2.5 stars

When I read the synopsis of Mirrorland I was really intrigued. I've been enjoying this genre more and I was hoping to be sucked right in, but unfortunately that didn't happen. At first the story felt slow and even though I liked the darker setting nothing was pulling me in. Once I started understanding a bit of how things all came together things made more sense and when I thought we were at the ending I still had 20% to go and it kind of went downhill from me from there. Things just felt too unrealistic and too inconvenient.

Mirrorland is a genre-defiant story. Is it a thriller, a detective procedural, a psychological suspense novel? Let’s just say all of the above!

The story starts with a slow build by re-telling the past when Cat and El were young twins creating their alternate, imaginary world. This is interspersed with current-day happenings. If you don’t pay close attention, this can throw the reader off the story. But a tale such as Mirrorland deserves to be read slowly, letting the words build the suspense and drama.

I would never have guessed this was the debut novel from Ms. Johnstone. It has a very polished feel. The pacing picks up in the second half of the book to where you just keep frantically reading page after page to find out exactly what will happen next. Every time I thought I had it figured out, a new clue is revealed that proved me wrong.

The characters are so fleshed out that I felt I knew them. Just like real people, sometimes you love them and other times you hate them. That is definitely the case here. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the deeply dark gothic home that is as much one of the main characters as it is a setting.

This story has stayed in my mind. Don’t be surprised if I keep coming back to add even more thoughts to my review.

This dark, twisted, suspenseful tale will thrill lovers of mysterious family dramas, psychological thrillers, and just darn good fiction.

Mirrorland, by Carole Johnstone, combines crime thriller and fantasy elements in a captivating and satisfying way. You're drawn in by the mystery of Cat's twin sister El's disappearance, and stay for the highly imaginative, multi-faceted depictions of the girls' shared inner world growing up.

Both the crime and fantasy elements of the story are full of twists and surprises. There's evidence pointing towards both murder and suicide, and you're constantly being pulled towards one, then the other. And that's without taking into consideration the mysterious emails Cat is receiving that lead her on a treasure hunt around her childhood home, on which she finds pertinent entries from El's childhood diary and other artefacts - but to what end?

As for the fantasy side, Cat's memory isn't reliable and it turns out not everything she saw as a child was only in her head, and there are also some things she's struggled to face up to until now. A couple of the big reveals were maybe a little far-fetched, but I was invested enough to suspend my disbelief.

Mirrorland itself is the complex imaginary world the twins created for themselves as a response to growing up in an abusive home. I loved how they incorporated characters from traditional and modern stories, as well as pop culture, and used their stories to make sense of what was happening in their lives as well as entertain and distract themselves.

I'm a total sucker for a secret passage, so I adored how there was one between the main house and the wash-house, and this was where many of the twins' imaginary adventures took place. One of the few people they saw other than their caregivers was Ross, a neighbouring boy of a similar age to them who came into the wash-house through the skylight.

This book is full of uncomfortably claustrophobic relationships. As suggested above, Mirrorland was El and Cat's way of escaping their caregivers; they weren't sent to school, so they were trapped at home with them all the time. Later on, their shared experiences, and differing reactions to them, simultaneously attract them to and repel them from one another, and when Ross chooses El over Cat, repulsion wins and Cat leaves for America.

The twins' attraction to Ross also has its roots in their childhood experiences, as he becomes the only remaining witness to their childhood; it's as though no other man can 'get' them, but they can't both have him. However, have they idealised him? And does clinging to him keep them stuck in their traumatic past? As El's husband, Ross is naturally in the frame when she disappears, and rumours abound that he was cruel to her. Is it wise for Cat to stay in the house with him?

Mirrorland is dark, captivating, and full of twists.

Wow! This book had me on the edge of my seat, and I read it in two sittings. I enjoyed the writing style, and the suspense built at the story progressed, keeping me invested in what was happening.

I really liked the main character, Catriona. I found her relatable, especially with the back and forth relationship between her and her sister. I think anyone who has siblings can probably relate to that on some level. I liked how they created their own fantasy world as children, something that me and my siblings also did when we were young. I loved how the author weaved the fairytales and fantasies into the story and I loved all the references to classic literature.

The twists just kept coming, even up to the very end, and some of them I didn’t see which is unusual for me as I typically have the story figured out before the end. Also, I have to say that ending was very satisfying – something that is not always the case for some books like this. If you enjoy fast-paced, twisty psychological thrillers, you’ll enjoy this one – if you liked Gone Girl, you’ll like this one as well.

This book was a weird one.
I hate to give a poor review of a book, but I nearly stopped reading this one several time this week.
I just couldn't keep up with the extremely unreliable narrator and the confusing jumps in time.
Typically, a thriller that show multiple POV or passages in the past alternate chapters to help the reader follow along. This story, on the other hand, will abruptly change to the narrator's childhood perspective with very little signaling to the reader. This confused me so much!

The concept of this story was good, but I don't think it was executed well as a whole story.
El and Cat are twin sisters who grew up in Edinburgh. Their childhood was not normal as their house held a passage to a magical land they called Mirrorland. I was waiting for some fantastical realism to crop up in this story, but it is a thriller through and through. Cat and El had a major falling out when they were in their late teens. Cat returns to their childhood home (where El and her husband, Ross now live) because El has gone missing and is presumed dead.

This story ends up taking so many crazy twists and turns, but what annoyed me was that this was an extremely unreliable narrator. When you have a narrator who is mentally unstable anything goes in a story and this one followed that type of plot. The ending went so rogue, and was extremely surprised that El is actually alive. There was just twist after twist and it almost got to be too much.
The hazy and confusing memory and thought process of the mentally unstable Cat was hard to follow in the story. I was left confused, bored and shocked by the end of this story.

Again, there were such good plot idea with great twists, but I didn't like the story as a whole so those highs fell pretty flat.

This book is DARK. It’s intense. It’s kind of magical. Brooding. Haunting. Troubling. It is difficult to put down, although at times I felt like throwing it across the room.

What hungry ghosts haunt the halls of Mirror House? And what the hell possessed El to ever go back there, let alone live there? Everything and everyone in this story shares one common thread: they all seem to have an undercurrent of darkness. What seems whimsical and magical on its face also feels like it might be moments away from tearing you to shreds. Even the 36 Westeryk Road itself has an air of malice about it.

The one thing I can say for absolute certain though is this: Mirrorland is going to make you feel some things. It is a fraught, tightly written, incredibly spooky heartbreaking story neatly tucked inside a mysterious and seemingly whimsical package.

Johnstone has weaved a tangled web of a story that sucks you in, batters you to within an inch of your life, and spits out a version of you who no longer fully understands what reality even is. Is anything what you thought it was? How much can you really rely on what you know? What you remember? Mirrorland deals with some incredibly heavy and troubling topics in a way that is both beautiful and highly affecting.

Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this one as I thought I would. The synopsis is very appealing, the story, to me, was not.

Rating: 6.5/10

Thanks to The Write Reads, the publisher, and the author for providing a reading copy of Mirrorland for review consideration. This did not influence my thoughts or opinions.

Mirrorland is a read that had a lot going for it and ended up being an entertaining psychological thriller that shows a ton of promise for the career of Carole Johnstone. While the reader has to suspend belief beyond normal circumstances, the meshing of the fantastical with reality was an interesting duel in which Johnstone unpacks this brutal, dark story.

I’m usually a sucker for books with the King’s ‘stamp of approval’ blurbs and this was another one of those. He has yet to fully steer me wrong with his recommendations (heck, The Last House on Needless Street and You are among my favorite books) and I will continue to trust his judgement.

While the book is compared to the likes of Gone Girl, I just never really saw it. Gone Girl was a book in which I was utterly floored when the twist hit. With Mirrorland, it was more show than tell, if you catch my drift. If you pay close enough attention, you will have the entire story figured out pretty early on, though it doesn’t detract from the eerie atmosphere that Johnstone has dropped us into and the intriguing storylines she weaves in and out of each chapter.

The opening chapter itself will hook and reel you in as you’ll be wondering what in the world is going on. Being dropped into a scene that is either in the middle of unfolding or one that is just about to hit an abrupt end can be a bit jarring, and that is was had me intrigued. Not to mention the characters that Cat finds herself bumping into throughout her time back in Edinburgh (especially Ross). It also helps that Cat is a bit of an unreliable narrator as bits of her past come crashing down around her as these clues reveal themselves.

All in all, Mirrorland would make a great beach/lake read, especially on one of those rainy days you always get on vacation. Curl up, watch the storm roll in, and get lost within the pages.

If you enjoy audiobooks, Katie Leung (aka Cho Chang from Harry Potter) does the narration. Her accent may take a little getting used to, and you may need to slow down your pace if you listen at a higher clip, but once you get a feel for her voice, she nails Cat and the story perfectly.

Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone is a psychological thriller that took me on a compelling and symbolic journey through an imaginative world created for survival.

As children, the main characters El and Cat, did not watch tv. Instead, their mother read them book after book and encouraged them to use their imagination and make their home into a fantasy world full of pirates and clowns and all sorts of wondrous creations that only the mind of a child creates. Now, they are estranged adults, and when El goes missing, Cat must return to their childhood home to follow the clues to solving the mystery of what happened to El and why.

I did work out the conclusion early in the book, and it surprised me that I was right. This in no way impacted my enjoyment of the story; however, because the story is so rich with allegory and symbolism, I was busy studying each crumb of information that came up. The imaginative world reminded me of Peter Pan’s Neverland, Alice’s Wonderland, or even Dorothy’s Oz. Every detail reflects some profound truth that the girls endured and provided clues about what happened to El in the current day mystery.

The story is told through a dual timeline. The first is childhood (’90s), and the second is the present day. I didn’t have any trouble understanding which timeline I was on, and I loved how I found the crumbs to solving the present-day mystery in the past. Cat tells the story with El’s story being told through hidden journal entries hidden as clues to Cat. Much of the past timeline is in these journal entries, which triggers memories for Cat.

I found each sister’s survival instinct and how it played out to be fascinating. Even though El and Cat are twins – mirror twins – the response to the horrors around them was completely different. I found this gave the story a genuineness as that’s how it would happen in real life too. I was also fascinated by the intense look at mother-daughter relationships that showed how nurture could override nature in certain situations. Even given their horrific circumstances, Nancy and her relationship with El and Cat were based on the instinctual need to protect as Nancy worked hard to teach the girls through imaginative play the tools they needed to survive. Whereas another mother-daughter relationship, in a different environment, foiled so many aspects of Nancy’s choices.

The story can be confusing at first, as the imaginative world is so true to what a child would create that it is difficult for adult sensibilities to follow it. I recognized this, just went with the confusion, and that strategy paid off as I easily followed the story through to the end with its shocking conclusion.


Mirrorland is an imaginative yet creepy tale that will keep you guessing to the very end.

From the blurb, Mirrorland sounds exactly like the type of book that I love to read, and it certainly didn’t disappoint!

From the very beginning of the book, you can feel that darkness, which continues to grow throughout the story. The story begins with a prologue, set in 1998, when the twins were 12 years old. It gives us a little snippet of their strange and terrible story, and really sucks you in, leaving you with a million questions before fast forwarding to when the twins are adults, estranged, and El is missing.

To begin with, I did find it a little hard to follow, because we kept getting dropped little pieces of memories from when the twins were children, but once I got used to the writing style, it became a lot easier, and extremely enjoyable to read. What initially made the story hard to follow soon became one of my favourite parts of the book. Those little pieces of memories are our first introduction to a world that Cat and El created, called Mirrorland. Children have incredible imaginations, but the twins took it to a whole new level, to a point where they believed in their own make believe world, filled with clowns, pirates, and all kinds of nightmares. When Cat returned to Scotland, this world truly came alive, and warped in to something utterly terrifying.

I loved the treasure hunt aspect of the story. Having Cat following the clues, and discovering the secrets and suppressed memories of her past was great to read, and it keeps you completely hooked by the story. It really builds the tension. I found myself theorising what had happened not only to El, but also all those years ago when the twins were children.

The only thing I will say that bothered me (only very slightly) was that the boat circumstances were a little too similar to that of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca for me, which was instantly what I was made to think of, and it kind of throws you off the track of the book a little in terms of figuring out what happened to El. However, if you haven’t read Rebecca, then that shouldn’t be an issue, and even if you have, it doesn’t distract TOO much from the book, or put you off continuing.

There are so many interesting characters in this story, not only the real, but also the imaginary characters in Cat’s memories. The imaginary characters, particularly Bluebeard, were made to be so horrifying by the stories that the twins were told as children. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Cat and El to grow up surrounded by these terrifying stories that their mother told them, or to be made to do drills, or to just not be shown any love or affection. It must have taken a huge toll on them mentally. There was something about El’s husband, Ross, that I instantly took a dislike to, and I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was, even now after finishing the book, I still can’t pinpoint what it was that made me take an instant dislike to him.

The story gradually builds in pace, starting fairly slow, and then picking up until we get to the explosive climax. I had so many theories along the way, but I certainly didn’t see that ending coming. There were a few huge twists right towards the end, which make it impossible to stop reading. Honestly, what a way to end the story! Every loose end is tied up, and every little piece of the puzzle comes together so perfectly, in a way you would never expect.

Mirrorland is an intense, exciting, gripping story, that will have you on the edge of your seat, from beginning to end. It is Carole Johnstones debut novel, and she has certainly set the bar high with it. I can not wait to see what else she has to offer in the future.

A huge thank you to Dave @ The Write Reads, Scribner Books, and NetGalley for a copy of the book, in exchange for an honest review. And also to Dave and Scribner for allowing me to be a part of the blog tour.

I give Mirrorland a 4.5 star rating!

I was very intrigued when I read the description for this book. Estranged mirror twins El and Cat live completely separate lives on separate continents. Until the day Cat gets a phone call from El’s husband Ross telling her that El is missing. She rushes home and is shocked to find that El and Ross live in her childhood home. Most of the story is strange mix of pretend world they visited as children and present day intrigue as Cat tries to figure out what happened to El. This book started a little slow but as I sank into Mirrorland I found it harder and harder to turn away from the pages. I liked the ending even if it wasn’t as surprising as I would have liked it to be. I loved that a large part of this story was not only about Cat remembering who she was but figuring out who she is now.

Cat and El are special, a one in million chance. Identical in every way, mirror twins, two parts of a single whole. Their lives have reflected this, their first life; the one littered in stories, books, dark shadows and pirates and their second life; dictated by their love for Ross McAuley, a battle of the heart that El eventually wins. Forward to 12 years later, El and Cat have been estranged after a falling out. Cat has moved to LA and El has gone missing. When Cat reluctantly returns to her childhood home, she is struck by all the things she'd forgotten. The hidden adventures with her sister in a tunnel under their house, the secrets that lie in the dark corners of her memory and the fact her imagination had overtaken her actual memories at times. When Cat begins to receive warning letters and mysterious emails, she is convinced El is alive, she'd know. She'd feel it, even if they were estranged. When the emails urge Cat to remember and follow these messages around on a treasure hunt through the home that was once their fortress, Cat is pulled straight back into Mirrorland and in the past, she has completely covered over with different memories.

Can Cat's hidden memories lead to the truth about her supposed drowned sister?

This book...left me in absolute shock if I'm honest. At first I thought it was going to be a pretty cut and dry kind of novel, it was the husband. That's always my immediate assumption. I felt like this book was always leading to something, building up to more and when my jaw had hit the floor around the 60% mark, I wondered where else it could possibly take me and then...well I don't want to ruin it but lets just say the rest of the book blew me away.

I think these characters were clear, individual and although they do their moments, they lacked the annoying woe is me type energy that is often found in these suspense books. Cat had a steely determinism that I enjoyed and I think seeing how her and her memories of El lined up with one another at certain points. This is a testament to this author's writing and world building. I would definitely say this book would be easier to read physically, I think the memory scenes would be a bit clearer but I would recommend this book to fans of suspense.

Mirrorland is my first reading experience with Carole Johnstone. When I read the summary, I assumed it was another plot line done to death, but I was incorrect! Johnstone made this idea her own, and I am so pleased to have been introduced to her writing. I will certainly be looking for more. A solid 3 from me, which means 'I liked it!'

Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone is set in Scotland, sometime recent but still prior to COVID and quarantine. Cat had just returned to Scotland after 12 years. Her identical twin sister, El, has been reported missing so it was time to come home.

El and her husband, Ross, bought the childhood home of Cat and El. They had run away from this home when they were about twelve years old. No one could figure out who they belonged to because they were kept hidden in the house. There were no records of any kind for them.

I imagine the part of the house that they called Mirrorland to look like a combination of a circus and a pirate ship. It might look like the caverns and ship in “The Goonies.” Some of this is because it is how Cat imagines Mirrorland. She cannot remember how everything really happened in the past.

When Cat arrives at her childhood home, she begins to receive odd notes and emails. She believes that her sister is alive somewhere and sending her on a scavenger hunt in order to remember the past.

Their other childhood friend, Mouse, is a mystery. Is she really trying to help Cat? Does she know where El is or if she’s alive? Is she a friend or a cousin? No one really knows what Mouse wants. I don’t even think they know her real name.

All sorts of people are telling Cat to get away from Ross. They say he’s abusive and will probably kill her. Cat doesn’t know who to believe. She thinks El is lying about everything. Cat and El did not part on good terms. They haven’t spoken or written to each other in the whole 12 years that Cat has been gone.

There are quite a few references to “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” by Stephen King. If you like the opposite of what Stephen King likes, then this book might not be the one for you right now.

If you like mysterious Gothic fiction with numerous twists and turns, then you will probably enjoy Mirrorland. Personally, I love a good mystery, and the more twists and turns the better. So I enjoyed the book, just like Stephen King.

At first, I honestly didn't love this book, but I will admit that it sucked me in about 1/3 of the way through, and then I couldn't put it down.

This book is scary in the creepy, looking-over-your-shoulder type of way. I will admit to becoming particularly paranoid about noises in my house when reading this after dark. If you don't want to be scared, I'd pick another book.

However, if you do like a little thrill with some dark, mysterious flavor, this book has it for you. Big trigger warning for childhood abuse, relationship abuse, and suicide however, as all topics are explored in the book.

If I haven't scared you off yet, I will say that this book expertly weaves past and present storylines to create a really terrifying, sad, and real narrative. I felt for these girls, Cat and El, and all that they had been through. Though the beginning is a bit murky/confusing, I really sunk into it once I realized that it was intentionally so.

Mirrorland is a story of imagination, twin sisters, childhood trauma, mystery, murder, and starting over. Would recommend to fans of dark dramas!

When I saw the blurb comparing this twin-centric thriller with one of my favorite books of all time — Gone Girl — I knew I had to pick it up. In fact, Gone Girl is THE book that got me into thrillers to begin with, and I've been searching for one that packs as much of a punch ever since. While this one didn't quite live up to my Gone Girl-level expectations, it was still a good thriller, a GREAT thriller, that delivered unexpected twists, emotional turns, and a satisfying ending to a story of two estranged sisters finding their way back together through unexpected circumstances.

Part gothic, part mystery, part thriller, and part family saga, this novel follows Cat as she makes her way back to her childhood home when her identical twin El goes missing. Their large, dark, foreboding home holds a lot of secrets and a set of mysterious clues that lead to El's old diary pages takes Cat on a trip down memory lane, remembering the days when she and El would spend all of their time crafting an imaginary world they could escape to. From the Clown Cafe and the Kakadu Jungle to the shadowy corners of Mirrorland (a space hidden behind their pantry that housed their imaginary prison, pub, and pirate ship), Cat and El were taught to live in their daydreams and make a fantasy out of their frightening reality, culminating in a daring escape that led them to their second life, and eventually El's disappearance.

As Cat works her way through the clues left for her, she's forced to reckon with what actually happened to them as children as she tries to figure out what happened to El in the present day.

The beginning of this book plunges you right into the vibrant imaginations of Cat and El's childhood fantasies, which left me equal parts intrigued and a bit lost. Fear not! All of the confusion of the first act of the story starts to make sense once you learn a bit more about what was actually going on throughout their childhood, transforming the story from a fantastical gothic to a harrowing tale of family and survival. Woven throughout all of Cats reminiscing is the modern day investigation trying to figure out what really happened to El — which jives nicely with the unfolding mystery of their childhood circumstances and the deaths of the rest of their family.

There wasn't really any point in the story that felt slow or hard to get through. It was richly detailed and utterly dark — so, if you're not into more disturbing types of mysteries, this one might not be for you.

While the author does deliver on some truly wicked twists that I didn't see coming, the ending (and the last twists involved) felt too quick and easy to me. Like everything just seemed to happen so fast at the end and important elements of the story were revealed in conversations in the last few pages. I wish more of it would have been sprinkled throughout, so that it felt more impactful at the end, and less like the author was just giving us all the answers in a rush.

The writing and the details and the characters were all great and I can't wait to see what Carole Johnstone does in the future! Mirrorland is a spectacular and extremely memorable debut. I know I'm going to be thinking about it for a long time to come.

If you like dark thrillers with a fantastical feel, I highly recommend this one! You won't be disappointed!

Boy oh boy was i sucked in by this one! The book follows El and Cat who are identical twins, at the beginning of the story we learn that El has gone missing whilst on a boating trip and that Cat is travelling back to Scotland from California. Cat is returning back to the home that she grew up in with her sister that El and her husband Ross later bought at auction. Cat had not been back for 12 years and the twins have been estranged in that time. We learn that Cat and El are mirror twins and Cat is convinced if something bad had happened to El that she would be able to sense it, she returned to find out what game El is playing and why she has dragged Cat back to where they grew up after all these years.

We as readers are slowly fed drips and drabs of a place the twins invented called Mirrorland. When Cat arrives back in Scotland she is immediatley flooded with memories from the past and everything she ran away from.

This is definitely a book to annotate and take notes for, it reads like a mystery novel as there is so many layers and things we need to discover. There are a lot of hidden details and meanings that you really need to take your time and pay attention to, the writing is so intricate and i really must applaud the author for how well thought out things were. I would find myself reading a part and thinking 'hmm thats odd not sure how that will be relevant later' on only for a few chapters later to say 'ahhh that all makes sense now!'

I really enjoyed the magical realism elements to the story and when it veered down a more fantasy route with the twins childhood imaginings. I dont tend to read a lot of contemporary so i was really glad that this book was so multi layered with its genres, it felt like there was something for everyone. I really enjoyed the world building and immediately wanted to read more from this author.

My only critique is that the book had a very slow start, i would say it took me over 2 hours to get to 10% of the way through. It didnt begin to feel more fast paced until around 30% for me but i fully put this down to getting used to the writing style and the story itself, once i was in i was fully in and it began flowing much better.

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting from this book, but it absolutely blew me out of the water. There were twists and turns – some I saw coming, some I didn’t – that just kept happening, to the point my head was almost spinning with trying to keep up with what was going on. And I mean that in the very best of ways.

At first, neither El nor Kat seem like particularly likeable characters, but the more the world starts to strip back – the more we go back to Mirrorland – the reasons we see for that, and the amount of empathy and tenderness I ended up having for both of them by the end cannot be overstated. The supporting cast of characters we meet and hear about keep adding to the emotional rollarcoster, creating a confusion in Kat’s head that we feel through the pages.

I’ve always hated the implication that children can survive anything. The reality is, children are adaptive, and will make their surroundings work to make sense of the world around them when there’s things they can’t understand. El and Kat are prime examples of that adaptability. They create a whole universe to get through every day, without even knowing that’s what they were doing.

I was left with a bit of a hole in my heart after finishing the book, and squeezed my son extra tight when I hugged him at bedtime.

I really struggled to connect with this book but I did race through from 70% to the end. I felt like the book was very unrealistic and it definitely could have been darker/ more of a thriller if it followed a different route. Don’t get me wrong you definitely get the dreamlike fantasy aspect of this book which becomes more clear as you go on, this is definitely a very unique read.

This was an okay read for me. There were parts that I enjoyed and others that left me a bit confided. You have to pay attention to the details so you don’t get lost. Otherwise it’s a good creepy book.