a dream? And what do the girls do when they have just as much drama in the present?
Author
Latayne 
C. Scott is the award-winning author of more than 25 books.
Endorsements
“Christian fiction at its finest!”
–Shelly Beach, Christy Award-winning author
“Crosses space and time…The Mona Lisa Mirror Mystery is for the lover of mysteries and art.”
–Patti Hill, author, The San Clemente Bait Shop; Telephony
“A book your teen won’t want to miss. . .I will recommend it over and over.”
–Celeste Green, Academic Dean, Oak Grove Classical Academy
“So imaginative, so engaging. Well done.”
–Sharon K. Souza, author, What We Don’t Know
“The characters are well developed and the plot has a way of drawing you directly into the action. I can’t wait to read the next one.”
–Joy Capps, reviewer, HomeSchoolLiterature.com
“Mona Lisa is a L’Engle-ish blend of family, fantasy and adventure, friendship, and deep wisdom.”
–Kathleen Popa, author, To Dance in the Desert; The Feast of St. Bertie
“May we all. . .whoosh away into lives full of truth, art, and life-enriching thoughtful abandon.”
–Stephen Collins, Associate Headmaster, Riverbend Academy
perkinda –
Here is a book that is short, clear, inexpensive, with substantial content and written for teens. Being only 78 pages, it can easily be read in two evenings. If you like the fantasy novels of Madeleine L’Engle or C.S. Lewis then you will probably like this book.
While I was not particularly drawn to the everyday conversation between the main character Addy and her teenage friends, I was drawn to the art history of the painting of the Mona Lisa as Addy was ‘whooshed’ back into time when she looked at the painting. Here is Art History told as a story, which made it more memorable then reading it in an Art History Book.
A side theme included an apt apologetic for the truth claims of the bible. When Michaela, one of Addy’s friends says the bible is “A book [that] can be true, have truth in it, without being real” we get treated to a developing dialogue between Addy and her dad and Addy and Michaela which eventually leads to the apologetic Lee Strobel uses to prove the historicity of Jesus Christ. Well done without being preachy.
While this book is a fantasy, the book also portrayed the reality of living in a broken world. One of Addy’s friends has weird behavior around an Uncle, which I think too predictably turns out to be because he is a sexual predator. This part of the story is written without details, but does reveal the value in telling parents when inappropriate behavior is taking place.
All in all, a good read, even for this 70 year old reviewer!
Marian A. Jacobs –
The novella, The Mona Lisa Mirror Mystery by Latayne Scott, follows Christian girl, Addy, through the ups and downs of teenage life and . . . time travel! Addy is an artist and covers her room–as teens usually do–in posters. When one of da Vinci’s paintings hanging on her wall wooshes her back in time to the year 1500ish, she finds herself befriended by none other than Mona Lisa. Or at least the woman who is thought to be Mona Lisa.
The unexpected twist (no, not a spoiler) was her being shortly thereafter whoosed back to her own life. This happened a number of times throughout the story, parallels between her two lives appearing along the way.
The writing was enjoyable and engaging. I particularly liked that Addy was a good little Christian girl, yet her thought life still rang true to teenage temptations and immaturity. Yet, those thoughts and temptations never went overboard or became inappropriate for a young reader. I loved every scene that Addy spent in Italy and wished I could have just marinated in that time a whole lot more!
A major theme in the story was sexual abuse. (Like I said, there was nothing explicit.) This is where most of the parallels arise. Addy is dealing with her own close call of abuse in 1500 while her best friend, Lace, is being molested back home. All turns out well and the abusers are caught (in a way). Lace learns from the story of Joseph in the Bible and from Addy’s time travel stories that what others mean for evil, God means for good. After reading up on the author, Latayne Scott, I noticed that she has another book coming out next year on how to protect your children from sexual predators. It’s clear from this novella that Scott is passionate about this topic.
My only issue with the story was the lack of foreshadowing or clear plot progression. I felt pretty confused as to the point of the story or it’s themes until three quarters of the way through. Until then, Addy was just time traveling, hanging with her friends, living life, etc. I also felt derailed by the random subplot of evangelism and textual criticism. I’m all for a good conversion story (and apologetics for that matter), but this did not seem to fit the theme (that I later discovered) and added to my sense of aimless wandering. Hopefully this review will help you feel less lost.
This is a fun, quick read for anyone seeking Christian speculative fiction!
Ernie Bowman (verified owner) –
The Mona Lisa Mirror Mystery is a book about a girl who gets sucked back into time and meets Leonardo Davinci and his compatriots. Flashing between the past and the present she has to work with her friends to survive high school, solve a mystery from the past, and make sense out of life. This is a fun and fast paced book with realistic dialogue (capturing the interaction between teenage girls isn’t as easy as you think!) and interesting sub plots. Readable and relatable, it deals with subjects of teenage life both serious and light hearted (can’t tell you more without going into spoilers!). This is the first book of the “Into the Arts” series by Lattayne Scott and it promises to be an intriguing series of novels. I’m not exactly a teenager anymore, but I’m already looking forward to the next one!
Julie Guffey –
My teen daughter and I read this book together. We both absolutely loved it!! Excellent character development, loved the current day storyline and the time travel storyline equally. Fun mix of thoughtful history, friendship, art, adventure, and fantasy. I love a good imagination and Scott has a brilliant one. This brought about both fun and important conversations between my daughter and I. Highly recommend.
E. Darnell –
This is a modern adventure featuring a fantastic group of friends who laugh and think and serve together. It is so refreshing to read about girls who have minds that question, mouths that discuss hard things and hearts for community. This book discretely handles difficult situations that young girls face along with humor and adventure.
I have read several books by this author, all of which I have enjoyed.
Kathleen Popa –
I compared her to Madeleine L’Engle. Someone else compared her to Lewis Carroll. If you’ve read any of Scott’s other books, you won’t be surprised. Highly recommended.
Josiah Boyd –
One of the commitments of Cruciform Press is to release books that “are intentionally short. … typically about 20,000 to 25,000 words” and, thus, are “looking for men and women whose writing packs a lot of value into a small space.”
If The Mona Lisa Mirror Mystery in any indication, the publishers found a capable contributor in Latayne Scott.
Crammed into a book that can casually be read in an afternoon, a number of significant issues are addressed, each with imagination, simplicity, and thoughtfulness. While major foci include that of teenage friendship and art history (some interesting facts about the title painting are included!), questions of epistemology, familial abuse, and the reliability of the New Testament are all cleverly woven into the story as well. Being as the story is brief, however, a few of these left me wanting more detail.
Even with the above heavy list of topics introduced, the author writes in a playful and accessible way. I wouldn’t hesitate to hand this book to my own children to read.