4.5 stars

“You can’t get to know people after they’re gone. All you have are memories, moments, and that doesn’t make a whole person.”

I don’t think this needs much introduction as its done the rounds on booksta. These are notes I wrote while reading … and the best review I can come up with on this complex, brilliant novel.

Reading a CW book is like watching a 3D movie - starts off with a bang and then immerses you onto a roller coaster of cinematic explosion.

I love the endless level of possibilities Ward takes you on. It’s beyond fantastical, foreshadowing it’s what the f*ck am I reading and where am I?

I absolutely love her quirky style, it messes with your head. What seems normal is anything but … including something as simple as friendships.

Mind blowing!! Weird, multi layered, dark, disturbing, twisted, utterly brilliant.

That’s it folks. I loved it.
TW’s aplenty!

Many thanks to @netgalley @viper.books @serpentstail for #gifted advanced reading copy ❤️ @catward

4.5 stars

Looking Glass Sound

Catriona Ward is one of my favourite authors, and I love her writing style, but this book just lost me a bit (probably a me problem) It also had one of my least favourite tropes. It all started off so well, but i felt the last half just divebombed into chaos for me. I just couldn't follow what was going on. I would still recommend anyone giving this one a go, but it definitely needs your full attention.

Thank you to Netgalley, Viper Books, and Catriona Ward  for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating 2.5 stars – rounded off to 3

🤯Confounding, convoluted & simply disastrous.😣

Thanks NetGalley & Viper books for the ARC in exchange of an honest review.

Set in the picturesque Whistler Bay in Maine, US - Wilder Harlow wants to write the book of his lifetime. Haunted by memories of his childhood summers spent in this village –the creepy polaroid photo taking the serial killer, the bodies that were discovered in a cave & his best friend who stole his story making it into a best seller “Looking Glass Sound” , Wilder is determined to seek revenge & finally make peace with it all.

Well, I did my best with this book, but I am sorry to say this was just not for me. I was blown away by #TheLastHouseOnNeedlessStreet by Ward, but sadly after her debut, neither Sundial nor this has worked for me.

With such a fantastic setting of the whispering Whistler Bay & a creepy atmospheric evocation, I think this book had such a great potential. But the author complicates the plot so much, that the threads of it, just come apart with haste, hopeless with deliberate misdirection.

After a certain point, I didn’t care one bit about the main character of Wilder, nor his best friends Nat & Harper. I could hardly keep track of all the multiple turns this book was taking. It was as if Ward was desperately trying to fool the readers by misleading them & invalidating every layer of the story. 🙄

In my view, thrillers should have a credible premise. But here, nothing is believable, plausible or realistic anymore after a point. What was the story from the book he wrote & what was reality? I found no explanation, no answers to any of the questions I had.

It was only horribly confusing, not knowing why all the weird things kept happening & as I said earlier I just didn’t care🥱. Finishing it for the sake of it, I almost DNF’ed a few times & what’s more - the ending too failed to salvage it.🫣

However, on the brighter side, her writing is truly brilliant & she can do wonders with her talent, creativity & imagination.

I went in blind, so excited about it, but ended up getting disappointed.

Looking Glass Sound is, as with the other books I have read by Catriona Ward, an off-kilter horror story that is both atmospherically and emotionally fascinating.

Teenager Wilder, who is a bit of a loner, spends a summer with his parents in a cottage overlooking Whistler Bay in Maine, and the story begins. He makes two unlikely and slightly odd friends, Nathaniel and Harper, and the three spend the summer exchanging stories about the Daggerman, a local curiosity who breaks into children's bedrooms and takes polaroid photos of them sleeping. The three friends also make hazardous trips into a local cave which is rumoured to be the resting place of a woman who went missing.

A gruesome discovery alters the lives of the three teenagers, and the main body of the story focuses on Wilder's early adulthood following his time at Whistler Bay. This author's books are invariably best enjoyed without knowing too much in advance, so I don't want to say too much about the plot here, but Wilder experiences an abandonment that is devastating to read.

There are clues throughout Looking Glass Sound that this is not a straightforward book with a regular structure, and as the book heads towards its finish minor characters come to the fore and our understanding of everything that has happened is turned on its head. Having been emotionally invested in Wilder's story, Looking Glass Sound would have felt more satisfying to me without the closing chapters. I felt something akin to the experience of reading Wuthering Heights for the first time and feeling reluctant to read anything about the next generation of characters towards the end of the novel.

Looking Glass Sound also touched on a trope which I would imagine was unintentional. As a lesbian reader, I am used to same-sex story arcs ending badly, either with the death of gay characters or with them ending up in heterosexual relationships. Again without saying too much about specifics here, some of the literary tricks employed in this novel unfortunately took it into this territory. For this reason also, I would have loved this book to have ended earlier in the story than it did.

Looking Glass Sound is a brilliantly written novel which just has slightly too much going on. In the end, I would say that the emotional storyline loses out to the playful and complex structure of the book. I would have found the reverse to be a more satisfying read but, to keep that in context, I am a huge fan of Catriona Ward's writing and will continue to be an avid reader of her work.

The Queen of the weirdly intriguing is back! I loved The Last House on Needless Street and couldn't wait to see what CW's new book had in store for us.

This one is hard to review without giving too much away. I suggest going into this book blind as I do feel the synopsis provides too much information. It wouldn't be a Catriona Ward book if I didn't still have some questions after finishing it! Extremely well written, this complex novel will have you hooked at the start and then reeling towards the end.

"Looking Glass Sound" by Catriona Ward is a captivating and twisted story that will keep you hooked from start to finish. With shocking turns and surprising revelations, this novel takes readers on a thrilling journey that is hard to put down.

Ward's skillful storytelling and intricate plot make "Looking Glass Sound" a standout book. The complex web of family and friends connections adds depth to the narrative, putting relationships to the test and keeping readers emotionally invested. The translation of some twists may require extra attention, but it only enhances the allure of the story.

When I start a Catriona Ward's book I never know if it's going to be terrifying, don't read it late in the night, disturbing or atmospheric.
This is a bit of everything and I would only exclude terrifying. It's an atmospheric novel with some heartbreaking novel, a fascinating setting, and a solid plot.
I felt for Wilder and couldn't stop turning pages as things happened, I thought they were disturbing and thoroughly enjoyed what I read.
It's a mix of emotions and feelings and it makes hard to review.
I think it's a highly recommended book.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Thank you to Serpent’s Tail and NetGalley for this ARC! This was another anticipated release for 2023 for me! In the end my rating definitely ended up being more of a me thing than the actual book if that makes sense and I will explain further.

This is a psychological thriller with horror elements mainly following Wilder and his story concerning the summer’s he spent at Whistler’s Bay in his family’s cottage and the events that happened there. The whole book particularly centred around one summer where Wilder and his two friends Nat and Harper crossed paths with a serial killer called the Dagger Man and how the aftermath affected them. It also follows Wilder at college where he meets Sky who then steals the story he’s written about Whistler Bay and the Dagger Man and how that affects the three friends.

This is a difficult book to explain so I would say the main themes are friendship, trauma and betrayal. The book was excellently written and very bleak which I think is what the author was going for. The plot was extremely clever and the twists interesting. I just think I wasn’t smart enough for this book honestly. I believe it’s one of those books that you have to read over and over again and the more you read it the more things start to add up and the more you get out of it.

Catriona Ward is an extremely talented writer and I will continue to read everything she writes and I still recommend this books to everyone because as I said it’s excellently written and captures how far trauma can reach, how it can completely divert a person’s path in life. I am extremely late to the party reading this because the last couple of weeks have been extremely traumatising for me and I haven’t been able to focus on anything really. This book was weirdly comforting for me when I could pick it up though. It came out on 20th April 2023 so check it out if you like ambiguous psychological thrillers with amazing horror imagery. Also if you loved Catriona Ward’s other books you will probably like this one.

I so, so wanted to like this and was overjoyed to be accepted - thanks to Viper Books and NetGalley for the ARC. However, after a while, I lost momentum with this novel. Not sure why - but I felt similarly about Ward’s prize-winning and much-discussed ‘The Last House on the Left’ and I didn’t finish ‘Sundial’.

Ultimately, I don’t think the writer’s style is for me. I find some bits cliched and not that well-written - but there is no doubt that the content is clever, despite not really being a fan of meta fiction.

I hope others enjoy it more than I did. The description really whetted my appetite but I just couldn’t enjoy it like I wanted to.

Cat Ward has once again spurned convention to deliver yet another genre-defying story that’s simultaneously spellbinding and perplexing, and so shrewdly crafted, it leaves you dumbstruck at both her technical skill and the richness of her imagination.

And once again, it’s a tough one to review; a challenge to give a sense of its flavour without revealing aspects of the plot that need to be experienced firsthand.

It’s a coming-of-age story, a mystery, a ghost story, but also so much more. It flirts with horror, but never fully succumbs, dipping instead into the supernatural, which lends the narrative a disorienting, other-worldly feel. Like Ward’s previous two novels, it knocks you off kilter and leaves you scrambling at the end to figure out what in the world you’ve just read.

The premise is straightforward; deceptively so and part of its charm.

Wilder Harlow has returned to the seaside cottage in Maine where he spent his teenage summers in order to write his memoir. And in particular to tell the story of three friends, whose magical summer ended with a horrifying discovery: the identity of The Dagger Man serial killer. Wilder also wants to set the record straight about his college roommate, Sky, who stole his original memoir and turned it into a bestselling novel.

The first half of the book is searingly atmospheric, holding you suspended in time, on that New England shore with Wilder, Nathaniel and Harper. There are frissons of unease, a foreshadowing of the horror yet to come. Ward’s prose is all-consuming.

Then, wham! Events take an unexpected turn, and suddenly you’re adrift, transported to a place where truth and reality fold in on each other over and over, until you’re no longer sure which way is up. The book becomes a book, within a book, within a book, and you realise absolutely nothing is what it seems.

I’m still not sure I understood everything in the final unraveling, but crikey, what a ride!

Wilder Harlow is writing a book based on the story that plagued his teenage years and haunted him for the rest of his life. His only true friend, Sky, stole Wilder's notes and became a novelist using Wilder's story. After Sky's death Wilder is intent on revenge and intends to reveal the truth to the world, but finds notes from Sky and sees a stranger drowning in the cove outside his house. Can Wilder trust his own mind?

An incredibly haunting and atmospheric thriller.

It starts with the reader learning what happened to Wilder in his earlier life and this was the perfect way to set up the rest of the book. The whole story flowed really well and kept me turning the pages. As soon as I started reading I was instantly pulled into the story. Catriona Ward's writing style is beautiful, her descriptions are always spot on and paint a perfect picture in my mind.

What I loved most was the plot because it was completely original, like nothing I have read before. The story was absorbing and unpredictable, and stayed with me long after I had finished reading. The relationships between the characters and the experiences that they shared were so well-crafted that they came to life on the page.

Catriona Ward has done it again with another fantastic novel that is a must-read.

Thank you NetGalley and Viper for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I was hooked about for about 75 percent of this book - the set-up of the story, the hot summer coastal town setting, the characters, all worked for me. I was really curious to see where it would go - then during the climax and reveal it lost me a little. I think it tried to do a little too much in the end... Still a good read overall though I would say.

I think Catriona Ward might be one of my go-to reads from now on. I loved Needless Street and really enjoyed this one too.

Thanks to @netgalley for the e-arc of this book… I had to read this on my phone as it didn’t convert to Kindle properly (took me a while to figure that one out and thought it was part of the book).

I picked this one up because I loved Needless Street and I was intrigued to read more of Catriona’s work.

✏️ The writing style is quite hard to get used to and the structure is a bit all over the place. This is intentional and worth sticking with but as with Needless Street, I did struggle a little.

🙋🏼‍♂️👩🏻‍🦰 I LOVED the characters. I didn’t know what was going on or who was who (no spoilers) for some of it but it was great reading their stories and getting to know them. Or at least thinking I was.

📖 The overall plot of this one is great. It’s got a real initial storyline and then folds in on itself time and time again. It’s also a book about writing and I love that!

🌅 The imagery in Ward’s writing is 👌🏼 whether it’s about the bay or the characters or a photograph, you can picture absolutely everything like a movie.

I read this really quickly and I did enjoy it but I did find it a little confusing. I was toying with what rating to give this because I felt like my confusion might knock it down but actually, this was a 5 star read.

💛 I was attached to the characters and felt for them
💛 I read this quickly and didn’t want to put it down, I was desperate to know what happened
💛 There are SO many themes covered in the book, it was taken an age to write them down and I really like that
💛 The title makes perfect sense

Obssesive, disturbing and hugely compelling new novel from Catriona Ward. This reading blown my mind away for the very few days of reading and some of the following.
I can't recommend this enough if you are looking for a story full of secrets to unravel!

Wilder's parents inherit a cottage in laid back Whistler Bay. Spending a summer there, he meets Harper and Nat, building a close friendship over the following months - set against the unsettling background of local legends, specifically a killer named the Daggerman. What seems to start as an idyllic teenage summer starts to become something more, and events come to a head with a gruesome discovery. Years later, Wilder returns to Whistler Bay to complete his book about the events of that summer, and to make sense of the events that changed his life. However, things were not - are not - what they seemed.

This truly is a book of two halves. I was drawn further and further into the story, but towards the end I was wondering just what was going on! Safe to say, nothing is as it seemed - I absolutely did not see the end coming, at all. The story flits between timelines and characters, giving an uneasy feel which is apt, but makes for a confusing read. I'm still not too sure what actually happened in the build up to the final revelation, and I'm still not sure how I feel about that - I love a storyline with twists and turns, however this one left me spinning! I'd have liked to spend more time with the events towards the end of the book - maybe a slower reveal, as the final fast pace was contrast to the slow build up. I wanted more richness, I wanted to explore the events further, I wanted to understand and spend time in those delicious dark details.

This is my first Catriona Ward book, and from reading other reviews the twists and turns seem to be a hallmark of Ward's style - I'm so tempted to re-read and get a better purchase on the events that transpired in Whistler Bay. One thing is for sure though - it's quite dark and very, very twisty, although I wouldn't call it a horror. I honestly found the last few chapters hard to follow, but I also enjoyed the rollercoaster ride that had me thinking "did that actually just happen?!" at multiple points - I loved the way the story suddenly seemed to drop off a cliff and transform into something altogether more sinister, but it was very close to the line of possibly being too twisty for me - I'm still undecided. Although it's made me want to seek out more books by Catriona Ward, so that can only be a good thing!

Overall, a book that you will want to read in one sitting - page-turning, addictive, and thoroughly unsettling.

Rating: 5/5 stars, one of my favourites of the year so far

“I don’t think people should live by the ocean. It’s too big to understand.”

I have really enjoyed Catriona Wards brand of horror in the past, but Looking Glass Sound hit me on an even deeper and more existential level than any of her previous works did. What seemingly starts off as a traditional King-esque thriller about a trio of teens confronted with the threat of a serial killer in a small town quickly opens up to reveal a layered masterpiece of metaphysical horror on memory, storytelling and more.

Synopsis:
Our story begins in the late 1980’s, with 16-year old Wilder, vacationing with his parents in a cottage in rural Maine’s Whistler Bay. Over the course of the summer, Wilder develops a close friendship with Nat and Harper, exploring the beaches and scaring each other with local legends of oceanic ghosts and the infamous serial killer known as the Dagger Man of Whistler Bay. The three make a seemingly naive vow to return to this place every year to meet up, and relive these glorious days. When a gruesome discovery is made, involving the legend of the Dagger Man, it reframes the magical events of this summer forever.
Wilder, unable to shake the trauma of what happened that fateful summer, returns years later to Whistler Bay to face his ghosts and to finish his book: the autobiographical tale of the summer that changed his life. Before long, the lines between facts and fiction begin to blur for Wilder ánd for us as the reader.

A layered masterpiece
Ward weaves a tale of layer upon layer, twist upon turn, and, fiction upon truth. The result had my had reeling in the best way possible, and makes for a novel that I couldn’t stop thinking about even after putting it down. I read it compulsively and even caught it doing circles in my head when I was doing something else entirely.
The setting and atmosphere are vivid, characters are memorable, but the true strength of the book is in its unpacking of the nature of storytelling and memory. Wilders novel is an exorcism of his own childhood trauma: revisiting it, examining it through the eyes of different “characters” involved, and ultimately twisting and warping it into a cohesive narrative. For both the character ánd the reader, it’s a trip through the looking glass; a desperate hunt for answers in a tale that seems to spiral its way down into the dark.
These meta-layers make Looking Glass Sound a novel that requires the readers full attention. It also made it one of my favourite reads of the year so far, as a mindboggling piece of psychological horror, but also a heart wrenching and strangely relatable tale of a man haunted by childhood trauma he cannot shake.

Personal take-aways
Full disclosure: I read this book as I’m in the middle of writing my own novel. A lot of these themes of storytelling were already taking up free real-estate in my mind, so that may have helped to deepen the impact this book had on me personally. It does not take away from the depth of my recommendation that you read this book. If you are a fan of psychological horror, do yourself a favour and set apart a chunk of time to commit to this book. Catriona Ward has created a masterpiece that I hope will be enjoyed by many.

Many thanks to Viper Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

As usual with Catriona Ward’s books, nothing is quite what it seems in Looking Glass Sound. It is a genre-defying and inventive read that subverts expectation at every turn. I’m not going to try to explain the plot as it’s the kind that really has to be experienced to understand but it’s a deeply fascinating story that includes themes of life-altering friendship, retribution, death and the question of to whom a story truly belongs and who has the right to tell it.

Looking Glass Sound is very much a story about storytelling and is beautifully written with a hauntingly eerie atmosphere throughout. The characters are complex and layered in a way that makes them increasingly difficult to truly decipher, a feat made harder by the structure of the book which turns everything on its head more than once. Looking Glass Sound is a complicated book in some ways but it is well worth the concentration it demands. Dark, poignant, unnerving and achingly emotional - this is yet another triumph from Catriona Ward!

If you’ve been following this author’s career up til now you’ll know what a twisy unpredictable ride you are in for especially after the previous two novels, ‘Last House on Needless Street’ and last year’s ‘Sundial’.

And boy, does ‘Looking Glass Sound’ follow suit.

However, don’t be fooled. This novel isn’t just twists and turns (or maybe it is). Essentially it’s beautifully crafted, haunting (in just the right dose), and terrifying at times – the exploits of the Daggerman will send a shiver down your spine. It’s also a coming-of-age story, a love story, a horror story. It is everything. And more…

Looking Glass Sound is a triumph – mesmerising whilst being totally unpredictable. I got around 30 pages from the end and had absolutely no idea how it was all going to play out, even after being side-stepped a couple of times. And while I couldn’t wait to finish the novel just to see what fate would befall the characters – in the same breath, I did not want the story to end.

It’s a book that reaches a satisfying (and suitably spooky) conclusion and at the same time it’s one that you’ll want to read again – immediately – as you go over in your mind exactly what has happened and all the different connections you may have missed.

This is set to be a re-read for me just so I can experience the friendships and ultimate fate of Wilder, Nate, Harper and Sky all over again. They are wonderful characters wrapped up in an exceptional book. It’s just a pity I can’t read this for the first time again. Although maybe with a little bit of black magic…

A five-star read and highly recommended.

⭐️ 2 ⭐️

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC, in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

I’ve seen so many rave reviews for this book, so I’m definitely in the minority with my thoughts on this one.

I think Ward’s writing is excellent — The Last House on Needless Street was one of my favourite reads in 2021 but unfortunately Looking Glass Sound didn’t hit the mark at all for me. I thought the first half was better than the second but I still didn’t find it atmospheric, chilling or creepy and certainly wouldn’t describe it as horror.

The second half was just too disjointed and confusing — the book within a book (within a book) storyline became repetitive and by the end I didn’t care what happened to any of the characters and I couldn’t wait to finish it.

I’m sure lots of people will love Looking Glass Sound, but sadly it wasn’t for me.

I'm not going to say too much about this book. It's one of those where the least you know the more you'll enjoy it. What I can say is that it's BRILLIANT!

Ward's writing is excellent, dark and gripping.

The story is simple enough on the surface... but the deeper you go into the story the stranger it gets. Small things that don't fit. Different point of views in different timelines that don't add up. My theories went wild at some point but nothing could have prepared me for the twist... amazing.

This is a book you'll want to reread as soon as you finish to see if you could have figured it out.

Highly recommended.

Thank you NetGalley and Viper for an advance copy.