Book Review: Looking Glass Sound 🌊

“Writing is power…it’s a way of keeping someone alive forever…maybe the writer keeps them prisoner. You can trap someone in a book, their soul - make a prison of work. A cage”

⁉️: Would you ever write a memoir or novel based on something that happened to you?

Wilder Harlow, who remembers his childhood at Whistler Bay in Maine and the blood stained path of the killer who stalked their home. The lives of Wilder, Nat, and Harper as they spend their summers in Maine.

As the story progresses, the multifaceted thriller demands your attention as Nat and Skye try to make sense of their past by writing their versions of the events as they happened, but then details begin to get fuzzy as they remember the serial killer. Wilder, too, has memories of talking to him, but then as you read the unsettling novel - it becomes clear that his memory itself has become his nemesis. And, I think that’s part of the horror that the author calls attention to - that dark memories become horrific in time.

This was my first Catriona Ward novel, and I enjoyed her experimental, psychological thriller. This was a 4 star ✨ for me. The novel released on August 8th!

Thank you @Tornightfire and @CatorianaWard for the gifted finished copy!

Review of Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

Now this is the Catriona Ward I have come to know and love. I DNF’ed her last book Little Eve and so I was a little apprehensive going into this one. But the last house on needless Street is one of my favorite books ever so I will always give her another chance. Thankfully, this time I was not let down. I absolutely loved this book. I recommend a combination of reading a physical copy and the audiobook if you can do both. Her books definitely are intricate with lots of characters and timelines so it’s best if you can read along, but the audio also cannot be beat. I was engrossed in this one immediately and loved it all the way to the end. The only words that ever come to mind with her are unique and clever. Definitely give this one a try.

Synopsis:

It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.

But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in the cabin, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?

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.

This is my 3rd Catriona Ward book and, honestly, I've decided she can do no wrong. They're mentally tolling, but oh so worth it, and Looking Glass Sound is no different.

It is so intricately plotted, it's moody, and it'll have you wondering wth hell did I just read.

Wow, "Looking Glass Sound" really took me for a ride! Set in Maine, this book follows Wilder Harlow as he writes about his past, and let me tell you, it's filled with twists and turns.

Catriona Ward's writing is sharp and to the point. She paints a vivid picture of Maine's beauty while still giving you the chills with the horrors lurking around. The characters? They're complex and intriguing, especially Wilder, who's struggling with memory and reality.

The plot's a real puzzle, and I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure it out. It's not just a horror novel; it's a deep dive into friendship, betrayal, and the power of stories.

I'm giving it 4 stars because, while it's a fantastic read, it's not quite perfect. But if you're into literary horror with a twist, this one's for you. It's dark, it's enchanting, and it's definitely worth a read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed Looking Glass sound. For the first 65% of the book I found myself drawn in by the characters and their story. Then things took a bit of a turn and this book became quite the mental workout. Looking Glass Sound descended into madness in the second part of the book, and it seems to have been done well. For now, I'm left a little confused and can't share any strong opinion of the book. I have a feeling this is a book that will grow on me with re-reads as piece together more clues and plot points. If you're looking for an unhinged thriller with interesting characters, this is the one for you.

This is Catriona Ward at her Stephen King-iest, which is not a bad thing at all! I was so sucked into this multilayered, ever-unfolding meta novel, and I couldn't stop reading once I got a few chapters in. The serial killer plot is a bit of a red herring, with the real meat of the story being the push-and-pull of the friends' (enemies'? lovers'? all of the aboves'?) desires to 'own' the story of what they experienced (or perhaps what they were in proximity to?). Ward is so good at presenting a straightforward narrative and then twisting it and turning it so wholly over the next few hundred pages that by the end, you can scarcely recognize the book you thought you were reading -- that's not for everyone, but it's certainly for this reader!

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I tried to become interested in the characters but they were inherently unlikable. The beginning seemed to drag through the mendacity of their lives and the slight drama. It picked up. And then it went completely off the rails and became something of a mess. Weirdly, I was kind of more interested in the story and trying to follow it once this happened. The entire thing felt familiar, too. I'm left with the feeling that I have read this all before.

This is another one of those books that I think that I would have preferred to read in a physical form, rather than listen to audio. There’s just so many switches in timelines, viewpoints, and things I would want to go back and check and make a connection. Over all it is a good book, it just has a complicated storyline where things start making sense the farther into the book you go. It is an inceptionesque book, with murder and secrets and even a bit of romance all wrapped up in one.

In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write.

It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.

But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in the cabin, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?

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.

Looking Glass Sound by Catronia Ward is a captivating read that intertwines intricate storytelling with a unique blend of suspense and supernatural elements. Ward's writing style keeps you engaged throughout, and her ability to create a haunting atmosphere adds depth to the narrative. While some parts may seem slightly convoluted, the overall plot is intriguing and thought-provoking. The characters are well-developed, and their struggles feel genuine, making it easy to empathize with their journeys. Despite a few moments of pacing issues, the book successfully delivers a sense of mystery and a touch of the uncanny, making it a solid four-star choice for readers who enjoy enigmatic tales.

I think I’m too stupid to understand and enjoy this book. Nothing made sense in all of the wrong ways.

It could just be me, but I found it very difficult to keep up with what was going on in the book. I feel like the pacing was kind of off, and I found myself struggling to keep up each chapter and also struggled to understand what was happening.

The story itself was haunting, mysterious, and very intriguing and I found myself interested in discovering what occurred in Whistler Bay. This is a story of betrayal, witchcraft, friendship, and a murderer named The Dagger Man. One thing I always love about Wards books is her writing style.

This was one of those “book within a book” stories and while I find those intriguing, this one missed the mark for me. I think if the entire story was JUST about The Dagger Man and didn’t include anything else, I would have loved it more. Despite that, the ending was shocking and it saved the story for me a bit. I truly didn’t see a lot of the twists throughout the book coming.

The story jumps from timeline to timeline and person to person and I think there were too many POV’s and timeline jumps. I was often confused about what I was reading, and would have to go back and re-read to get a clue as to what was going on.

Overall, this was intriguing, but the pacing was just off for me and there were a few too many plot points to keep up with. Other than that, I think this was a thrilling, interesting read!

4.5 stars rounded up.

Going into this review, I'll admit I'm not exactly sure what happened after the midpoint (which I think was the point of the story anyway), so take my review with a grain of salt.

Looking Glass Sound grabbed me from the beginning. It had mystery/thriller vibes with heavy doses of your typical "teenagers discover something really messed up in their idyllic town." But even with this tropey beginning, Catriona Ward managed to make it interesting (and sinister) enough to really hook you in.

I didn't feel much of a connection to the MMC, Wilder, but somehow the author really made me care about him and his well-being as the story unfolded. And with me being a generalized ~hater of things~, that was quite a feat. Wilder wasn't all that likeable and complained a lot, but eh, he's a teenager/young adult who experienced a highly traumatizing event. I get it.

But what really pulled me into this story with zero intentions of letting go was Pearl's POV later on in the story. Holy shit. At that point, everything I knew was turned on its head.

Either this entire novel was a masterclass in how to write unreliable narrators, or I'm a complete idiot. (Maybe both?? lol)

Anyway, I'm excited to read more of the author's work!

Thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for this arc.

This was my first novel by Catriona Ward, and it won’t be my last! This book took me awhile to get through as it is truly a mind bender. I loved the premise and the execution. If you take your time with this one it really pays off. The book within the book aspect was well done. I’m not usually a huge horror reader, but I was able to read this one no problem.

This one was not for me, unfortunately. While I thought it was interesting, the pacing felt off. It was very much "one thing happened, then we did this, then we saw this" which I think can work well with certain stories but not necessarily this one. I also thought so much was lost in the pursuit to make these characters quirky. They speak (and the narrator thinks) in similes and analogies. I think this could have been made even more unnerving if the characters spoke and acted like real people. Harper especially came across as a manic pixie dream girl in the first half.

I think everyone will experience this book differently, however. This would do well with fans of Paul Tremblay and Stephen Graham Jones. I've ultimately decided that Catriona Ward just isn't the author for me.

Thank you Tor Nightfire for my Netgalley copy of LOOKING GLASS SOUND by Catriona Ward, out now!

WOW. This book legitimately scared me. I had to put it down about halfway through and take a break because it was spooky and I live alone and it was scary to read at night lmaoooo.

This is the latest twisty psychological horror novel from Ward, and it is VERY unique in its format. In a lonely cottage overlooking the coast of Maine, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of him and his childhood besties discovering the bodies of murdered women by a killer that stalked the small New England town.

While dealing with the horrors of that discovery over a decade, Wilder meets Sky, who steals his unfinished memoir and turns it into a lurid bestselling novel, Looking Glass Sound.

As Wilder continues to try and write and reclaim his story, the lines between memory and fiction start to blur. He starts to lose his grip on reality, see ghosts and fall apart. This book is MIND-BENDING. It’s like ten stories in one. I loved it - the ending was spectacular once you realize what she is doing.

Also, let me emphasize that this is HORROR. The ghosts are scary, the talk about serial killers and what they do is scary, and there are multiple instances of “degloving flesh.” Just a fun warning! Your brain will need to work in overdrive to comprehend this book, but it’s worth it! Go in with as little as possible and let it warp your mind!!! It’s definitely a nesting doll of a novel, so be prepared to take it slow.

Ward is officially an autobuy author for me because this was mesmerizing.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
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Horror, grief, memory, all in a twisty wild story.
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I think it’s better to go into this one blind- but know it is a tremendous story, I loved this book, it’s sad, HORRIFIC at times, and really beautifully written at others. I recommend this for high school and up!
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Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. This book is was just published! Go get it! 🌊
#lookingglasssound#catrionaward #bookstagram #bookreview #fivestarread #gracecookiereads #netgalley #arc

“𝑨𝒔 𝑰 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑰 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒇𝒍𝒖𝒊𝒅 𝒂 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒊𝒔. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒍𝒊𝒑 𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒊𝒕. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒌 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒐𝒘.”

My friend Dennis (@ScaredStraightReads) first led my attention to Catriona Ward, and although I have to finish a couple of her backlist books, the cover of her newest attracted me immediately and I had to dive in.

As always, you never know what to expect with book by Ward; at first it seems straightforward: an author writing his final manuscript, but that is just the very first layer. I absolutely loved Wilder’s relationship with Nate and Harper - the friendship triangle and pure tension that comes with it was fascinating. I wasn’t sure if Wilder was crushing after both Harper and Nate, but one thing is for certain that he had his fill of love in his time with them and learned that friends can break your heart just as easily as romantic relationships, perhaps more. That same tension continues as Wilder meets Sky in university, and I found myself very easily devouring their story too. Although less horror based and a bit slower moving compared to Ward’s other works, it is no less atmospheric. Once the twists of betrayal start coming, I kept questioning what is real, and how reliable a narrator Wilder is. I will admit I found the first half of the book, focusing on a coming of age and lose of childhood narrative, had me more hooked than the second half, but there are so many layers that I desperately needed them to be peeled away (even if I wasn’t always a fan of some of the reveals).

Looking Glass Sound is a story of friendship, first loves, trauma, closure and writing. It will be giving you whiplash and have you considering what happened long after the last page. Thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the ARC!

This was like a fever dream.

The first half was great... interesting, understandable, coming of age, familial relationships, friendship,first loves. It even had what turned out to be more of a side plot line... a possible serial killer. I enjoyed it!

Then it switched gears. The MC teen was now college age and going out on their own and making an equally odd friend. But his personality was much different from the first half. And when you finally settle in and accept this new MC version, the story flips a few more times, so you don't know what is real, who is real, and what the real story is. It became a confusing,jumbled mess (at least for my brain), and it really lost me and my interest.

I really enjoyed The Last House on Needless Street. But this is the 2nd book from this author that I've read since that I just couldn't grasp and really get into. Either her work is above my brain's pay grade, or it just is a craziness that I can't flow with.

Because I enjoyed the first half I gave this 3⭐️.

I genuinely appreciate Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for allowing me to read an advanced ebook copy of this book.

The nitty-gritty: Truth and fiction blur together in Catriona’s Ward’s latest, a complex tale about death, love and stories.

I never know what to expect from a new Catriona Ward book, other than it’s sure to be complex and different, and Looking Glass Sound is no exception. This story is many things: a coming-of-age tale, a murder mystery, a tragic love story and a story of betrayal. It’s also hiding a secret within its pages. What seems like one thing in the beginning turns out to be a lie, and then that lie becomes another lie. By the end it’s almost impossible to untangle the truth, and the reader is left with a sense of both awe and confusion. Yes, I enjoyed this book, but it’s not a story you want to rush through. I’m glad I’m in the habit of taking notes while I read, and later writing them down (Looking Glass Sound is five pages of notes!), because it gives me a chance to “read” the book a second time. This is one of those stories where you want to go back to the beginning after you’ve finished, because you’ve most certainly missed something important.

The story begins with a memoir written by Wilder Harlow in 1989, titled The Dagger Man of Whistler Bay. Wilder recounts a summer spent in the small seaside town of Castine and the life-changing events that happened there. The house the Harlow's inherit from a relative is just up from Whistler Bay, named for the whistling sound the wind makes as it passes through the surrounding rocks. When they arrive, Wilder meets two other teens his age, and they become fast friends. Harper is a red headed beauty and Nat is the son of a fisherman, and the three become caught up in the mystery of a man dubbed the Dagger Man, who sneaks into houses and takes Polaroid photos of sleeping children—with a knife at their throats.

Then bodies are discovered and the Dagger Man becomes a serial killer. The fallout from this fractures their friendship in terrible ways that will reverberate for years to come.

Next, the memoir jumps to 1991 when Wilder goes to college. There he meets and befriends a boy named Sky, who claims to be an aspiring writer, but their friendship ends when Sky steals Wilder’s memoir and rewrites it as his own story. Later we learn that the book, called The Sound and the Dagger, has become a bestseller. The story, eerily similar to The Dagger Man of Whistler Bay, has four characters named Wiley, Nate, Helen and Skander.

Finally, we are introduced to Pearl, the daughter of a woman named Rebecca who supposedly drowned a decade earlier in the bay. Pearl is also a writer and is tangled up with Wilder, Harper and Nat, although to explain how would be a spoiler.

Ward jumps around in time and also from character to character, slowly pulling back the many layers of her story to reveal an unsettling truth. I felt the strongest parts were Wilder’s chapters, which make up the bulk of the story. The mystery of the Dagger Man and the horrible discovery in the bay after the Dagger Man is identified is the sort of riveting storytelling I was expecting from this book, and the author came through with lots of eerie details revolving around the serial killer and his prey, and plenty of tension among the characters.

But when Pearl is introduced, things get confusing. Pearl is clearly connected to Harper and Wilder, but it takes a while before the whys and hows are explained. The story contains no less than five different books: The Dagger Man of Whistler Bay (written by Wilder), The Sound and the Dagger (written by Sky), Skye (Wilder’s second book), the “fictional” Pearl (written by Skye), and finally, Looking Glass Sound (written by Pearl). The characters take on various personas and seem to appear in each other’s stories, and keeping them straight isn’t easy—Wilder/Wiley, Harper/Helen, Nat/Nate, Sky/Skye/Skander—some are real and some aren’t. To confuse things even more, another character named Grace makes an appearance late in the story, and again, she’s connected to the others in some interesting ways.

Ward names her characters after famous writers, and that isn’t coincidence. This is a story about stories, the power they have and the magic within their pages. I did love some of the things she has to say about characters living on through books, never having to die, which gave the tone of the story a hopeful feel.

In the end, Looking Glass Sound is a weird little tale that does some clever things. I’m still thinking about the book days after finishing it, turning over the bits of story in my head to see what I might have missed. I’d love to know if you’ve read this too.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

A huge thank you to the publisher @tornightfire and @netgalley for providing me with this ARC for my honest review.

This book was something!  I really enjoyed this book and the author's writing style.  It's extremely unique, and I will definitely be reading more of her books. 

Wilder Harlow returns to his coastal Maine cottage to write his last book about the summer he spent with his childhood friends, Nat and Harper.  The summer of horror when missing women's bodies were found in oil drums at the bottom of a sea cave.  The summer, a killer who's been stalking the town has been discovered, and the killer is someone he knows.  It's also about Sky, Wilder's one-time best friend, who steals his memoir and publishes it as his own.  As Wilder writes, memories blend with reality, and he starts to wonder if he's losing his mind.

Told in multiple POVs and multiple timelines, this book was an extremely entertaining read.  You really have to pay close attention to what's going on, or you'll be completely lost.  You are literally thinking one thing, and it turns out to be another.  I was really intrigued by this book and would definitely recommend it!