Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I have never read a Ward novel before because the genre isn't usually what I gravitate towards. But this was a great mix of something I love (horror, gothic, insane family drama that's violent) and something I'm not great at -- a mystery. I thought that the way the plot evolved was great and when the twist was spelled out I went AHA. I think it was good and scary and upsetting but also gritty and truthful.

4 stars.

We Haunt Each Other--The Emotional Horror of Looking Glass Sound
Ward, Catriona. Looking Glass Sound. Tor Nightfire, August 2023.
Words: 800

“If you don’t bring up those lonely parts
This could be a good time”
-Interpol, “Leif Erikson”

Since the 2015 release of her debut novel Rawblood, Catriona Ward has established herself as a writer to be watched. Subsequent novels have been unleashed in rapid succession, bringing her numerous accolades. She is the three-time winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel, for example, an achievement unmatched by any other woman writer. Her 2021 novel The Last House on Needless Street is still enjoying a great deal of buzz among readers and critics, and new release Looking Glass Sound seems destined to keep Ward’s name at the vanguard of the horror fiction community.

When his father inherits a cottage in coastal Maine, 16-year-old Wilder Harlow finds himself caught up in a summer that will forever alter the course of his life. Socially awkward and painfully sensitive, Wilder nevertheless finds himself swiftly drawn into an intense friendship with two local teens, Nat and Harper. Abandoned by his mother, fisherman’s son Nat spends his days outdoors, seemingly reluctant to spend time at home. Harper plays at witchcraft—perhaps to exert more control over her troubled family life—and has already developed a thirst for alcohol that goes beyond her friends’ youthful experimentation with drink. The three lonely friends discover the companionship that they so desperately need in each other, vowing to meet again in future summers. Despite their optimistic oath, the triad is short-lived, however. People have been quietly disappearing from Whistler Bay for years, and threatening Polaroid photos of a knife held to the throats of sleeping children have turned up on multiple occasions. When a shocking link between the teens and the so-called Dagger Man of Whistler Bay is revealed the following summer, the friendship is torn asunder. Even after going their separate ways, the events of Whistler Bay follow the trio for the rest of their lives.

Looking Glass Sound involves a great deal of literary experimentation. Unreliable narration in particular plays a prominent role. Wilder becomes a writer, his entire career fixated upon the summers in Whistler Bay and their aftermath, and much of the text is presented as chapters from his unpublished memoir. Perspectives shift throughout the book, and there’s also a recurring thematic emphasis on storytelling. When Wilder asks Nat about a quirk of Harper’s, he casually responds that it’s “not my story to tell.” It’s a brief passage, presented without any obvious significance, but the concept of ownership of stories—who has the “right” to tell them—is one Ward returns to again and again within the book.

While the puzzle-like construction and misdirection of Looking Glass Sound are clever, I found myself more struck by the emotional dimension of the book. The way the characters interact with each other feels brutally real and raw, and because the book follows them over the course of decades, the reader sees Wilder and friends change and grow. The explosive, white-hot infatuations and arguments of their younger years give way in adulthood to frustrated longing and smoldering grudges. Looking Glass Sound has an intimate cast of characters—one could even call it crowded, even claustrophobic—and their separations and reunions over the years result in a melancholy mélange of missed opportunities, interrupted romances, regrets, and awkwardness. The circumstances surrounding the Dagger Man tragedy leave each of the characters laden with trauma and grief, but they find themselves not just haunted by the dead, but each other. Words unspoken, kisses unstolen, and disagreements unresolved all take on weight as years accumulate in the story.

The initial premise of Looking Glass Sound feels a bit like it could have been taken from a scrap filched from Stephen King’s desk, and some readers have expressed frustration with how Ward blurs the line between actual and imagined events. However, despite Ward’s trickiness, attentive readers should be able to navigate the layers and twists. My central complaint would be that the book tends to neglect the horror half of literary horror. Apart from infrequent moments of supernatural peril (which do include an excellent climax, to Ward’s credit), this book left me more sad than frightened. That being said, the empathy and authenticity with which Ward’s walking wounded characters are rendered is thoroughly engrossing. It’s never stated in so many words, but “we haunt each other” is the core message I took away from the book.

Catriona Ward has broken my brain…again. I’d love to give you a well-written synopsis of what happens in Looking Glass Sound but I’m not sure I can—you’d think I was insane. As with so many of her books, Ward creates an unsettling and otherworldly reading experience and in Looking Glass Sound we get part coming-of-age, horror and mystery all mixed into one haunting psychological ride. Her jarring jumps from one point of view to another in a narrative that’s a story within a story within a story leaves you at “wtf” by the end. Her characters are odd and off-putting but you get addicted to them as you wait for what are sure to be twisty or sinister arcs. I’ll read anything Ward writes, regardless of my constant inability to fully comprehend what I read. Whether I love them or not, her books always live rent free in my broken brain after I finish them. 3.5 stars.

Catriona Ward made me a bit nervous with the amount of books she has published in a short time, and yet, every single one has wowed me. I've thought I knew where each one was going, but I was so so wrong. Looking Glass Sound is chilling, has fantastic sense of place, and will keep you wondering and guessing along the way. Good luck sleeping at night!

3 Stars!



Catriona Ward impressed me with The Last House on Needless Street, so I was eager to read something else from her. Looking Glass Sound appeared to be a similar type of novel that would play games with the reader’s mind and make them question reality. I was happy to slip into the book in hopes of finding another bizarre read.



It seemed like an idyllic summer for Wilder Harlow. When his uncle died, he left his cabin in the New England coast to Wilder’s parents. Now the teenager was going to spend a summer by the sea. While there, he meets two friends that he feels will be his friends for life and their friendship grows over the summer. Even the local legend of the Dagger Man could not damper the summer. When Wilder returns the next year, everything seems to have changed and the friends are no longer so close. Then the horrible secret of the Dagger Man comes to light and nothing in Wilder’s life will ever be the same.



Years later, Wilder is still trying to find the peace that he lost that summer as he enters college and finds a friend in Sky. Sky’s motives, however, are not what they seem and Wilder again finds himself adrift in his own mind. As the years pass, Wilder decides to go to the small, coastal town once more to search for the answers that have forever eluded them. As he begins to write a book about that summer, the line between reality and fiction blurs and he is thrown into a whole new world of questioning and suffering. The past holds Wilder in its iron grip and he realizes that he may never be able to leave it behind.



There are a lot of similarities between Looking Glass Sound and The Last House on Needless Street, and readers who enjoyed the first book will find a lot to like in this one as well. Ward does a good job of keeping the reader guessing as to not only what will come next but what is real throughout the course of the novel. It is an uncomfortable read in that it is difficult to get in the flow of the story. It is not easy to unravel the twists and turns Ward throws out that just as it is difficult to discern what is real and what is happening only in Wilder’s mind. Ward asserts that there is power in the written word and sets out to prove it in this novel so that fact and fiction really become meaningless as the world becomes all about perception.



It is this mind-bending story, which is taken to a whole new level in this novel, that keeps it from reaching its fullest potential. While The House on Needless Street had a revelatory ending that brought everything together, Looking Glass Sound ends with just as much of a tangled mess as it started with. Ward weaves a story that takes place in reality, in the mind of Wilder, the writer, and in the pages of the book he is writing. This is all interesting while the story is unraveling, it also becomes the novel’s weakest point. By the time I reached the end of the novel, I really did not care too much about what happened because it had gotten to the point in which I did not think the characters really cared either. It had reached the point where I felt as if I was reading a novel about a fictional novel which made the climax feel interesting than compelling. I think I know what Ward was trying to accomplish in this novel, but the payoff did not match the investment of reading the novel to make it great. It is an interesting novel and one that is worth reading, but I did feel just a little bit let down in the end after the great conclusion to The Last House on Needless Street which, in my opinion, gave it the punch it needed to rise above the level that Looking Glass Sound stayed at in the end. I would still recommend the book, but just feel as if it could have been so much more.



I would like to thank Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for this review copy. Looking Glass Sound is available now.

Thanks to Tor Publishing Group and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

-this was a 5 star book for me but I have a hard time articulating why:

It’s really difficult to talk about this book without giving everything away. In true Catriona Ward fashion, nothing about this story is what it seems. The characters hook you from the moment you begin reading; wild and intense Harper, taciturn and forgiving Nat, and Wilder, with his strange pale eyes and all the awkwardness of a teen learning about who he is. As Wilder gets to know his friends, and Ward begins to reveal deeply buried secrets about the trio, you get pulled into their story.

The story seems pretty straight forward until you get to the last third, when you realize you’ve been reading metafiction all along. A book within a book, or a character within a character, and so on. There is way more to the story than what I was expecting.

The ending basically shook me. It took me a month to write this review. And I still don’t really know what to say about this book. I’m still thinking about it. It’s weird, and deep, and wild. And you should read it.

I liked this book a lot. But with that said, it confused the hell out of me at times. Keeping track of the events and what was the past and what was the present took a lot of effort. This one was just a bit too chaotic for me to really engage and connect with.

My reaction finishing this book is the meme from Veep where Julia Louis-Dreyfus is laughing nervously and saying “wtf…!?”

Did I love this book? Did I hate this book? Did this book take me on several twists and turns and maybe left me behind somewhere along the way?

I want to start by saying I LOVED The Last House on Needless Street. Honestly that book was amazing and I even still think about it randomly. It was a 5 star read where I’m sure I also said WTF out loud, but the book didn’t lose me that time. I stayed along for the ride and couldn’t get enough. 🤯

I like Catriona Ward’s writing style, and I think it works for this book. I know it’s meant to be disjointed, but at times listening to the audio I had to rewind several times because I thought I accidentally skipped forward. Nope, that’s just the style.

Catriona Ward writes such creepy main characters, and paired with Christopher Ragland narrating it is SO unsettling. He also narrated The Last House on Needless Street and was perfect!

This book definitely got a reaction out of me, and I will certainly remember it. It’s a puzzle that will confuse you, and then it does fall into place (I think?) - but man it was a weird ride!

Thank you NetGalley and Tor for the copy in exchange for my honest review.

I think Catriona Ward might have just been a “one-hit-wonder” author for me.

This book started off pretty strong and I was very intrigued by having a teenage perspective to read from. However, once we started flipping the story on it’s an axis one too many times, I was just left feeling dizzy. The plot was very hard to keep track of along the way and I just ended up feeling bored because I felt so disconnected from everything going on.

I think Catriona’s writing style just doesn’t work for me and that is OKAY. I know plenty of people who love her books and I wish I could be one of them.

so much happened - and i am lost wondering what the point of it all was.

I absolutely adored Sundial and was so excited to read Catriona Ward's next book. and while i found the beginning a little slow I was incredibly curious what was going to happen. But there was just.... too much going on and none of it really mattered.

It almost felt like a slice of life masquerading as a horror- but it also wasn't really scary. There was no real or present threat. the scariest parts where the descriptions of the deads skin sloughing off. Otherwise it was not very scary.

There was also the book within a book trope which i usually enjoy but quite honestly never knowing what was real and what wasn't was incredibly confusing and by the end i just didnt care about anyone or anything.

Ward definitely tried something new and experimental with this - and unfortunately it did not work for me. I will continue to read from her until I can decide if Sundial was a one-off for me or not but this one was a loss for me.

What in the world?? I mean this in such a good way, though. My first book by Catriona was The Last House on Needless Street, and it was amazing. I still think about that book randomly. It lives rent-free in my brain.   Looking Glass Sound is no exception! The characters Nat, Wilder, and Harper are all relatively relatable in that they are all very different, so at least some characteristics will be familiar to either you or someone you know. Then, there is Pearl, who isn't a main character but plays a big role in the story, in my opinion. 

There are multiple POV, and it goes from past to present and back through the whole book, but it isn't consistent, so pay attention. You don't want to miss a single detail. What are those dolls where you open one, and then there is another doll inside, and it keeps going on for what seems like forever? This book is like that. Or like peeling an onion. You think you know where the story is going and then BOOM another layer to the story. There is no way you can guess what is about to happen in this book so for all my fellow "let the author tell me the story since it is theirs " this book is definitely one to look in to adding to your TBR.

The ride Catriona takes you on is warped, dark, and I friggin loved it! Take your time reading this book, and if you are someone who annotates books, this one would be awesome for annotating.  This book reminds me of a Stephen King book in that you're like, what in the actual f*ck is going on?? But, again in such a great way.

Many thanks to my friends at @tornightfire and @macmillan.audio for the #gifted copies of this book.

Complex. Weird. The perfect mix of confusion and satisfaction.

“It was me that was haunted, not the place.” -Ward in conversation at @politicsprose.

There’s a certain genius with which Ward writes horror. It’s never simplistic: mere violence and fear. Instead, it brims with a passionate intensity and steeps in perplexity, leaving the reader haunted by the writing itself.

And Ward’s newest may be her most haunting yet.

On the first summer holiday in the idyllic coastal town, Wilder is determined to find love. And he does. Those friendships of youth burgeon with a special intensity. But things change when the friends make a terrible discovery. And it will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

What opens as a coming-of-age tale swiftly shifts to a disturbing circular narrative. A story within a story within a story, blurring the lines between fact and fiction to create a horrifying sense of uncertainty.

This is a wildly ambitious plot, unpacking the traumatic effects of violence while pondering the authenticity of memory and storytelling. And on both accounts, Ward excelled.

While many felt the plot confusing and convoluted, that’s where I thought Ward’s narrative stood out. The meticulous layering (though necessarily befuddling at times) created an intimate and resounding portrait of trauma. It was a look within the mind of survivors, narrating the distortion and horror, unlike any I’ve read before.

The more I sit with this story, the more I appreciate it’s brilliance. I can’t wait to see what Ward does next!

🎧 You’re going to want a physical copy of this one, if for no other reason than to reread sections for clarity. But the audiobook is a great accompaniment. Full of emotion and nuance, I found myself lost in the voices created by narrators Christopher Ragland and Katherine Fenton.

Strange Sally Diamond

First let me say I’m a fan of this author. After finishing some of her other books, I’ve picked my jaw up off the floor because of her clever twists. But this novel isn’t my favorite.

Wilder is bullied at school, has no friends, and his parents’ marriage is on the rocks. He’s struggling. When his father inherits a beach house, the family decides to spend the summer there. Wilder meets Nat and Harper, and it becomes a summer of friendship, love, adventure, and laughter. I enjoyed seeing Wilder come out of his shell. When the three of them meet up again the next summer, they’ve each undergone changes, and the mystery of the Dagger Man looms over them. Soon, the summer takes an unexpected, dark turn. This part of the book captivated me.

In the second part, Wilder goes to college. He wants a fresh start away from the coast and bad memories. Sky is a new friend who helps Wilder with his panic attacks and encourages his writing. Knowing this author’s style, I paid close attention to details and thought I’d figured out a big twist. I was so far off base I was on a different field entirely.

The third part of the book is where it went off the rails for me. It felt like a chaotic fever dream, and I wasn’t sure what was real. Just when I thought the story was over, more twists were added. Not like a “Wow!” twist, more like a “Um, what?” I found it difficult to follow.

There are plenty of four and five star reviews for this book, so don’t let my review deter you from giving it a try. Ward’s writing is beautiful, and I’ll read anything else she releases.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

A twisty, mind bender of a story. Who is writing the notes? Why the green ink? Is it Wilder's former best friend, turned enemy? Set in Maine, in a lonely cottage, this book is creepy vibes!

I will never fully understand how Catriona Ward's mind works. This was a wild ride. I started out listening to the audio which was really well done, but alternated with the physical copy which I think was a good choice otherwise I may have been confused. The way the books within the book all wove together was so intriguing. As always, Ward includes a great setting that adds so much to the story. My only gripe here is that I was expecting there to be a bit more about the serial killer in the bay. Overall, I still liked it and Ward continues to be an auto-buy author for me.

I can't wait to discuss this one with our buddy readers for PM Reads.

Looking Glass Sound is a psychological horror novel about the power of memory and the dangers of nostalgia. The story follows Wilder Harlow, a man who returns to the small Maine town where he spent his summers as a child. He is there to write a book about the summer of 1989, when he and his friends Nat and Harper witnessed a horrific crime. But as Wilder begins to write, he starts to question his own memories. Is he misremembering what happened? Or is something more sinister at work?

The novel is told in two alternating timelines: the present day, when Wilder is writing his book, and the summer of 1989, when the crime takes place. This structure allows Ward to explore the ways in which memory can be unreliable and how the past can come back to haunt us.

Looking Glass Sound is a beautifully written and atmospheric novel that will stay with you long after you finish reading it. It is a story about the power of secrets, the dark side of nostalgia, and the dangers of forgetting.

Here are some of the things that I liked about the book:

The writing is beautiful and atmospheric. Ward does a great job of capturing the feel of a small Maine town in the summer.
The story is suspenseful and twisty. I was kept guessing until the very end.
The characters are complex and well-developed. I felt invested in their lives and wanted to know what would happen to them.
Overall, I thought Looking Glass Sound was a great book. It is a psychological horror novel that will stay with you long after you finish reading it. I would definitely recommend it to fans of the genre.

Catriona Ward has such an incredible way of weaving a suspenseful story and her newest release, LOOKING GLASS SOUND, is no exception!

One of the reasons that I love Ward’s novels so much is that each one is so different from the last. In LOOKING GLASS SOUND, this was a slower burn that had more of a psychological feel to it. I really enjoyed the story within the story and how, as the reader, I was left questioning what was real and what was imagined.

There are so many elements of LOOKING GLASS SOUND to breakdown and digest after you finish reading. This is certainly a book that will have you thinking back on earlier sections to pick apart and analyze. I know I will be thinking about this one a lot more but encourage readers to pick this one up, especially if you’ve been a fan of Ward’s past work! I cannot wait to see what this incredible author has in store for readers in the future!

This book utterly blew me away. I admired so much the meta quality of the story. I won't write much about it, in large part because I don't want to give anything away, but also because I want to spend more time piecing together the meaning hidden within it. I will say that -- although the story is entirely different, the style and layers within this really reminded me of House of Leaves, which is one of my favorite books. I absolutely love when a book or film makes you go back and recontextualize and reexamine everything you've read, and it is no small feat for an author to pull that off successfully.

Layered plot had me struggling to keep up, but tied it all together in the end very nicely! This was my first by Catriona Ward, and the setting of a New England town is all it took to get me excited for this one. Towards the end, some of the narratives became confusing, and it may be even better if I get around to reading it the second time!

Thanks NetGalley for this arc, all opinions are my own.

Thank-you NetGalley for the ARC!

Catriona Ward has done it again! I absolutely LOVED this book and I cannot stop thinking about it. If you are a lover of gothic fiction, this is the book for you. I was not prepared for the twists and it was pure perfection.