Cover Image: Mirrorland

Mirrorland

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Member Reviews

This story was just… a lot. Overall I liked it. But it was so confusing to read, jumping from the present to the past to memories of the past to a make believe past… It was hard to keep track of and it kept dragging on. Shorter and less confusing would have been a lot better because it was a compelling plot.

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Gosh I wanted to love this book! But I sadly didn’t. The way the author just mixes the different genres, it just confused the heck out of me. This one just wasn’t for me unfortunately.

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Maybe it was the location of Edinburgh, or the demeanor of Cat, but this one was hard for me to follow. The secret room, pirates, I was scratching my head. I didn't realize the fantasy element because I wouldn't have selected it. I like my thriller straightforward I guess. Just not my genre.

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I thought I would love this book but I didn't. I think it is because there are so many different genres woven into the story. If the author had stuck to one genre I would have liked it better.

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I found this to be an enjoyable read, keeping me on my toes throughout. The storyline was written well and flowed seamlessly. I look forward to reading more by this author!

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This is a beautifully written novel. You find yourself really rooting for the main character as her story is slowly revealed. There are plenty of teasers that keep you off track of what is really happening. Enough to keep it a gripping mystery that you won't want to stop reading.

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This was the most interesting book I have read in a long time! I loved the childhood imagination fantasy element, and the story was so spooky! I loved the characters and the twists, I felt genuinely shocked many times. I couldn't put this down, I hope to read more by this author in the future!

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A fascinating choice for any novel is relying on the unreliable narrator. I may never see it done better than Carole Johnstone has done in her debut novel, Mirrorland.



Mirrorland is a hard novel to categorize and I am not sure it is even worth trying. Catriona “Cat” Morgan has been living in Los Angeles ever since leaving Edinburgh, Scotland, some 12 years before. Early in the novel we learn that she left after a falling out with her “mirror” twin sister Ellice. The details of that falling out figure prominently in the story, which flashes back to the girls’ childhood living in an old house and playing in a part of the house they called Mirrorland.



Cat is returning to Edinburgh following the disappearance of Ellice. She had sailed out on her boat but never reached her announced destination. Both the boat and Ellice were missing and as time goes on, hope for her safe return diminishes.



The book is essentially told from Cat’s perspective, and things get very weird very fast. Cat’s memories of Mirrorland include real people: herself, Ellice, Ross–the boy next door who becomes Ellice’s husband after they all grow up. They also include make-believe characters: Annie and Mouse, clowns and pirates, a witch and Bluebeard and Blackbeard and the hoped for return of Captain Morgan.



But as the book develops, we find that Cat’s memory cannot be trusted. Some of those make-believe characters are actually real people, people she had relegated to a fiction section of her mind. Some of them were known to her in other contexts: an aunt, her grandfather. We begin learning that her memories of her sister are also corrupted, as are her memories of her brother-in-law and of the rest of her family. Even the house itself holds secrets that are locked into the fantasies she’s told herself.



For much of the book, I could not tell whether it was a fantasy novel and her memories were real, filled with pirates and clowns and danger as they visited an alternate world; or whether it was a mystery and nothing she said or thought could be believed. In some ways it is both. In both ways, it is excellent.



Mirrorland is a dark and disturbing read, with a narrator whose grip on sanity is at best tenuous and whose memories are hard to trust. It is also a book with power and presence and a stellar debut for the author.

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This book was a crazy ride and an incredible debut! What started out as a haunting tale of the fantasies of identical twins became a thrilling story with so many twists. Each time I thought I solved the mystery, there would be a twist I didn't expect.

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This is the story of El and Cat identical twins who grew up in an abusive home who escaped to an imaginary world in order to cope. Their real life began after their mother and grandfather die. Cat returns to try to find her missing sister because she is sure she is not dead even though the police found her body in her sunken sail boat. A confusing story with a surprise ending.

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"Mirrorland" is the type of book I love. It is the exciting story of identical twin sisters, Cat and El. We learn of their strange upbringing, their alienation from each other as adults, and the unexplained death of El. whose distraught husband claims the death was a suicide, but Cat is sure that El is still alive She is certain that she would instinctively know if El was dead because they are mirror images of each other. Later after the body is retrieved from the water, Cat refuses to believe that El is gone. The plot keeps the reader guessing the entire time and the ending is amazing. It was hard to put it down.

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This book was and is my first read from this author! But I must admit from the beginning it had me! All I will say is it’s about twin sisters that def use their imagination! But I’m not gonna give this book away except to say pay close attention! I loved the ups and downs! The people were all easy to relate to! This author is beyond talented! If you are looking for a great book to read that gets you from the moment you open this book then look no further! Just pay attention you won’t want to miss anything!
I will def be looking to read more from this author! Keep up the amazing work! You have gained a new follower and fan that’s for sure!!

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I wanted to love Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone,, but it was just OK.The back and forth between present and past gave me a bit confusing. It was hard to keep track of what was real and what was imaginary. Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

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While this book was not my cup of tea, I did finish and found the second half to be a bit more enjoyable than the first. I wasn't aware of how much of a fantasy it would be.

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Wow, this book was not like anything I have ever read! Many thanks to the author and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this early. The story kept me reading, and the relationship between Cat and El. Sometimes the flashbacks were a little confusing, especially with regards to Mirrorland, but in the end everything made sense, with a big, unexpected twist. Definitely worth a read if you like dark and slightly creepy stories.

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There were absolutely things I enjoyed about this book. Three things mainly. 1. The heroine's angst was cohesive, believable, and fascinating in only the way a deep dive into the anxiety and dread of an identical twin can be. Let's face it there's some thing magical and mystical about that bond that is almost always intriguing. 2. While the main character lives in America, she's a transplant. So, much of the book takes place in England which lends a mysterious quotient I found oddly comforting. It was unfamiliar in ways that interested me. 3. About 40% into the novel I discovered that the suspense, the mystery was indeed thrilling. It was pacing well and made me want to get to the end. Made me want to get the answers not just for the heroine but for me. Still, I had tremendous difficulty getting into this novel. I found the heroine's childhood memories of her imaginary life with her sister confusing at best and a little dull at worse. There was just too much going on and it bounced back and forth in time making me lose the thread of what I was reading multiple times. There was so much that was overwritten I found myself unable to get into it until I force myself to skim. Something I NEVER do. Lastly, I found the literary pop cultural references overdone. The extrapolation of fascinating characters from other books mentioned only had the effect of reminding me of what I was missing. In the end, there was enough that I liked about this book that I can't say it was at all poorly written. It may just be that it was not written for me.

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Thank you to NetGalley and the published fo the ARC copy of this book. Sadly, I could not get into this book. I thought it was going to be a thriller, which it is on some levels, but it seemed more fantasy than thriller. There was a lot of details about Mirrorland that I just couldn't follow. And I didn't have the motivation to continue reading. More action would have been helpful, or just a less confusing storyline.

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Omg this book was so crazy it was creepy! The way it kept so many twist and turns! I loves everything about it! I can’t wait to read more by this author! Highly recommend it!

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Twin girls, as close as they can be when they are little, but fast forward to when they are adults, and nothing is as it seems. Cat’s twin sister El has gone missing while out on the sea all alone on her sailboat. And she wasn’t there when her sister died. Except, Cat isn’t all that convinced that El is dead. Not like the media and everyone else around her is anyway.

When they were little, Cat and El created an imaginary world full of pirates, clown, witches, and even a prison. They called it Mirrorland, and through the stories their mother told them, Mirrorland grew bigger and bigger. They believed that in Mirrorland, anything was possible, and that they were safe (I would have run the opposite direction as a kid – or even now, lol, but to each their own I guess!).

We learn more about Mirrorland bit by bit. In any case, as children, Cat and El seemed inseparable. That changed as young adults, when both fell in love with the same guy, but only one of them got to marry him. When Cat left their hometown and their family home – the house that El and her husband now live in – she doesn’t hear from them for years. Not until the phone call that tells Cat of El’s disappearance…

There was a palpable tension right from the start when Cat was thinking of El. When she then had to return to her childhood home, that tension grew even more intense. Cat doesn’t seem to have such fond memories of that place after all, and when she is back there now, those shadows still seem to be hanging in every corner, clouding her vision just like they did when they were little.

While El’s husband is desperately awaiting news about her disappearance, Cat is more convinced than ever that El set this up. After all, the two used to play a similar game when they were little and they had to cover up a dark secret… Can it really be that El is still alive and playing tricks on them, or did she really die on her sailboat when she ventured out alone? The question remains though, why is the boat gone as well..?

I think the premise of this story is really intriguing, and I loved that it’s different from the usual happy twin sisters story. I do have to say the ending really surprised me in that regard, however, I obviously won’t spoiler anything there. Let’s just say that you will definitely be surprised, maybe even shocked, at all the revelations, twists, and turns that the story has in store.

Mirrorland is a story I was hooked to right from the start. I was intrigued and wanted to find out why Cat wasn’t taking the disappearance of her twin sister more seriously, why she wasn’t a sobbing and crying mess at the prospect that El might indeed be dead. What happened in their past that made Cat the was she is, and that made it possible for her to think that El might only be playing games?

While it takes a while for us to figure out what happened and why and for us to see the truth behind their childhood games, the author is a master storyteller and weaver of twisted secrets. As the dark secrets of Cat and El’s past slowly come to light, we also learn that some families go to great lenghts to save their loved ones…

I loved the writing, all the secrets lurking like shadows in all the corners of the house Cat returned to, their childhood secrets that were unraveled bit by bit, and the almost palpable darkness radiating from every page. I needed to know what happens next, so I kept turning the pages faster and faster.

If you are a fan of dark, twisty thrillers that hold you on the edge of your seat, books that keep you reading until well into the night, books that make you gasp at each dark secret that is revealed, then Mirrorland is the book for you!
4 stars from me!

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Pitched as Gone Girl meets Room, Mirrorland tells the story of identical twin sisters Cat and El, who survive a bizarre, insular childhood in Edinburgh by inventing Mirrorland, an imaginary, Narnia-esque world that lives under the pantry stairs. Years have gone by and now we follow Cat, who’s estranged from her sister and living in Los Angeles, until she gets a call from El’s husband, Ross, begging her to return to Edinburgh as El has gone missing, which involves returning to the house they grew up in, as Ross and El are now living there.

That this is the author’s debut novel is very apparent; most of the problems are with its poor pacing and its inexpert synthesis of the mystery and childhood trauma narratives. Flashback passages are shoehorned into the present-day narrative with an abruptness that almost feels deliberate, almost feels like a commentary on trauma, but which mostly ends up feeling poorly written. These flashbacks were so detailed and so repetitive that I mostly found myself skimming them as they failed to advance the characterization or the present-day narrative in any way; they did, ultimately, contain clues that tied into the mystery, but I ended up guessing most of the twists anyway, even without giving large segments of this book my full attention.

I’m struggling a bit to rate this one as I weirdly did enjoy reading parts of it — once it really got its momentum up, around 50-60% in, I couldn’t put it down — but the negatives far outweigh the positives of this reading experience. I’d skip it unless there’s something unique about this premise that appeals to you.

Thank you to Scribner and Netgalley for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

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