I have never read Ward's work before, despite hearing many great things. Needless to say, I was not disappointed in Looking Glass Sound - a text within a text. I think I may have done better with a printed copy of the text, as the format did not translate as well to audio, though I'm already looking forward to reading a printed copy and diving back in. Will definitely look forward to more work from this author.

Thanks for the opportunity to listen and review!

This book is ooky spooky. The body horror level is fever pitch in several key scenes that made me cringe. The horrors are numerous but very rarely something innately horrific, instead we get the ooky spooky stuff running alongside the horror of betrayal and the horror of not being the one telling your own story. I'm a fairly new Catriona Ward reader, I've only read one other book by her, but her work is intense, often a puzzle, and scary as hell.
This book is kind of a coming of age book, kind of a coming out book, kind of a murder mystery and also kind of a tale of madness. The madness we get driven to when we don't have control over how our story is told, and the madness that often happens when the universe surprises you with another curveball right when you think everything is going to be okay.
I ranked this 4.5 stars because I do think that about halfway through the book, the pacing fell off. I honestly had a hard time staying focused from about 55% to 75%, and the writing isn't bad there by any means, but Ward's other scenes in the book are so intense and hard hitting, you kind of feel like you need to skim through the introspection to get to the payoff.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for this opportunity to listen Tate and review this audiobook arc which will be available August 8,2023!

The narrators are Christopher Ragland and Katherine Fenton. I loved Katherine but had a lot of issues with Christopher that it took me out of the story.

The book is about one summer in the main character’s youth when a killer stalked a small New England town and how that summer trauma bonded Wilder with his friends Nat and Harper. Wilder returns to the same town to write about that fateful summer and how as he writes his memoir reality and the past merge eerily. And he is seeing a dark haired woman no one else can see.


I absolutely loved the book and my stars reflect the narration. The book is a perfect summer horror read in my opinion and I shall buy the book and bypass the audiobook.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Catriona Ward for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC audiobook for Looking Glass Sound coming out August 8, 2023. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write. 

It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.

But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in his cupboards, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?

No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does.

I’ve read several books by this author and I always think I’ll love them. I really want to love her spooky stories. Maine is a place I would love to visit and I love books set there. But this story wasn’t for me. It was hard for me to get into the story. I think the time jumps around made it confusing. I couldn’t really root for any of the characters and it wasn’t the kind of spooky I thought it would be.

I have read and loved previous books by Catriona Ward so I was beyond excited to get a copy of this one. I listened to the audiobook and I do wish I had a physical copy, especially for the fragment chapters. That being said the narrators did a great job bringing all of these characters to life. This was a fascinating book. And while the supernatural element that draws me to this author was a bit more subtle than I would typically prefer I loved it. And somehow being subtle made it more creepy when the final twists and turns came. This book is a book told in multiple timelines with multiple narrators and multiple layers. A book in a book in a book and I loved every second of it. This is a book of friendships and magic and stalking and murder. The characters were all super vivid and did a great job telling the story in their own ways. Wilder and his family take a rare vacation after inheriting a cottage on the bay. He meets two other teenagers and they become close friends. There are some odd things about the bay the most interesting the Dagger Man who sneaks into children’s bedrooms and takes Polaroid pictures of them including his knife and leaves them behind, evidence he’d broken in. This is a book that will definitely be on my mind for a while. Overall I gave it 4.5 stars rounded up for how unique the format was.

This one is not easy to review, I was left confused through most of it, my brain was too mindf*cked. I didn't know what was real, fake, who was speaking, which book. I still stuck to it but…

I felt there was so much going on, and went from one place to the other where I never truly knew what was happening. I felt like the author tried to add too much to this book.

There were so many layers to this book. The characters were just meh for me, I didn't truly care for any of them. I couldn't relate to them.

There is practically no chapters in this book and that is an automatic turn off for me, some chapters were 50 minutes long.. I'm very conflicted about this book, the vibe and the creepiness was nice but the rest just didn't do it for me unfortunately.

Whew this one was interesting! There were quite a few different turns and perspectives given. Again, took me a bit to catch it but I got it and it made it even more interesting. Definitely not what I expected to happen- at all!

🌀Synopsis
As a kid there is a predator on the coast and Wilder is convinced it’s his dad. That is, until his best friend and his best friend’s dad are arrested as criminals who killed several women. When his friend dies in the hospital, his life is forever different.
He has a roommate in college who is strange but appears to be a good friend. That is, until he steals his memoir and publishes it- becoming famous. Wilder is determined to tell another view of the story though. As he writes his past and his book become blurred and he struggles to find what’s true and what he imagined. He finally gets to the end of it though, and just in time to lose his vision.

I can’t do it. I’m 55% in and I tried my best, but I can’t finish it. The organization of the book seems a little scattered and unorganized. I have literally no idea where the plot of this book is going and I’m over half way through. It feels like 2 entirely separate storylines have begun and ended this far. I really wanted to like it but I just can’t get into it

This book was not my favorite. I didn’t like the narrator and as with the physical copy I was bored a good deal of the time. Overall it was just ok for me.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review

I never stopped being lost once I was about half way in. The writing is engaging, the descriptions are beautifully done & I think it achieved what it wanted to? But I couldn’t tell you for sure because I’m still not sure what happened in the last 40% & for once the fantasy elements didn’t work for me. I may try a reread in the future, to see if doing reading and audio simultaneously will help me work it out.

Thank you so much @netgalley @macmillan.audio & @tornightfire for the e & audio arcs!

💀LOOKING GLASS SOUND💀

By Catriona Ward

📚Genre: horror, lgbtqia+, thriller, mystery, slow paced
🫶Tropes: Psychological landscape, ghosts, dark magic,
‼️Triggers: Murder, abuse, trickery, severed limbs

👯‍♀️Similar recommendations: Our Share of Night
💭My thoughts: Slow paced, dark and twisty. Psychological and paranormal magical elements. What’s real? What’s not? Who’s playing who? Literature elements throughout. Multiple retellings of a single summer. Interesting, creepy, mysterious but also sometimes hard to follow. I do think this story makes a great summer vacation read.

A killer stalked a small New England town where Wilder Harlow started spending his summers with his parents. The body count that was found from over the decades, is a horror like none other. Wilder was encouraged by his one-time best friend, Sky, to write of his past to purge it from his body. As Wilder wrote his stories, Sky stole them to create his own best selling novel, Looking Glass Sound, which was Wilder’s unfinished memoir. Wilder determined to finish his own story is reciting his memories, but they are blurring between real and fiction. He fears he’s losing his grip on reality when he finds notes hidden around his family’s cottage in Sky’s signature green ink writing….

I have such a hard time describing how I feel after reading this. I thoroughly enjoyed it no doubt, but all of the central characters, while portrayed amazingly, were incredibly unreliable, which I think Catriona Ward writes incredibly well. At one point I described another one of her books as a ‘feverish riddle’ and this one absolutely lived up to that description as well. It was such a dark and magical coming to age story with horror, love, murder, and betrayal. This book was difficult to read after about 60%, but I love how her writing really get’s the cog’s turning in my brain. Thank you so much @TorNightfire for this copy! This was a 4/5 for me!

Gosh, I was so thrilled to receive an ARC since Catriona Ward is one of my favorites. I'm a bundle of mixed feelings about this one though.

The story of Wilder, Nat and Harper across two dark, magical summers was interesting. Whistler Bay was vivid in my mind and I could hear the stones and taste the salty air. However, I found myself disappointed by the reveal of the Daggerman. It felt so, obvious? It's not a word I associate with Ward at all. I figured it was a setup for something bigger though, because Wilder was shown to be so complex and unique and I wanted those layers peeled back by the end. By the end though, I understand less about the characters than when I started.

Don't get me wrong, I love the meta elements of a book within a book within a book I just felt like it was bloated and yet hollow. Was this about friendship? Murder? Grief? Romance? The process of writing? Magic? Abuse? It had all this potential and nothing felt entirely committed to. The repetition didn't upset me like everyone else but I am left upset that with something so layered I feel like I've been left with nothing.

The reveals throughout the book as far as betrayal and such screamed at me from a mile away, but on the other hand the weaving of the story of the story itself was keeping me locked in. I loved Wilder and Sky being so flawed and misunderstood. I loved not knowing exactly what happened. I loved the journey of this book, just, not a lot of the rest.

I guess my feelings at the end can be summed up with "oh, that's it?"

Audio ARC provided by NetGalley

It’s been two weeks since I read this and I honestly still have no idea what was going on in the second half of the book.

Looking Glass Sound weaves through time, reality, and fiction as it follows three summer friends and the unraveling of the murderous history of their lakeside town.

The narration was good, save for the male narrator’s attempt at a female British accent — it sounded like Stewie from Family Guy (I’m sorry but it’s true).

The book shifts between two different timelines and, near the end, between fact and fiction. It was the transitions between fact and fiction that blurred the edges a bit too much and confused me in the end. There’s also suddenly magic — real magic — that takes place. Throwing that all into the last 20% of the book made for a bit of a “wait, what?, rewind five times, still have no idea what’s happening and give up” experience.

I feel this in my bones, as someone who is going blind from Macular Degeneration. I loved the entire book, every character, every house, and the setting in Whistler Bay.
The horror was subtle and so creepy.
Absolutely weird, especially the end.

This had its creepy moments but it was so sloooowwww. I had zero cares for any of the characters and lost interest and DNFd at about 50% in. I loved Sundial so much and am waiting for Ward to hit me with a story like that again.

The narrator was okay. His vocal pitch bothered me a little but he did an overall good job of inflection and changing up the voices for each character.

I think this book will be good for book clubs because there is a lot to talk about. However, with everything that happened Some things fell through the cracks and did not have the pay off I was looking for.

Catriona Ward stays true to character, with her absolutely out of this world story! I really enjoyed the narrator for this book. It was very easy to get lost in the story, and to follow along. However, I found myself confused, too many times, to really enjoy the story. I think I will definitely give this book another shot, maybe in a buddy read.

Title: Looking Glass Sound

Summary:
In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write.

It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.

But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in his cupboards, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?

No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does.

My Thoughts:
A beautifully written literary horror novel that had so many unpredictable twists and turns, I couldn’t put it down. This is definitely an audiobook that I will be recommending to others.

This was a complex, layered read. It’s a story inside of a story, possibly inside of another story? Honestly I still don’t know. I definitely felt the need to pay attention to detail and found myself getting confused in spots, wondering if this was reality for the characters or a novel the character was working on. The characters were very well developed. The audio was well done. I wasn’t satisfied with the ending, but I did like the way it ended if that makes sense. I’m sure it’s just as confusing as parts of this book. I didn’t hate it and never lost interest, it just wasn’t my thing. I highly recommend you give it a try for yourself. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for the free audio arc in exchange for my honest review.