This book was… okay. I do like Catriona Ward’s weird storytelling (weird in the best way possible!), but this book just wasn’t for me. I found myself lost and confused, and not in a good way. There were definitely some interesting, mindbending aspects, which I like. But this book just wasn’t for me.

Dark, twisted, and weird. And I loved it!🤣 This book is hard to review without giving away what is actually going on. It was like a book within a book within a book, if that makes ANY sense whatsoever. I enjoyed the first half more than the second half, but it was still a solid 4 star read! It is basically a story about storytelling and how you can make yourself the hero in the story, no matter if you truly are or not. It will required your full attention, or you might feel confused. I think you will either love this one, or hate it.

It follows Wilder, Harper and Nat from teenaged years through adulthood in Whistler Bay. There was a serial killer in town, and someone was sneaking into houses taking polaroids of sleeping children with a knife to their neck. Same people or different? Wilder meets someone named Skye in college and they become friends. Skye encourages Wilder to write a memoir about what happened at Whistler Bay all those years ago. But why? What are his motives?

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group, Tor Nightfire & NetGalley for this advanced copy.

I'm a huge fan of Catriona Ward. This is the fourth book oh hers I've read and she is seriously on top of her game.

To call this just a "horror" book would be insulting almost. It's got multiple characters, timelines, and story arcs yet it flows beautifully and you never see where this novel is taking you. As with her other books, reading Catriona Ward is like kayaking down a river blindfolded. It feels dangerous, exciting, and your focus is solely on the ride to (hopefully) safety. But you also feel exhilarated and don't want it to end.

This is easily on my list of top ten books of the year.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Catriona Ward is an author that has consistently kept me guessing with each of her novels--never able to form an "answer" to any part of the mysteries on my own. LOOKING GLASS SOUND is no exception.

In fact, this one might just be her most psychologically twisting one to date.

". . . Good and bad can feel like the same thing, I think, if they're intense enough."

In this book, we have Wilder Harlow, a teenager vacationing in Whistler Cottage in Maine. The cottage had been left to his family by a now deceased Uncle, and this vacation was to help the family get back together in a sense. While there, he meets Nat and Harper--one a poor boy living with his father there, the other a rich girl whose family owns a vacation cottage to spend summers in. The three quickly become a "set", which is one of the things I love most about this story, as Wilder never felt he "fit in" at his school and town. Yet the summer founded a beautiful friendship among the three.

The characters are each complex in their individual ways--Wilder longs to be a writer, Nat has issues with his father that are only implied, and Harper has more baggage than you would ever expect. However, their summer friendship puts them all on the same level. The words flow beautifully, and no matter how much you know you're NOT hearing, the pacing and actions described make this a compulsive read.

"The stones are singing and I feel it . . . that I'm home . . . "

After an incident one summer, the book takes us to the near future, where Wilder is navigating college life and trying to write down his memories of Whistler Cottage. There he meets a friend who's obsession with that last summer rivals Wilder's own.

From there on, I was simply taken on a journey. The various points-of-view and characters (albeit unreliable narrators), propelled the story forward while leaving more questions than answers. It isn't until the very end--when all is said and done--that I was able to appreciate how the clues were provided throughout. I find it truly amazing how the author is able to get me so engrossed in a story--every time--that I fail to anticipate any of the "twists" in the novel until after they're revealed.

"Writer's block isn't being unable to write, I discover--it's being unable to feel . . ."

Another spectacular novel from an author who consistently delivers.

Highly recommended.

*Thank you NetGalley, for the arc.*

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A serial killer lives on the rocky coast of Looking Glass Sound. The victims are both the actual dead and the living who remain shattered by the crimes.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward
4.5 stars

This book was so uniquely strange.

Sometimes it was so incredibly painful to try to wrap your brain around what was the reality of the narrative and what was just fiction wrapped inside of more fiction. All in all, I think this was about four books tucked inside four books, like a russian doll of literary crime thrillers and horror novels. It was meta to the max. In the end, the story and character journeys were intriguing enough to make it worthwhile to sort through all the entangled lines of plot, character, narrative, and story.

The setting was fabulous, the small seaside town in Maine with haunted caverns and whistling stone beaches will stay with me for some time. The story that persisted beneath the various lines of truth and fiction, the story of a trio of young friends who were marred by the crimes of their parents and the adults surrounding them, was heartfelt, emotionally complex, and nuanced. I truly enjoyed this book - it both challenged and entertained me, forcing me to think about the layers of storytelling, and the purpose through which we write and consume narratives.

4-4.5* I absolutely adore Catriona Ward’s writing; it’s eerie, it’s poetic, and devolves into this sort of fever dream vibe which absolutely sucks me in and almost always makes her books impossible to put down. This story was no different, had plot twists up until the very last sentence and I loved it. The only thing that took me out of the story a bit was the re-living/telling of the story from different POVs felt a little repetitive for me, but also…I just historically don’t like that in books because I’m a bit impatient haha. Regardless, it was phenomenal, and I’m still thinking about the atmosphere of the story days later.

This is my second Catriona Ward book, and I really like the way she blends mystery with suspense and confusion before tying it all up at the very, very end. For most of this book I really didn’t know what direction was up or down, while also being really vested in our main characters. We start with a memoir and a summer at the beach, from 16 year old Wilder’s POV. He’s stuck in his late uncle’s coastal Maine house with his bickering parents, and really not looking forward to an entire summer of this on repeat, when he meets Harper and Nat, two kids his age who also live here and seem inseparable.

Wilder joins their duo and they spend the summer drinking, exploring, and generally just being teenagers in 1990. But when talk about The Dagger Man surfaces, along with ominous Polaroids of a mystery person holding a dagger to the face of sleeping children, their breezy summer takes a turn. And when Wilder comes back the following summer, everything is different.

We go back and forth in time from Wilder to a mysterious Pearl, to Sky and Skye, and follow Wilder into his college years and eventually beyond. He’s trying to write a novel about his experience during those two summers, but what he doesn’t know is that someone else wants his words too. Flash forward to 2023 and Wilder finally makes it back to The Sound, and is prepared for one last act of humanity…he’s finally going to finish the novel he started all those decades ago. Only there is someone else in his cottage, someone who doesn’t want to be written about, someone who is supposed to have been dead…

What I loved most about this story is that we go from a typical teenage summer to darkness and intrigue, and then into the darker years of someone’s psyche, before getting thrust into an entirely different reality that we, or at least I, did not (in the SLIGHTEST) see coming. Not being able to guess the ending or even the general overall truth of a story until I’ve already been rendered into a page turning zombie, desperate for the next word, is one of the most fun feelings as a reader.

*Thanks Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

I was definitely captivated by this book. Cat Wards writing is phenomenal. I don't know how she does it. I had to read this one slowly because I needed to concentrate on what was going on, and I didn't want to get confused. The book starts with Wilder Harlow starting his last book. A memoir about the summer that he and his family went to spend the summer at his late uncle's cottage on the coast of Maine. He tells about the two friends he met that summer, the killer called "The Dagger Man" that stalked the town, and the horrors they encountered that summer. While writing this book, Wilder starts to feel like he's losing his grip on reality. While reading this one, you will start to question which parts are the memoir and what is real life. It's actually pretty crazy….but in a fun way. You start to think WTH is going on. But that's how her last book was for me too. And in the same way, at the end…it all come together. Something about her books make you feel like you could read them again to see what clues you missed. Such an entertaining book.

Out August 8.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own. My review will be posted on Instagram, Bookbub, Goodreads, and Amazon once it publishes.

4.5 stars.
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This book was addicting, once I started, it just reeled me in and I didn’t want to stop. But it’s terribly hard to review. When I say it’s good… it’s just good and I can’t explain why.
At the end of the book, I couldn’t remember what actually happened and what didn’t. It’s completely filled with twists and turns. My brain was like ?¿?¿? at certain points but thankfully, the story is well written and explained. I just finished and I think it’ll take me 2-3 business days to fully digest what I just read. Catriona Ward did a great job with this book. This is a must read this year.
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Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have rarely read a book that doesn't contain chapters, and I was surprised that the lack of chapters almost made me feel like I was reading faster.
The story twists and turns so much that, at the beginning, we are following a sort of awkward teen during their summer break spending time with friends, but soon after the story takes sharp turn after sharp turn. I was so hooked in this story, trying to parse through what was happening next and where the story would go. I don't want to give too many details because, having read the book, I would argue that going into this as blind as possible serves the plot exceptionally well. I have read a few things by Ward before, but this is definitely my favorite so far. Definitely looking forward to more by this author--I highly recommend this one!

This is a tough one to review without giving up any of its multiple twists and turns. I found myself getting really sucked in to this world and it was so hard to put the book down. About halfway through, I found that the story started to get a bit repetitive, but it picked back up towards the end. This is definitely one that I wanted to read again immediately after I was done, just so I could go back through with context and see how many clues I missed. Ward is certainly the pro at pulling the rug out from under you and making you rethink everything you've just read, which makes for an incredibly thrilling reading experience.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for my gifted copies. Hands down one of the best ARCs I’ve ever received.

The following comes from a place of love. This book was so strange, confusing and addictive. Like The Last House on Needless Street, Sundial and Little Eve before it, I had no idea where the story was going until it got there. And even now I’m still processing it and can’t wait to read it again. I never reread books!

Disclaimer: I required a buddy read with frequent analyzing and detailed note taking to get through it with my sanity intact, so I highly recommend one and/or both of these things before embarking on this endeavor 😅

I hope we get another book from Ward. Soon. Until then I’ll be in withdrawal over here.

I was really looking forward to this one. I had seen some of my friends give such high reviews. Unfortunately it was just way too complex and confusing for me to really enjoy. I kept having to reread to understand what was going on. It does have great twists but again very confusing! It was just ok for me.

4.5 stars, rounded up

Ward has a gift for shaping form and format into unpredictable and exciting new areas. The focal shifts in this one made my head spin. If you've read "The Last House on Needless Street", you know how Ward can flip the narrative on a dime. "Looking Glass Sound" has similar vibes.

The chapter-free, highly-digestible prose made it nearly impossible to put down. When the story gets its hooks in, it doesn't let go. I felt trapped reading it, which added to its horror and appeal.

It starts as a story of an awkward teen who spends a summer with new friends. It veers sharply so many times throughout its progression; I was never quite sure what to believe. There were subtle, clever hints that there was more than meets the eye, and an air of confusion and uncertainty lasts until the final page.

I'm keeping plot details scarce for this review. It's another one that's most effective if you go in blind.

Ward is one of my favorite living writers. Everything she publishes is a day-one purchase. While I like some more than others, they're always interesting and pleasantly disturbing. "Looking Glass Sound" continues this tradition. I rank it up there with "Needless Street" as her best work yet.

4.5/5
Looking Glass Sound is an unfathomable web of tragedy and betrayal that incessantly rearranges itself to drive the knife in ever deeper. Under the guise of a memoir that will expose the truth to the horrors of a small coastal town, Catriona Ward supersedes reality, creating a fractured world that further cements itself as more and more horrors are revealed. This is the perfect thriller to lose yourself in, and I love how the narrative almost rejects being defined. Catriona Ward’s writing is a terrifying force, and Looking Glass Sound pulls you under like an unforgiving tide.

A full review will be posted on my blog closer to publication!

#LookingGlassSound #NetGalley
I received an advanced reader copy from NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an honest review. This book is worth the read. It will leave you speechless, on more than one occasion.
To be honest, I almost DNFed this book in the early stages because I believed the characters and plot were flat, but I continued anyways, and I'm so glad I did. Once I got used to the style and the unique storytelling of the author, I couldn't put it down. I HAD to know how things would end for these characters. The last 100 pages had me laughing, smiling, crying, and gasping, and this story is going to stick with me for a while after finishing, I can already tell!

I’m honestly not sure how to review this one. It was well-written and a good book, but it was just not my cup of tea. The multi-layered plot was very distracting, and I just didn’t love it as much as I wanted to. I am chalking this up to just my opinion. If you have enjoyed others by this author, I think you will love this one. I am definitely an outlier as evidenced by the many, many glowing reviews.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

What a wild ride?! I’m left feeling not sure what’s real and what’s fiction in the best way possible. Catriona Ward is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors!

Thank you @netgalley for sending me a digital arc! I squealed when I saw I was accepted! Catriona Ward is an author I will read every book from.

➡️THOUGHTS:
This was a signature Cat Ward book. Dark, twisted, and weird. And I loved it!🤣 This book is hard to review without giving away what is actually going on. It was like a book within a book within a book, if that makes ANY sense whatsoever. I enjoyed the first half more than the second half, but it was still a solid 4 star read! It is basically a story about storytelling and how you can make yourself the hero in the story, no matter if you truly are or not. It will required your full attention, or you might feel confused. I think you will either love this one, or hate it.

It follows Wilder, Harper and Nat from teenaged years through adulthood in Whistler Bay. There was a serial killer in town, and someone was sneaking into houses taking polaroids of sleeping children with a knife to their neck. Same people or different? Wilder meets someone named Skye in college and they become friends. Skye encourages Wilder to write a memoir about what happened at Whistler Bay all those years ago. But why? What are his motives?