Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. A good dark read of betrayal and horror. Not my normal style of book but it was quite compelling.

Wilder starts writing his last book about a killer and how his friend, Sky stole his memoir and turned it into a bestselling novel. But as he writes, the line between memory and fiction start to blur…

Things happened a bit too slow for me and I honestly have no idea what I've just read. It had me questioning so many things like the characters and the storyline which I still feel lost about. I really struggled to follow the storyline especially with the repetition and new narratives not indicated, which saw my interest dip. The ending also felt rushed, I would have loved for it to have been fleshed out more just so it would have had a greater impact.

I liked the concept of the book but I think the build up just took too long and I felt like the description in the blurb doesn't actually start until halfway through the book. I wasn't a fan of the execution of this book. I did like the writing style but I think this book just suffered from having too much going on at the same time. However, the book did grip me (due to the writing style) and I found it hard to put the book down.

Unfortunately I think books about books (or in this case, multiple books) are just not for me but I am still interested in reading the author's other work like The House on Needless Street.

⚠️ CWs: death, profanity, physical assault, alcohol use, vomiting, disappearance, gun, absent parent, mental health (depression), fire, blood, panic attack, murder, grief, suicide, self harm, abortion, spiders, poisoning, child kidnapping; mentions conversion therapy, drug use, drowning, cheating, sexual situations, ⚠️

After reading her other books I knew I needed to read this one, it was hard to put down. It was a dark and haunting story of love, murder and betrayal.

A complex, mercurial thriller with a shifting style that will either frustrate or fascinate. In many ways this is a story about the nature of storytelling, and about how we all make ourselves the heroes of our stories. No matter what we’ve done….

In a lonely cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood summer companions and the killer that stalked the small New England town. Of the body they found, and the horror of that discovery echoing down the decades. And of Sky, Wilder’s one-time best friend, who stole his unfinished memoir and turned it into a lurid bestselling novel, Looking Glass Sound.

But as Wilder writes, the lines between memory and fiction blur. He fears he’s losing his grip on reality when he finds notes hidden around the cottage written in Sky’s signature green ink.

Catriona Ward’s new novel, Looking Glass Sound, is an exploration of love, loss, and trauma viewed through the eyes of a man revisiting his formative years.

Even as an adult, the still lurking pent-up frustrations of teenage angst make Wilder Harlow the most unreliable of narrators. His entire life has been shaped by the events during the summers of his youth, and his perspective is skewed at best. It would be easy to pity Wilder, but by turns, he is both the hero and then the villain of the piece. The same can also be said of his friends. Their various actions and reactions are a constant reminder that humans are far from perfect. We’re all capable of doing good, being the sort of people we aspire to be, but we’re also more than capable of being just as bad. It turns out the only thing that makes us different is that some people are better at hiding their flawed tendencies than others.

You know that brilliant thing that Stephen King does when he writes a couple of pages about a character and you feel like you’ve known them your entire life? Catriona Ward manages the same impressive feat here. Wilder, Harper, Nat and Sky are so well realised, so rounded and human. That painful, jarring move from adolescence to adulthood feels visceral in every scene. When the book’s first major revelation hits no one escapes fallout. It struck me that no one ever really walks away from trauma unscathed. You don’t have any choice but to embrace the outcome of events, accept them and make them part of you. If you can’t do that they will control you from that moment onwards.

There are going to be many, many different interpretations of this narrative. Different readers will undoubtedly latch on to different themes. Ward is deftly picking apart the human condition. What makes us love, what makes us hate and everything in between. I found myself focusing on the idea of achieving closure and of opportunities missed. That desire to have just one more conversation with the person who you know you will never speak to again. This might sound a trifle morbid but it’s hardly surprising, I finished reading Looking Glass Sound a year to the day that my father passed away. The plot has coalesced a lot of thoughts that have been floating around unbound in my mind for a while now. It’s always fun when there is a flash of cosmic synchronicity and fiction manages to intersect with your own life. I love when fiction like this prompts introspection and demands you engage with the subject matter.

Hmm, is Looking Glass Sound a horror novel? I’ve been thinking about this a lot and the best response I can give is “Maybe”. There are certainly horrific moments. Wilder’s fragile mental state constantly erodes as the plot unfolds. Are the horrors he is experiencing genuine or the figment of an already damaged psyche? Again, I suspect this is an element of the novel that will be open to interpretation by every reader. If this is horror then it does fall firmly into the psychological category. If nothing else this is a novel about the monster we create for ourselves.

The plot drifts in and out of its own meta-fiction allowing the author to pull off some nicely timed surprises. In the hands of a less skilled writer this would be a risky approach but Ward pulls it off with aplomb. Flawless multi-layered storytelling like this ensures readers are going to come back to revisit it time and time again.

The New England location is ideal, and the passing of the seasons feels palpable. The languid summer days flow into grey autumn dusk and then the bleak winter nights. I was fortunate a few years ago to travel around Maine, very close to where the book was set, and there is desolate beauty to the coast in the darker times of the year. This dovetails perfectly with the novel’s overall tone.

I’m under no illusions, it’s highly likely that Looking Glass Sound won’t be for everyone. The idea of a book within a book may well put some people off. This is literary Marmite, you’ll either love it or hate it. Personally, my heart was smashed into a million tiny pieces and left in a small pile of dust on the floor. Needless to say, I hung on every word. This is genuinely affecting writing.

I was reminded of The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough. Looking Glass Sound has that same delicate exploration of humanity and the journey we all take. I’ll no doubt be accused of being a raging sentimentalist* but it’s quite beautiful really. This is one of those novels that you know is going to stay with you. It’s the sort of thing that when I finished I’m driven by the urge to go and find someone else who has also read it so we can spend hours discussing it.

You’ve probably already noticed this review is a bit all over the place. It’s one of those rambling, mildly incoherent, waffly efforts I post from time to time. I can’t help it. There is so much in this novel to ruminate on. Take it from me, if you were reading the unabridged, spoiler-filled version of this document it would be a whole lot longer and far more waffly. Catronia Ward has clearly made a host of very specific decisions about story structure, pace, and characters. All of this exquisite attention to the smallest details really pays off. I’ve heard great things about Catriona Ward’s other books, I’ve not read any of them so far but based on the experience I’ve had with Looking Glass Sound this is an oversight I need to rectify immediately.

Looking Glass Sound is published by Viper Books and is available now. Go and purchase it now, read it and then me know so we can have a long chat. Highly recommended.

My musical recommendation to accompany Looking Glass Sound is the sublime soundtrack to season one of The Sinner by Ronit Kirchman. It has a haunting, ambient quality that works well as an auditory companion to the novel.

*Guilty as charged your honour.

4.5 stars

“You can’t get to know people after they’re gone. All you have are memories, moments, and that doesn’t make a whole person.”

I don’t think this needs much introduction as its done the rounds on booksta. These are notes I wrote while reading … and the best review I can come up with on this complex, brilliant novel.

Reading a CW book is like watching a 3D movie - starts off with a bang and then immerses you onto a roller coaster of cinematic explosion.

I love the endless level of possibilities Ward takes you on. It’s beyond fantastical, foreshadowing it’s what the f*ck am I reading and where am I?

I absolutely love her quirky style, it messes with your head. What seems normal is anything but … including something as simple as friendships.

Mind blowing!! Weird, multi layered, dark, disturbing, twisted, utterly brilliant.

That’s it folks. I loved it.
TW’s aplenty!

Many thanks to @netgalley @viper.books @serpentstail for #gifted advanced reading copy ❤️ @catward

4.5 stars

Looking Glass Sound

Catriona Ward is one of my favourite authors, and I love her writing style, but this book just lost me a bit (probably a me problem) It also had one of my least favourite tropes. It all started off so well, but i felt the last half just divebombed into chaos for me. I just couldn't follow what was going on. I would still recommend anyone giving this one a go, but it definitely needs your full attention.

Thank you to Netgalley, Viper Books, and Catriona Ward  for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating 2.5 stars – rounded off to 3

🤯Confounding, convoluted & simply disastrous.😣

Thanks NetGalley & Viper books for the ARC in exchange of an honest review.

Set in the picturesque Whistler Bay in Maine, US - Wilder Harlow wants to write the book of his lifetime. Haunted by memories of his childhood summers spent in this village –the creepy polaroid photo taking the serial killer, the bodies that were discovered in a cave & his best friend who stole his story making it into a best seller “Looking Glass Sound” , Wilder is determined to seek revenge & finally make peace with it all.

Well, I did my best with this book, but I am sorry to say this was just not for me. I was blown away by #TheLastHouseOnNeedlessStreet by Ward, but sadly after her debut, neither Sundial nor this has worked for me.

With such a fantastic setting of the whispering Whistler Bay & a creepy atmospheric evocation, I think this book had such a great potential. But the author complicates the plot so much, that the threads of it, just come apart with haste, hopeless with deliberate misdirection.

After a certain point, I didn’t care one bit about the main character of Wilder, nor his best friends Nat & Harper. I could hardly keep track of all the multiple turns this book was taking. It was as if Ward was desperately trying to fool the readers by misleading them & invalidating every layer of the story. 🙄

In my view, thrillers should have a credible premise. But here, nothing is believable, plausible or realistic anymore after a point. What was the story from the book he wrote & what was reality? I found no explanation, no answers to any of the questions I had.

It was only horribly confusing, not knowing why all the weird things kept happening & as I said earlier I just didn’t care🥱. Finishing it for the sake of it, I almost DNF’ed a few times & what’s more - the ending too failed to salvage it.🫣

However, on the brighter side, her writing is truly brilliant & she can do wonders with her talent, creativity & imagination.

I went in blind, so excited about it, but ended up getting disappointed.

Looking Glass Sound is, as with the other books I have read by Catriona Ward, an off-kilter horror story that is both atmospherically and emotionally fascinating.

Teenager Wilder, who is a bit of a loner, spends a summer with his parents in a cottage overlooking Whistler Bay in Maine, and the story begins. He makes two unlikely and slightly odd friends, Nathaniel and Harper, and the three spend the summer exchanging stories about the Daggerman, a local curiosity who breaks into children's bedrooms and takes polaroid photos of them sleeping. The three friends also make hazardous trips into a local cave which is rumoured to be the resting place of a woman who went missing.

A gruesome discovery alters the lives of the three teenagers, and the main body of the story focuses on Wilder's early adulthood following his time at Whistler Bay. This author's books are invariably best enjoyed without knowing too much in advance, so I don't want to say too much about the plot here, but Wilder experiences an abandonment that is devastating to read.

There are clues throughout Looking Glass Sound that this is not a straightforward book with a regular structure, and as the book heads towards its finish minor characters come to the fore and our understanding of everything that has happened is turned on its head. Having been emotionally invested in Wilder's story, Looking Glass Sound would have felt more satisfying to me without the closing chapters. I felt something akin to the experience of reading Wuthering Heights for the first time and feeling reluctant to read anything about the next generation of characters towards the end of the novel.

Looking Glass Sound also touched on a trope which I would imagine was unintentional. As a lesbian reader, I am used to same-sex story arcs ending badly, either with the death of gay characters or with them ending up in heterosexual relationships. Again without saying too much about specifics here, some of the literary tricks employed in this novel unfortunately took it into this territory. For this reason also, I would have loved this book to have ended earlier in the story than it did.

Looking Glass Sound is a brilliantly written novel which just has slightly too much going on. In the end, I would say that the emotional storyline loses out to the playful and complex structure of the book. I would have found the reverse to be a more satisfying read but, to keep that in context, I am a huge fan of Catriona Ward's writing and will continue to be an avid reader of her work.

The Queen of the weirdly intriguing is back! I loved The Last House on Needless Street and couldn't wait to see what CW's new book had in store for us.

This one is hard to review without giving too much away. I suggest going into this book blind as I do feel the synopsis provides too much information. It wouldn't be a Catriona Ward book if I didn't still have some questions after finishing it! Extremely well written, this complex novel will have you hooked at the start and then reeling towards the end.

"Looking Glass Sound" by Catriona Ward is a captivating and twisted story that will keep you hooked from start to finish. With shocking turns and surprising revelations, this novel takes readers on a thrilling journey that is hard to put down.

Ward's skillful storytelling and intricate plot make "Looking Glass Sound" a standout book. The complex web of family and friends connections adds depth to the narrative, putting relationships to the test and keeping readers emotionally invested. The translation of some twists may require extra attention, but it only enhances the allure of the story.

When I start a Catriona Ward's book I never know if it's going to be terrifying, don't read it late in the night, disturbing or atmospheric.
This is a bit of everything and I would only exclude terrifying. It's an atmospheric novel with some heartbreaking novel, a fascinating setting, and a solid plot.
I felt for Wilder and couldn't stop turning pages as things happened, I thought they were disturbing and thoroughly enjoyed what I read.
It's a mix of emotions and feelings and it makes hard to review.
I think it's a highly recommended book.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Thank you to Serpent’s Tail and NetGalley for this ARC! This was another anticipated release for 2023 for me! In the end my rating definitely ended up being more of a me thing than the actual book if that makes sense and I will explain further.

This is a psychological thriller with horror elements mainly following Wilder and his story concerning the summer’s he spent at Whistler’s Bay in his family’s cottage and the events that happened there. The whole book particularly centred around one summer where Wilder and his two friends Nat and Harper crossed paths with a serial killer called the Dagger Man and how the aftermath affected them. It also follows Wilder at college where he meets Sky who then steals the story he’s written about Whistler Bay and the Dagger Man and how that affects the three friends.

This is a difficult book to explain so I would say the main themes are friendship, trauma and betrayal. The book was excellently written and very bleak which I think is what the author was going for. The plot was extremely clever and the twists interesting. I just think I wasn’t smart enough for this book honestly. I believe it’s one of those books that you have to read over and over again and the more you read it the more things start to add up and the more you get out of it.

Catriona Ward is an extremely talented writer and I will continue to read everything she writes and I still recommend this books to everyone because as I said it’s excellently written and captures how far trauma can reach, how it can completely divert a person’s path in life. I am extremely late to the party reading this because the last couple of weeks have been extremely traumatising for me and I haven’t been able to focus on anything really. This book was weirdly comforting for me when I could pick it up though. It came out on 20th April 2023 so check it out if you like ambiguous psychological thrillers with amazing horror imagery. Also if you loved Catriona Ward’s other books you will probably like this one.

I so, so wanted to like this and was overjoyed to be accepted - thanks to Viper Books and NetGalley for the ARC. However, after a while, I lost momentum with this novel. Not sure why - but I felt similarly about Ward’s prize-winning and much-discussed ‘The Last House on the Left’ and I didn’t finish ‘Sundial’.

Ultimately, I don’t think the writer’s style is for me. I find some bits cliched and not that well-written - but there is no doubt that the content is clever, despite not really being a fan of meta fiction.

I hope others enjoy it more than I did. The description really whetted my appetite but I just couldn’t enjoy it like I wanted to.

Cat Ward has once again spurned convention to deliver yet another genre-defying story that’s simultaneously spellbinding and perplexing, and so shrewdly crafted, it leaves you dumbstruck at both her technical skill and the richness of her imagination.

And once again, it’s a tough one to review; a challenge to give a sense of its flavour without revealing aspects of the plot that need to be experienced firsthand.

It’s a coming-of-age story, a mystery, a ghost story, but also so much more. It flirts with horror, but never fully succumbs, dipping instead into the supernatural, which lends the narrative a disorienting, other-worldly feel. Like Ward’s previous two novels, it knocks you off kilter and leaves you scrambling at the end to figure out what in the world you’ve just read.

The premise is straightforward; deceptively so and part of its charm.

Wilder Harlow has returned to the seaside cottage in Maine where he spent his teenage summers in order to write his memoir. And in particular to tell the story of three friends, whose magical summer ended with a horrifying discovery: the identity of The Dagger Man serial killer. Wilder also wants to set the record straight about his college roommate, Sky, who stole his original memoir and turned it into a bestselling novel.

The first half of the book is searingly atmospheric, holding you suspended in time, on that New England shore with Wilder, Nathaniel and Harper. There are frissons of unease, a foreshadowing of the horror yet to come. Ward’s prose is all-consuming.

Then, wham! Events take an unexpected turn, and suddenly you’re adrift, transported to a place where truth and reality fold in on each other over and over, until you’re no longer sure which way is up. The book becomes a book, within a book, within a book, and you realise absolutely nothing is what it seems.

I’m still not sure I understood everything in the final unraveling, but crikey, what a ride!

Wilder Harlow is writing a book based on the story that plagued his teenage years and haunted him for the rest of his life. His only true friend, Sky, stole Wilder's notes and became a novelist using Wilder's story. After Sky's death Wilder is intent on revenge and intends to reveal the truth to the world, but finds notes from Sky and sees a stranger drowning in the cove outside his house. Can Wilder trust his own mind?

An incredibly haunting and atmospheric thriller.

It starts with the reader learning what happened to Wilder in his earlier life and this was the perfect way to set up the rest of the book. The whole story flowed really well and kept me turning the pages. As soon as I started reading I was instantly pulled into the story. Catriona Ward's writing style is beautiful, her descriptions are always spot on and paint a perfect picture in my mind.

What I loved most was the plot because it was completely original, like nothing I have read before. The story was absorbing and unpredictable, and stayed with me long after I had finished reading. The relationships between the characters and the experiences that they shared were so well-crafted that they came to life on the page.

Catriona Ward has done it again with another fantastic novel that is a must-read.

Thank you NetGalley and Viper for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I was hooked about for about 75 percent of this book - the set-up of the story, the hot summer coastal town setting, the characters, all worked for me. I was really curious to see where it would go - then during the climax and reveal it lost me a little. I think it tried to do a little too much in the end... Still a good read overall though I would say.

I think Catriona Ward might be one of my go-to reads from now on. I loved Needless Street and really enjoyed this one too.

Thanks to @netgalley for the e-arc of this book… I had to read this on my phone as it didn’t convert to Kindle properly (took me a while to figure that one out and thought it was part of the book).

I picked this one up because I loved Needless Street and I was intrigued to read more of Catriona’s work.

✏️ The writing style is quite hard to get used to and the structure is a bit all over the place. This is intentional and worth sticking with but as with Needless Street, I did struggle a little.

🙋🏼‍♂️👩🏻‍🦰 I LOVED the characters. I didn’t know what was going on or who was who (no spoilers) for some of it but it was great reading their stories and getting to know them. Or at least thinking I was.

📖 The overall plot of this one is great. It’s got a real initial storyline and then folds in on itself time and time again. It’s also a book about writing and I love that!

🌅 The imagery in Ward’s writing is 👌🏼 whether it’s about the bay or the characters or a photograph, you can picture absolutely everything like a movie.

I read this really quickly and I did enjoy it but I did find it a little confusing. I was toying with what rating to give this because I felt like my confusion might knock it down but actually, this was a 5 star read.

💛 I was attached to the characters and felt for them
💛 I read this quickly and didn’t want to put it down, I was desperate to know what happened
💛 There are SO many themes covered in the book, it was taken an age to write them down and I really like that
💛 The title makes perfect sense

Obssesive, disturbing and hugely compelling new novel from Catriona Ward. This reading blown my mind away for the very few days of reading and some of the following.
I can't recommend this enough if you are looking for a story full of secrets to unravel!

Wilder's parents inherit a cottage in laid back Whistler Bay. Spending a summer there, he meets Harper and Nat, building a close friendship over the following months - set against the unsettling background of local legends, specifically a killer named the Daggerman. What seems to start as an idyllic teenage summer starts to become something more, and events come to a head with a gruesome discovery. Years later, Wilder returns to Whistler Bay to complete his book about the events of that summer, and to make sense of the events that changed his life. However, things were not - are not - what they seemed.

This truly is a book of two halves. I was drawn further and further into the story, but towards the end I was wondering just what was going on! Safe to say, nothing is as it seemed - I absolutely did not see the end coming, at all. The story flits between timelines and characters, giving an uneasy feel which is apt, but makes for a confusing read. I'm still not too sure what actually happened in the build up to the final revelation, and I'm still not sure how I feel about that - I love a storyline with twists and turns, however this one left me spinning! I'd have liked to spend more time with the events towards the end of the book - maybe a slower reveal, as the final fast pace was contrast to the slow build up. I wanted more richness, I wanted to explore the events further, I wanted to understand and spend time in those delicious dark details.

This is my first Catriona Ward book, and from reading other reviews the twists and turns seem to be a hallmark of Ward's style - I'm so tempted to re-read and get a better purchase on the events that transpired in Whistler Bay. One thing is for sure though - it's quite dark and very, very twisty, although I wouldn't call it a horror. I honestly found the last few chapters hard to follow, but I also enjoyed the rollercoaster ride that had me thinking "did that actually just happen?!" at multiple points - I loved the way the story suddenly seemed to drop off a cliff and transform into something altogether more sinister, but it was very close to the line of possibly being too twisty for me - I'm still undecided. Although it's made me want to seek out more books by Catriona Ward, so that can only be a good thing!

Overall, a book that you will want to read in one sitting - page-turning, addictive, and thoroughly unsettling.