Every time I think back on what I just read I shriek…

It’s Catriona Ward.

We will never be able to predict this wildly talented author. I can still remember the feelings I had after concluding The Last House on Needless Street.

I also remember how Bookstagram took an unspoken oath to one another that we would never review the book in fear of spoiling it for the next reader. Everyone needed to feel that sudden shock and spine tingles . (Still one of the best books EVER)

Then I read Sundial and Little Eve and I was equally as impressed . After reading both of these books I knew I bit the bug . I was obsessed with Catriona Ward and needed to feverishly stalk the internet for signs of the next book…

Well it came

Looking Glass Sound

I can not believe I am saying this, I never ever thought a book would blow my mind like The Last House on Needless Street BUT, it just happened… Looking Glass Sound just slipped right on in to my most favored books .

I am in udder shock and I am at a loss for words .

Five Stars will never do this book justice . This one right here just broke our rating scale.

I’ll never spoil a Catriona Ward book so all I will tell you is that you need to drop what you are doing and immediately run to pre-order this book.

Teaser :

In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of a sun-drenched summer of his youth and of the killer that stalked the small New England town. Of the terrible tragedy that forever bonded him with his friends Nat and Harper in unknowable ways. Of a horror that has followed them over the years.

Wilder has returned to the town decades later in an attempt to recount that summer's events in his memoirs. But as he writes, Wilder begins to fear his grip on the truth is fading, and events in the manuscript start to chime eerily with the present. He’s even started seeing a dark-haired woman down in the icy waters below the cottage, but nobody else can.

No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does…

Thank you to the publishers at Tor Nightfire and Netgalley for my e-ARC of Looking Glass Sound!

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔
🌊 are afraid of the ocean
👻 see ghosts
👥 like multiple POVs
🔮 wish you could be inside of a book

• 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄

After Wilder and his family come to Whistler Bay, his life will never be the same again.

• 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓

Wilder has never fit in - he’s always being pushed around by the kids at school. After his uncle Vernon passes, his dad inherits his cottage on Whistler Bay. That summer, when Wilder is 16, they go to the cottage where he meets Nat and Harper and the three form a strange friendship. Now, at 19, Wilder is in college and writing his memoirs from that summer not so long ago where hidden things came to light and nothing was ever the same.

• 𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒

This book was top tier wild! Ward never fails to impress me with her wild twists and turns. While this one did leave me feeling more confused than her past books, I still enjoyed the ride. I was surprised by the turn of events near the end of the story. Since this story is told from multiple POVs, I wasn’t sure which was reality and which was fiction! If I read this over again, I think I would have a much richer understanding, but it’s a fun thriller either way!

TW: bullying, family death, underage drinking, language, fighting, alcoholism, teenage drama, death of sibling, stalking, toxic parent relationship, cheating, murder, smoking, divorce, anxiety, depression, self harm, suicide, abortion, adoption

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book: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.
Release Date: August 8th, 2023
Genre: Horror/thriller
Pages: 348
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3.75)

What I Liked:
1. The writing style
2. How the chapters continue on
3. The characters are so beautiful

What I Didn't Like:
1. Too much happening at the end
2. Book slows down a lot once you get halfway through book
3. Didn’t like ending

Overall Thoughts:
I want to say that I write my reviews as I read along with the book. So yes, something might get explained as you read on but in the moment that’s what I was thinking about at the time.

Fucked up will save you. Fucked up will set you free.’

“I like talking about him,’ Harper says. ‘But it’s kind of a bummer to keep talking about your dead brother. It’s a way of talking about him and not talking about it, both at the same time.”
Harper talking about how she pretends that her brother's death was a dog is so sad but interesting. She is so emotional and cares enough about people's feelings to not want it bum them out when she talks about him. So sad.

Seriously can I just live inside the words that Catriona Ward makes? I took my time with this book. I feel like I need to when it comes to her writing. I never want it to end. I savor every word, sentence, and page. I embrace the characters. I live along with them. I suffer when they suffer and I cry when their tears appear. I hug the book when they are in need of love. I let them be real to me. I spent the summer with Nat, Wilder, and Harper. I watched them grow the summers they returned.

The story is told so well that you go along with the characters. The author does a wonderful job at building them up that you feel so much for them. You feel for each person and everything feels believable from the beginning. I wanted to hug Harper.

Omgosh finding out that Nat's dad is the one that was killing women and taking photos of the children made me gasp out loud. Poor Nat...and then losing his hand. Now he's dead and they think he was working with his dad only to find out that it wasn't really his dad.... What are you doing to us Catriona??? 🤯

A part I didn't really care for was when Wilder finally decides he is going to write the story down of what's happened. This takes place 30 years after Sky has written "his" book. Now Wilder is writing from the perspective of Skye - a girl version of Sky - and we pretty much just get a retelling of what we already read but with some fictional elements added it. That part felt very weighed down to me and like a filler to this book. I wanted something new - not something recycled. Honestly this book kind of confused me a bit. He plans on using the same story but this Sky is a female. People know that Sky was a male as he was pretty famous from the book so wouldn't they know he's writing about him? How is this protecting what he had with him?

I just felt like once we got to when Sky stole the story the book felt sluggish and weighed down. We were still reading to a countdown for Wilder to kill himself but we knew he was going to get stopped. Around that time the book just felt like it lost its focus. We are just rereading parts of the book that was already there....

Okay so Sky is really Skye and Skye is really Pearl. Wilder really lived and he died in 1993. He killed himself with hemlock. Pearl really met Wilder in college. Harper met Pearl when she went to a new school. Nat really died. Harper lied about having an abortion and really had the child; Gracie. Nat and Wilder are really brothers because of Wilder’s dad. Pearl had Harper kicked out of school when she hid a bottle of wine under her pillow. Nat was the one that took the photos of the children. Harper kills Nat. Harper killed Wilder when he accidentally got cut with her knife she was going to use to kill herself.

Honestly the ending not a big fan of. Yeah there were twists but were they good? They were okay. Witchcraft is real in this world. Harper was able to put Wilder into the book so he can live forever and now she’s damning Pearl to the same fate. I just didn’t understand how this is a bad thing when Harper wanted the same thing and that was okay.

Final Thoughts:
I wouldn’t say that I hated or loved this book because I definitely feel like I had a beautiful journey as I read it. My problem with this book is that it’s like one of those troupes where it was ”It was all just a dream”. You’re reading a book inside a book and then another book about that book. I can get on board with that Sky wrote a book based on the town and what happened to her mother. What I cannot love is that she is rewriting the book now from her pov. I felt like I was reading Twilight when you get Edwards pov. It felt like too much for this book. Too much packed into a book that already had so much going on.

I will say that Catriona can write the shit out of a book. She writes such beautiful sentence’s that at times it was like poetry. She made me relieve how hard it was being a teen and just trying to make friends. There were moments reading when I felt as though I was on the beach with friends.

Recommend For:
• Fantasy elements
• Summer vibes
• Friendships
• Stories about writers

Thanks to Netgalley and Tor night fire for this advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

Ward does psychological horror so well, and always had amazing, genuinely surprising twists, that leave me aww struck. Looking Glass Sound, unsurprisingly, has all this, woven in a beautiful multilayered story within story within story. Frankly, I didn't connect with the characters here, as I did in her other works, but that might just be me. A love of the characters usually pulls me along through all the tension and horror, and makes it worth it, and I was missing that in this book. But it is a beautifully told and well crafted story.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I requested this book I am a wimp when it comes to scary. This was an interesting story. I just might have nightmares later.

I have no idea how to review this without spoiling anything, but I will say this author has done it again with another brilliant book. Once I got to the last page, I knew I would be reading this again to see all the missed details. Absolutely loved it.

What did I just read?! My mind is definitely not functioning at its best right now. Ward is an extremely skilled artist at writing weird, confusing stories that don't seem to make any sense until you reach the final pages, and you find yourself trying to pick your jaw up off of the floor. And this book was very confusing! I'm still not sure I understood everything, but it was still brilliant. I don't really know how to review this without giving spoilers, so I will just say that I really enjoyed it!

Thank you to the author, Tor Publishing Group, and NetGalley for allowing me digital access in exchange for my honest opinion!

Beware the Dagger Man.

These were the words that echoed through Wilder Harlow's teenage years on the remote New England town of Whistler Bay. He's returned to the solemn Whistler Bay one final time to write one final book--a memoir of his childhood, the rampant killer amongst them, and the betrayal of his college best friend Sky, who stole Wilder's memoir & turned it into a bestselling work of fiction: Looking Glass Sound.

As time runs out to finally reveal the truth of Whistler Bay, Wilder finds that his grip on reality is slipping. Whistler Bay and Looking Glass Sound begin to take each other's form, and with them, Wilder finds characters from his past coming to life and haunting his present. What's worse: he's found notes around his lonely cottage on Whistler Bay that suggest some of his past refuses to stay buried.

Somehow, some way, readers, Cat Ward has done it again. "Looking Glass Sound" in many ways may be her most complex and most polarizing novel yet, but I would whole-heartedly consider it a literary horror masterpiece. With a coastal setting all its own that Ward breathes incredible life into, "Looking Glass Sound" is a completely new labyrinth that requires (like its predecessors "The Last House on Needless Street" and "Sundial") readers to devote attention to every last detail.

Marching forward with a suspense-laden sense of dread, "Looking Glass Sound" is, at its core, a story about stories and the perpetuity of words. Haunting, moving, and most of all, shocking, this is one for true Ward devotees. Enjoy the ride.

I'm definitely having "what on earth did I just read? what's going on?!" thoughts, but the experience of reading anything by Catriona Ward is just too enjoyable. Looking forward to whatever her brain dreams up next! Many thanks for the opportunity to read and review.

It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with Catriona Ward’s precious books that I have read so I was highly anticipating her newest books and even my extremely high expectations were blown out of the water.
Like any of her other books I would highly recommend going into this book as blind as possible. That’s mostly because I don’t think I could give a concise synopsis of this book that didn’t somehow spoil the fun of it. The only thing I will say is that this book is very self-aware and if you don’t like books that you really have to think about while you are reading them, you won’t enjoy this. It’s impossible to describe Ward’s writing style but just know, if you are somewhat confused through 80 percent of the book, you are doing perfect.
Reading a Catriona Ward book is like being given a giant paint by number but you can only fill it in while it is super zoomed in so you can no idea what it is and some of the colors don’t seem like they would fit in at all and once you finish it and zoom out, it the greatest thing you have ever seen.
I think any of Ward’s books could easily be studied in a literature class but this particular book opens itself to so many discussions. I could easily write pages about this book and still not run out of things to say. This is definitely going to be in my favorite books of the year.

WOW! I devoured this book in one day and have been thinking about this ever since. I think its best to go into this aa blind as possible.
This was an amazing read that I have added to favorites!

Having read & enjoyed Sundial & The Last House on Needless Street I was absolutely thrilled to receive this ARC.
What a beautiful, chilling & exciting novel. I did not predict all of those twists, and thoroughly enjoyed this. This is one of those books that you think about for days after reading it.
CW is an auto-buy author for me forevermore.

TYSM to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire Publishing for letting me be an ARC reader. Happy to do so again in the future. Also, I do weekly book giveaways on my tiktok page (@hauntedhousebooks) and will definitely be featuring this in a giveaway during it's release week to help promote it.

Everything I thought about this story was flipped around by the end. But, unlike with some books, where the twists are shocking because they don’t make much sense, in Looking Glass Sound, every twist and turn runs parallel to the original narrative.
I found this to be an excellent exploration of grief, queer longing, identity, and so much more.
There isn’t a single person that I would not recommend it to.
If there’s a word above brilliant, that is what this book is.

I have seen this all over tiktok. So many differing opinions on this and to be honest I understand everyone who hates it and I understand everyone who loves it. I'm kind of middle of the road in terms of how I feel.

The writing is fine, there is nothing wrong with the story. I just found it wasn't for me and I wasn't looking forward to reading anymore of this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for providing me with the ARC!
Catriona Ward has done it again. This book gave me thrills, chills, and then it fried my brain in the best way possible. Was it confusing? Absolutely. Did I understand where it was heading? Nope. The only way I can describe this book is by comparing it to a puzzle. Imagine you’re doing a 5,000-piece puzzle, and you think you’re nearing the end, but then you realize you’re missing a few pieces. Then you somehow find the missing pieces, put them in their places, and think, “I figured it out!” but then you look at the puzzle, and you’re like, “what the heck is this supposed to be?” It’s only then that you realize you’ve been putting the puzzle together upside down.
That was what the journey of reading Looking Glass Sound was like.
I can’t really talk about the actual plot of the book without spoiling it, so all I can say is that Ward has continued to masterfully craft a creepy, off-feeling ambiance filled with twists and mind games. Ward is one of the few authors that I’m automatically excited to read, and I can’t stop myself from rushing through her books. I have no doubts that Looking Glass Sound will be met with even more positive acclaim, and Ward will continue to be an iconic voice in horror.

Heart pounding thriller that left me on the edge of my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. Definitely one of the best books this year.

Ward once again gives us creepy goodness and captivating story plots. "Looking Glass Sound" is a must-read.

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.

Catriona Ward has me in a chokehold! I have been anticipating this book for over a year and it did not disappoint. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
The only way to describe this book is MASTERFUL STORYTELLING!!!!
Her writing style is unmatched, and her ability to create stories within a story will leave you questioning what is real. The twists in this had me immediately wanting to start it again, and the characters will stay with me. I laughed, I teared up, I was unsettled (ok, at times I was scared), and I read the last 10% with my jaw on the floor. I know this won’t be for everyone, but I do know that it will be a forever favorite of mine.

{Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the advanced reader copy}💕