4 Stars!

Woah! Be prepared for a trippy adventure into the land of imagination!

El and Cat are sisters, mirror twins, that live in a big, creepy house in Scotland with their mother and grandfather. They have wild, imaginative adventures in a place they have deemed Mirrorland. When they are 12, they flee the house and start their 2nd life. At 19, Cat moves to America. When El disappears, years later, Cat is drawn back to the house in Scotland, where all of the childhood memories return.

My brain was on fried reading this, the story jumps from present day, back to Cat's imagination. Be prepared for this chilling, wild adventure. I was on the edge of my seat trying to sort through what was going on. What really happened during their childhood? What really happened to El? Is El's husband innocent of wrongdoing? Why did El and Cat stop talking for all those years? You won't want to put this one down!

A special thank you to NetGalley, Scribner, and Carole Johnstone for providing me with an ARC.

WOW, if this wasn't a riveting ride I don't know what is. We have twins El and Cat, following their duo timeline ( I don't know if duo timeline is the right description, maybe more like flashbacks? memories? Either way it really worked!) was challenging at times but it all comes together really well. Its got this twisty wonderland feel in some of it that I really enjoyed with the twins as kids using Mirrorland as almost an escape. Jump to adulthood where El and Cat haven't spoken for 12 years and now El is missing, Cat is convinced that El is still alive but there is a long chilling journey to find out what really happened. As we move along in the story we find out why Mirrorland was so important to Cat and El and the two timelines weave together. Some of this book is really brutal and has you holding your breath to find out what's really going on and I physically felt tense and on edge throughout the book. The atmosphere the writing creates is something I've seldom experienced.

I honestly didn't know much about the book before I jumped in which is how I like to go into most books and I honestly recommend everyone go into it the same, with an open mind and ready for a electrifying, hair-raising read.

I highly recommend this book. Different than what I normally read and completely unputdownable.
Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me the thrill of reading early.

In 2020, I read a crazy amount of books. I doubt I will ever top the amount I read!

I’m trying to read as much as I can and just plowed through some of the best novels I have ever read. I didn’t think another year could possibly compare, but there is an absolute plethora of books that are SO GOOD coming out now and in the next few months.

I cannot stop reading! As soon as I finish one I pick up another.

Here are TWENTY books that you will want to read as soon as they are published.

These are books that will entertain, make you think, make you laugh, some will have you biting your nails in suspense. Take a look now and let me know what you will be reading!

5. Mirrorland by Carole Johnson, read if you like unreliable narrators and nerve-wracking thrillers.
With the startling twists of Gone Girl and the haunting emotional power of Room, Mirrorland is a thrilling work of psychological suspense about twin sisters, the man they both love, and the dark childhood they can’t leave behind.

Cat lives in Los Angeles, far away from 36 Westeryk Road, the imposing gothic house in Edinburgh where she and her estranged twin sister, El, grew up. As girls, they invented Mirrorland, a dark, imaginary place under the pantry stairs full of pirates, witches, and clowns. These days Cat rarely thinks about their childhood home, or the fact that El now lives there with her husband Ross.

But when El mysteriously disappears after going out on her sailboat, Cat is forced to return to 36 Westeryk Road, which has scarcely changed in twenty years. The grand old house is still full of shadowy corners, and at every turn Cat finds herself stumbling on long-held secrets and terrifying ghosts from the past. Because someone—El?—has left Cat clues in almost every room: a treasure hunt that leads right back to Mirrorland, where she knows the truth lies crouched and waiting…

A twisty, dark, and brilliantly crafted thriller about love and betrayal, redemption and revenge, Mirrorland is a propulsive, page-turning debut about the power of imagination and the price of freedom.

This will be published on April 20.

Where do you go when your life is too difficult to bear, when your reality is twisted and dark and impossible? Maybe you dive into a book, let the story carry you away, let the adventures fill you with bravery and strength and hope. Twin sisters El and Cat have managed to survive a horrific childhood by immersing themselves in make-believe - whole sections of their home turned into the deck of pirate sailing ship, a prison yard, places where they can escape into story, and to forget what they are so afraid to remember. This is a chilling story, beautifully written, full of darkness and twists, finely layered, smart, sad, and totally gripping. It has a lot to say about memory and perception, trust, connection, and the power of imagination.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone.

Cat and El are mirror twins who grew up in Edinburgh. In order to escape their violent home life, they created Mirrorland, an imaginary world underneath the stairs. But now as adults, Cat and El are estranged, making things all the more complicated when El goes missing.

Forced to return to her childhood home, Cat reconnects with El's husband Ross, in order to discover the truth of El's disappearance. But uncovering old secrets can come with it's own dangers.

This is a slow unfolding of a decade's old rancid onion. It's one revelation after the next, and right when the story starts to feel sleepy, you're jolted awake with another surprise. It was dark, foreboding and had a fresh premise.

I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This book opens with 12-year-old identical twins El and Cat being found in an alarming state on the Granton docks on the Forth of Firth near Edinburgh, asking for a pirate ship to join. The events that led up to this point and what happened next makes for an incredibly atmospheric, suspenseful, twisty tale unlike any other I’ve read.

Mirrorland is an imaginary world of clowns, witches, and pirates created as a diversion by the girls as children growing up in Scotland desperate to escape the sadness and violence of their home life. It created a funhouse environment of sorts that left me feeling discombobulated and a bit upside down. If I’m being completely honest, I was just along for the ride for a while not knowing where this story was taking me. I soon realized that this was exactly the author’s intent as everything becomes brutally clear as you get further sucked into the developing story.

The dream world the girls created where anything can happen overlaps in such a way that it has blurred the reality of Cat’s childhood. Our narrator is unreliable, and this helps add to the complexity and depth of the story.

The ever-present sense of foreboding, though - that’s what grabbed me by the throat. There was a vein of terror that pulsed in the background for the entirety of the book. I felt like something was lurking on the next page regardless of what was happening in the story. There is nothing that draws me in more!

Carole Johnstone did a phenomenal job of world building and fully developing her characters while depending largely on the unreliability of childhood recollections. I even enjoyed the secondary characters that peppered the narrative. I have to say, this was not a book that can be categorized as a straightforward thriller or fantasy or any other genre I can think of - it was a well-balanced blend of mysterious magical realism. And what a smashing ending to such a wild ride of a book. I give this read an enthusiastic four stars!

3.5 stars (rounded up to 4).

Identical twins Cat and El grew up in a creepy old house in Edinburgh, Scotland with their mother and grandfather. Together, they invented a rich fantasy world to pass their childhood days – bedrooms that became a Clown Café and a Princess Tower, and an alley that became the titled Mirrorland, housing a pretend pirate ship, saloon, and other imaginary play places.

As adults, Cat and El have a falling out that ends up with Cat fleeing to California and leaving the sisters estranged for years. But when El and her sailboat both disappear during a solo outing, Cat returns to Edinburgh and that creepy old house… a house that El and her husband Ross bought and restored and now live in.

After a few days with no sign of El or her boat, the police are beginning to call off the search, but Cat doesn’t believe El is dead. Because someone is sending Cat ominous notes and emails and hiding things in and around that old house, and Cat is convinced that El is behind it all. After all, El always loved creating treasure hunts and writing clues for Cat when they were children… and the person behind these clues knows things that Cat thinks only El would know.

The psychological suspense aspect of this debut novel is outstanding, inexorably drawing the reader closer to horrors in both the present and the past. Cat is a somewhat unreliable narrator, as it becomes increasingly clear that her memories of her childhood are covering something much more sinister. The dark, smothery sense of foreboding in this novel is relentless – that imposing old house is beyond spooky (almost a character itself) and nothing and no one are as they seem. Numerous reviewers have likened this novel to Gone Girl, a comparison that is well-earned by the many surprising twists and turns this story takes.

This could have been a five star read for me if not for the magical realism. I’m not a huge fan of fantasy in general and wasn’t expecting it to play such a prominent role in the story. The descriptions of Cat and El’s childhood playtimes seemed overly detailed and uninteresting, and I soon found myself skimming over them quickly. As the book progressed, it became clear those passages weren’t as irrelevant as they may have seemed, but I still couldn’t get into them. Obviously this is a personal preference and fans of both genres will likely enjoy the creative way the author weaves them together.

3.5 stars (rounded up to 4… I keep wishing that someday we’ll get half stars!). Five stars for the suspense, two for the fantasy.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for providing me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Hoping this was going to be strange, creepy, and thrilling. However, i knew this wasn't going to be an average thriller. But despite the synospis, I hadn't been expecting it to be more magic realism than anything else. The first chapter was eerie and confusing (but confusing in more of a good way, like a weird dream)

Then the chapters after start kind of being less eerie and compelling. The writing style is more atmospheric in the flashbacks (to the twin's childhood fantasy place, Mirrorland, a dark and disturbing one at that) but kind of wordy and doesn't flow as well in the current timeline. There was also SO much pirate talk, and it was driving me nuts.

Dnf before halfway through

I loved Mirrorland and all its twists. It starts off a bit slow and I wondered exactly where the story was going. The beginning started as more of the imagination of two children in a pirate fantasy, but trust me, it
gets much better and there is a good reason for slow intro.

El has gone missing and her sister, Cat, who moved to America 12 years ago comes back to Scotland to find her. After missing for several days, she is assumed dead by most, but Cat insists she knows she's alive. We learn the sisters have complex relationship with both an intense bond and major issues. Cat ends up staying in Scotland with her sister's husband, Ross, who we find out was their childhood friend and love interest
of both sisters.

Cat is soon sent on a journey back into her childhood after receiving mysterious emails that she believes are from missing sister, El. Cat is finding her sisters old journal entries and treasure hunt clues in their childhood home and begins remembering Mirrorland. Mirrorland is the world she and her sister imagined as children and starts off as a fun playland that eventually unravels into much more the further you get into the story. Cat's memories begin to blur and she isn't sure what is reality and what was imaginary.

Through all the twists, you begin questioning if El is just missing and alive, or is she dead? Did she get murdered? Was it an accident? Was it a suicide? Was it planned? Is there much more to the story than meets the eye? All options seem possible.

Overall, I really enjoyed the magical realism infused throughout the story, the blurred lines between reality and imagination with Cat, the flaws in the characters that made them seem like real people, and the twists along the way. I'd highly recommend reading Mirrorland.

Wow, this story took me on a crazy adventure! Thank you Net Galley for allowing me to read this story! Definitely a fascinating read!

Mirrorland was a little hard to follow at the beginning but hang in there, it will drag you in fast. I loved the realistic family relationship tensions mixed with supernatural thriller.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review but if you know me, honesty has never been a problem.

Thank you for granting me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This review will be published on my blog pagesandprose.net on Friday, April 2nd, with the link shared on Twitter, and will also be posted on Goodreads on the same day. I will also be discussing my thoughts on Mirrorland on my YouTube channel (link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJNlMVN7vvA75iTmiiswXKQ) during a vlog that will be posted on (or near) March 23rd, and during my March wrap-up, which will be posted on (or near) April 6th.

If you want a dark psychological thriller that centers around the imagination and resilience of children persisting into adulthood, look no further than Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone. This is one of those books that is intricately layered, and one that creeps up on you and sinks it’s claws in without you ever realizing until the truth is unraveling so fast you’re left positively dazed.

Mirrorland starts out rather slowly, as Johnstone meticulously lays out each piece of the story, both the tension and mystery building before you even truly realize it’s happening. Of course, with Cat getting the news of her twin sister’s disappearance and the fact that the two women have had a very strained relationship for years, there’s already tension that is expected to go along with this story. But as Cat starts encountering the clues that all lead back to Mirrorland, we start to get flashbacks to Cat and El’s childhood, filled to the brim with imaginary games, friends, and villains. I will say, that in the first half of the book I found myself not necessarily bored, but questioning the repetition of certain imaginary games and characters that seemed innocent or more like filler details to give the twins’ childhood in Mirrorland more robustness. I was inevitably proven wrong; everything that Johnstone gives the reader is bigger than what it initially appears to be. While I did find the transitions from past to present and back again quite often unclear and confusing, I liked when this “blurriness” was applied to distinguishing what was real and what was childhood fantasy. When we get the truth, it’s often quite unexpected. Johnstone managed to artfully blend the past, present, fiction, and reality into something that became increasingly akin to a kaleidoscope while simultaneously making everything all the more clearer to the reader as the story hurtles to it’s end.

I was very impressed with how Johnstone really focused on the idea of toxic and twisted relationships to build character dynamics in the book. At the root of everything was obsession, manipulation, control, jealousy, and how people process fear. As each layer to the truth was revealed, characters became even darker. Johnstone was able to create a cast of characters that I appreciated without actually liking a single one of them. There were several moments in this book that I had to pause because I was appalled at a character’s wild and twisted thought-process and logic, but because Johnstone set such solid groundwork for each of the characters, you couldn’t help but understand how a character came to each decision.

I think my biggest complaint about Mirrorland was the final plot twist (which was more like two twists in one). There were several twists and shocking turns and reveals in this story, and I just think the very last (combined) twist was too much for me. I had found myself extremely satisfied (albeit disturbed and sad) by the twist and subsequent events right before the final one. I felt like that would’ve been a good place to end the novel, because it still hit really hard and gave closure to almost everything. I say “almost” because I do admit the final twist did give closure to a character that would’ve had a loose thread if the story ended where I had wanted it to. So, I do see how it was needed, but it just made the story tip over to the “unbelievable” category by that point, even if it was a structurally-sound plot twist.

Mirrorland is a book that demands you to pay attention to every detail, because Johnstone flips this story on it’s head by the end. If you’re looking for a psychological thriller that involves manipulation, messy relationships, and childhood fantasies, I definitely suggest you check out Mirrorland when it releases on April 20th, 2021.

Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone is part mystery laced with a lot of fantasy. El and Cat are identical twins who as children invented their own place of escape called Mirrorland. Cat is living in California when she receives news that her sister El is missing. She returns to Edinburgh even though believes this is all an act. El always did things to get attention. There is a lot of fantasy and make believe in this story about pirates, clowns, even a jungle! Cat believes El is leaving her messages that take her on quite the scavenger hunt to try to find her. A lot of twists and turns that really keep you guessing right until the end.

To understand what has happened to her missing twin sister El, Cat is challenged, forced by clues from her sister and fragments of memories, ​to go back to that which she does not remember.

What is true, what is imagined, and how does imagination (or the brain?) protect you and even lead you out of harm? MIrrorland poses these questions via a story of identical twins, El and Cat, told from Cat's experiences trying to find and figure out what has happened when her estranged sister goes missing. The story goes back and forth in time to examine a complicated childhood, filled with stories of Mirrorland and a seemingly atypical childhood, and Cat's current day attempts to understand clues her sister seems to have left her about her disappearance.

Do not let the start of this book fool you into thinking it is fantastical and let that guide your approach to thinking if this book is or is not for you... For me this book was a suspenseful mystery; a complicated, and dark, story, one that generally comes together to provide meaningful resolution to a series of events, relationships, and secrets that held the girls together and yet kept them apart as adults.

This book fascinated me at times, and I have an appreciation for how the author allowed the experiences of children to matter, to show their resilience, and to also offer in a way an appealing, if dark, feminist approach to how women are treated by (some) men. The book would appeal to readers who do not mind a dark story, a challenging and non-linear mystery, and a mystery that to me was mostly internal, more about Cat’s struggle to process events around her and in her past than it was about what happened to El (this is to say that while Cat’s process was to understand what had happened to El but it felt more like Cat’s story than it was about El’s disappearance, to me anyway). I think the novelty of the storytelling in terms of how the author created Mirrorland and how it was used to help Cat, and El, during their childhood and then how memories were used to help understand El's disappearance is worth the time of a mystery lover who can appreciate a challenging (in a good way) narrative structure.

Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone is a twisty dynamic suspense novel filled with intertwined past and present narratives. Narrated by Cat, an identical twin, who is pulled back into the past when she receives word that her twin is missing and possibly dead after a boating accident. As she enters her former childhood home and works with the investigators to try to learn the truth of what happened to her twin, her memory loops back to the past and to the secrets she had long since blocked out.

I initially thought I had the plot worked out, but that proved to not be the case at all. It is a book that will keep you guessing all the way to the end. I'm rating it as 5-stars for the complexity of the story, but deducted a half star with how the story unravels, as at times I was unsure whether I was in the present or past and had to reread a paragraph or two for context. Beyond that though, it is a fantastic novel and one I highly recommend.

Advanced copy provided courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

CW: abuse, mental illness

My first impression of Mirrorland was seeing the maps of the house at the beginning. I was so intrigued! What books have maps of houses? Why do the rooms have such odd names! I immediately wanted to dig into the book to learn more.

Mirrorland felt like a fever dream. It reminded me of a darker, more adult version of Alice in Wonderland. It partly existed in present-day Cat is back in her childhood ("first life") home after her sister (El) goes missing, partly existed in the past and we got to learn about Cat and El, and another part that was Cat and El's imaginary world of Mirrorland full of adventure and pirates and clowns and secret codes. Now, I usually get super frustrated when flashbacks aren't clearly defined but intentionally Carole Johnstone wove all these parts together into this purposeful haze of time and child-like imagination. It worked so well for ME and for THIS STORY. (Now that I think about it, it felt more Sylvie and Bruno than Alice in Wonderland). This is the aspect of the book that really stuck out to me. It was unique and trippy and I enjoyed how it all blurred together for both the reader and for Cat.

Anyway, I loved the mind-trip of these different layers and the suspense of learning about Cat's past and what happened to El in the present. There were so many twists that I want to go back and re-read it all knowing what I do now to see all the foreshadowing. Some sections were a little slower than I wanted them to be, especially at the beginning when I was getting used to the writing style.

I think this would be perfect for anyone looking for a psychological thriller and doesn't mind blurring timelines. I'm excited to read whatever Carole Johnstone writes next!

A wild, eerie, twisting ride through the minds of twins whose imaginative childhood was not what it seemed. The conclusion piles on so much, but it's entertaining for those who like their reading material to start moody and atmospheric and end dark.

While I really enjoyed this book, I'm not sure the typical fast-paced thriller lover will give this book enough of a shot before setting it down. It is marketed as a thriller, but it feels more like a mystery/fantastical/slow-burn story with a few thrilling elements. It's very dark and tense; very gothic in feel.

If you like dark, slow-burn stories with a few twists; if you like fantasy and imaginary play, I think you'll like this. Even those who read literary fiction may even like this if they also enjoy mystery/thrillers.

Cat and El (mirror twins) have a very vivid imagination as children, encouraged by their mother, which lends very heavily to the fantastical elements. There are even times where Cat as an adult leans in to what she knew as a child which made the house seem to take on a life of its own. When I first started reading this, I was slightly confused, but I'm used to reading 1000 page fantasy novels. I was willing to ride it out and see where this story would go. I'm really glad I did.

There were some moments in the story where Cat would be narrating the story and she goes back to a childhood memory as a flashback of sorts which can be a little confusing for some because you aren't told "this is flashback, and okay now, we're back to real time". I didn't mind that once I saw the author using that technique more and more. The writing style was simple without being overly simplistic and was easy to read and imagine what was happening within the story. A really good debut novel!

I highly recommend this book for the type reader I described above. Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner books for this free advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

My brain! My precious, precious brain has been blown away by Mirrorland.

Twin sisters running away to join a pirate ship.
Twin sisters, now grown, and somewhat estranged.
One sister is missing and presumed dead after a boat trip.
One sister knows the other isn't dead.

Difficult childhood, imaginary worlds, one man, a terrible mother. This book has it all and yet, AND YET, still becomes something I've never read before.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.