I cannot say this book won me over. We are dealt with an unreliable narrator and it pains me to say that the book is so-so.

However, what intrigued me the most is when the mirror twins go into the fantasy realm that they conjured up as an escape.

Sadly, El goes missing and her husband....does not seem to be the man Cat (twin sister) thought she was. Time to question everything. That’s when it gets interesting. 2.5 rounded up to 3.

This is one of those books that upon finishing it you think, "What did I just read?!"--in a good way! I'm not even going to get into a synopsis beyond what the publisher has provided because I don't want to give away any spoilers. Initially I got whiplash from everything happening: the rooms mentioned, the characters, what was real and what wasn't. If you're confused initially, as a famous fish once sang, "Just keep swimming!"-- things will begin to fall into place. 36 Westeryk Road is rife with childhood make-believe but less the stuff of Disney fairytales and more along the lines of Return to Oz, all told by an unreliable narrator the likes of which I haven't read since Gone Girl. If you can get past the initial world building and just keep reading, I think you'll find this story is smart, unique and full of twists you won't see coming and definitely the most original book I have read all year.

Many thanks to Scribner & Netgalley for the ARC.

Keeps the action pulsing with enough intrigue to make it hard to turn the virtual pages fast enough. Thoroughly fleshed-out characters you tend to either like or dislike with enthusiasm. A great bedtime read that'll keep you engaged till the very end. Highly recommended!

*This book was provided free of charge in exchange for my honest review. My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to participate in this program.*

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

I tried to get into this story line about a missing twin . I just could not connect to the main charactor and pushed myself to read through but I really did not enjoy it.

Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid. But it came highly recommended from several people so I'm going to assume it's just me. I just couldnt get into it.

I received an advanced readers copy and exchange for an honest review.

Very hard to get through, not what I was expecting, not a psychological thriller in the traditional sense, although a fairly psychological look at twin hood against a suspenseful backdrop. Not my cup of tea but others may appreciate

DNF @ 16% - no rating.

This book sounded right up my ally but I was so very wrong. I have been reading this for about four hours now and I'm only at 16%. This is way too fantastical for me and I had no idea that pirates and pirate lingo would be such a big factor in the story. I have zero interest in pirates and, as it turns out, Mirrorland either. C'est la vie!

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for my review.

Once in a while, a book will catch my eye because of an interesting title and cover combination. Mirrorland was that such book, and I was really excited to jump into this one. With an April release, I know I'm a little ahead of the game, but reading this was well worth the anticipation for its release.

Cat and El are identical twin sisters, estranged, but always connected. So when Cat receives word that her sister has gone missing, she returns to their childhood hometown in order to find her. Everyone around her is convinced she's dead, but Cat knows El's games. She knows what she's capable of. And she knows that this has everything to do with Mirrorland, the imaginary oasis the girls created to as children.

Ominous messages. Ambiguous choices. A past clouded by fear and secrecy. What happened the last night of their first life? Where is El? Mirrorland is the answer, and Cat will find it.

Phew, what a read.

This is the kind of book that will stick with you long after you finish with it. On the surface, it has a lot of fantastic ingredients of a well-written suspense. I loved the mysterious messages, the shifting shadows of doubt, and the layered intrigue surrounding El's disappearance. The unreliable narrator is one of my favorite POVs, and there was no shortage of distrust here. You think you know what's going on, then everything is flipped on its head. On its own, that would make an excellent read, but Johnstone didn't stop there.

Along with a Gone Girl-esque thriller, we get a brutal examination of abuse, both psychological and physical, and the ramifications this destructive behavior can produce. There are many parts of this story that are difficult to stomach. Johnstone creates a world where we see things through Cat's eyes, and in her eyes, we are taken on this journey of discovery, where we are in media res when she learns that what she thinks is normal is far from it, and the effect is gutting. I think that's what stood out to me most in this book. It's easy to give a character a troubled backstory, but making it breathe takes finesse. I also didn't feel like it was using the abuse as entertainment, but rather to explore the nuanced, complex, and non-linear trajectory of a survivor's healing process.

And you know I had to mention it: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is my all-time favorite King story, and I LOVE seeing it referenced so beautifully here. Indeed, there are many King easter eggs, and I think for any Constant Reader, that alone will make this an enjoyable addition to your TBR.

This may be Johnstone's debut novel, but I am excited to see more work from her in the future. Hope is a good thing, and the power of hope rings in every page through Cat. Smart, chilling, and engrossing, Mirrorland is a must-read in 2021.

Big thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

A twisted deep tale of identical twins, estranged by a tragic event in their youth. Mirrorland was a place of refuge and terror in their childhood. Now as Cat returns to the place she fled all those years ago, she finds her twin missing and their old fears and scars on display in that house of horrors. Turning to the only friend from those old days is Ross her now brother-in-law for comfort and answers. It’s a harrowing few days that result in a tragic discovery Cat was hoping to avoid. Monsters we see as children take on a different light as adults. A fact Cat faces as she relives the night when her and El’s life transformed their future and sealed their fates.

Unique and imaginative are two adjectives that are increasingly hard to apply to the saturated psychological suspense genre. This book absolutely earns those designations. Dark, gothic, and compelling, this novel has an incredible energy and depth to it that elevates it to amongst the most interesting of psychological thrillers.

This book was a wild ride. It gives you love, betrayal, mystery. It did take me some time to get invested but once I did, I had to k ow how it ended!

AMAZING!!!!! Seriously, wow. One of the best books I have read in 2020. Y’all really need to read this book. The ending seriously threw me for a loop but I loved it SO much. Excellent, excellent writing and the characters were fantastic.

Let me start by saying this cover is AMAZING. it will ABSOLUTELY draw people to the book. The story on the other hand... I just couldn’t make myself get thru. I purposely do not read other reviews until I’ve read something for myself, because I don’t want anyone to be able to sway my emotions, but after trying multiple times to get thru the beginning of the book, (and failing) I decided to check the reviews. I see others are facing the same problems. I wish I could say I finished this book, but with so many amazing reads out there, I find it hard to force myself thru a read I’m really not into. C’est la vie I guess.

I appreciate what the author was trying to do here, and I'm not even saying it didn't work. I am saying that the first 60% of this book was very nearly unreadable. The next third was compelling, and it lost me so completely at 96% with a "daring plot twist" that I came very close to not finishing...and chucking my e-reader across the room. Mirrorland gets two stars for showing me, demonstrably, that I really can do anything I put my mind to (i.e. reading this to the end).

The first part was a slow build for me and and to be honest, a bit boring. I thought this was going to be a sleeper of a novel. However, it eventually paid off with some big twists and excitement further in, you just have to keep going and get over the initial hump. I was happy that the overall ending was what I expected it to be.

My rating is somewhere between 3.5-4 stars due to the slow beginning, some of the improbable twists, and that the childhood play/stories just aren't my thing.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF-This apparently wasn't my cup of tea. Netgalley was nice enough to provide me an ARC of this book. I was completely drawn in by both the cover and the description. What's more intriguing than a missing twin story?

I've read other reviews that say the first part of the book is pretty tedious to get through, and unfortunately this is where I gave up. I just didn't have the patience to keep moving forward and try to figure out what was real and what was Mirrorland.

The writing itself was really well done, and the chapters do end in ways that encourage you to continue reading, but I had to bail on this one.

This book was pretty good.
At first I wasn't so sure about it.... but 2 chapters in it started to get great.

The detail in this book was amazing.
I loved the characters, the story line, the ending has an incredible twist!

Overall! Good book

This was a hard book to get through because you have to pay attention to every little detail about this magical land of the twins. It had my mind working overtime for sure.
We're given a tale of two twins, El and Cat, who have created this magical world called mirrorland that is all fun and games until it begins to swallow them.
After 12 years we are introduced to Cat who lives in California, forgetting about her life back in Edinburgh and her twin sister. That is until Cat returns because El is missing. She returns to their childhood home which was bought by El and her husband Ross. El has made it look exactly as how is was when they were children.
El is presumed dead but Cat instead believes she is doing this for attention, but then she starts receiving mysterious letters.
We're led down the distorted and delusional memories of the unreliable narrator. Is the story she is telling us real or is she lying because she cannot differentiate reality from a dream?
This book is worth the read if not only for the mind bending mystery! It read like a puzzle waiting to be finished to see the whole picture.

Mirror land is the story of identical twins, who were orphaned as children, then grew estranged. Cat returns home to Scotland at the news that her identical twin has disappeared. As she gets reacclimated to her childhood home, traumatic memories begin resurfacing and she starts to receive threatening letters. I would not like to say much more about the plot in order to not give too much away.

Mirror land was well written and I enjoyed the flashbacks, when the girls played in their own imaginative world. However, as I discovered the narrator becoming more unreliable, I got so confused as to what was real and what wasn’t. That left me feeling quite off kilter. I also never quite understood the motivations of several characters in the story so I am still left wondering “why?” Overall, very good book that I would recommend for domestic thriller fans.