thank you to the publishers and netgalley for the ARC of this book. all opinions are my own.

I wish I could put into words how much I enjoyed this. What a great book. Highly recommend.

Nina thought she knew her father better than anyone. Imagine her surprise when she is left a property on the British Virgin Islands. One that she had no idea about and that her father never mentioned. How could he afford such a property? When did he built it? When did he go there and who with? These are just a few questions running through Nina's head. On top of dealing with her grief over her father's death, she is also burdened with his secrets. And she's determined to unearth the secret life he lead on the island, and why he never told her about it, no matter the cost. Even if the cost is her safety.

WOW! That's all I can say about this one. It's a fast-paced read that will have you glued to the pages and wondering what will happen next. I wasn't expecting all the twists and turns this story would take, and the ending was mind-blowing!
This is definitely a book I recommend to fans of thrillers. It'll make a great destination summer read.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really entertaining and fast-paced read! I feel very middle-of-the-road towards it only because it's not the kind of thriller I typically really enjoy, but it did keep me guessing and was fun to read. If you liked her previous book, "The Family Game," or if you enjoy thrillers set around games/competitions you'll probably enjoy this as well.

Thank you for the ACR read.

This book was a tense adventure. I could not guess what was going to happen. I was scared for the characters and worried about them throughout the story. Read like a movie with games and puzzles. I think people who love Saw and other tense thriller/horrors will love this.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for a ARC of this title. My reviews never contain spoilers and are freely given.
Look in the Mirror is a quick, fun read. The story centers on a woman who inherits a house upon her father’s death that she never knew he owned. She travels to a remote island and her adventure begins. A good beach read.

Quick, fast-paced thriller with the appropriate twists in all the right places. Don't get attached to too many characters, because danger is right around the next door.......The protagonist here seems to have won the littery when she inherits a grand, modern house in the BWI, but her win takes a dangers turn very quickly. The minor characters are as interesting (perhaps moreso) as her, and this makes for an engaging mystery.

Look in the mirror by Catherine Steadman really tries to bring us into a tense thriller with two separate protagonists seemingly unrelated until the story weaves them together. Overall, I do enjoy the overall plot of the book. It’s in interesting concept for a thriller. I’ve read several of books by this author and enjoy her writing style. She’s very descriptive, full of details, and builds her characters well. This book, though, left me so puzzled and confused. Even though I enjoy her writing usually, I found myself struggling to be drawn into caring about these characters and feeling the tension they feel which is what I look for in a thriller. Like I said, the plot line itself seems very original. I just didn’t feel the connection that normally keeps me wanting to turn the pages.

3.5 stars
When I reviewed the other book I’ve read by Catherine Steadman (The Family Game), I commented that I was impressed with the original premise, and I can say the same thing with this novel.

Nina is an academic like her father. They were comfortable financially, but when he passes and she learns he has a home on the British Virgin Islands, she wonders what else he kept hidden all these years. Where did he get a source of wealth to build an exotic home that’s glass and marble carved into a cliff in a neighborhood of the super-rich?

In alternating chapters, we meet Maria. She’s taking time off from medical school to save up money working as a nanny for the ultra-wealthy. She’s waiting for the two kids she’ll watch to arrive, but as days pass and they’re still not here, she hangs out by the pool. The only rule is “don’t go in the basement.”

While this is original and the characters were likeable enough, I never felt the tension or connection I was looking for. When someone goes through an ordeal like Nina and Maria face, I want to feel tense on their behalf. Parts of the ending were good, but I had some issues I can’t go into without spoiling plot points.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this novel, which RELEASES JULY 30, 2024.

WOW Look in the Mirror was awesome! Incredibly fast paced, great characters and heart stopping action. I could not put this book down!

Nina's father has died and he has left her a beautiful beach island home. As the reader,we are really pulled in to Nina and are rooting for her. The house itself is a character in the book and that was fascinating. I've read plenty of "locked room" mysteries but this thriller has a different take. I could definitely see it being a Netflix movie. Well done Ms. Steadman. I will be adding your other novels to my "to read" list. Thank you Ballentine Books and Net Galley for giving me the opportunity to read it before release.

I finished this book 11 days ago, and I still feel a bit puzzled on how I liked it, but overall, I think it wasn't a book I enjoyed.
This book presents us with 2 main protagonists, but multiple other characters become narrators as the plot moves along. Nina is a British professor, mourning the death of her brilliant father, when she is notified that he left her a lavish smart home in the BVI, a house that she didn't even know existed. Maria is a young woman, making her living as a "vacation" nanny for the ultra-rich, saving money so that she can go back to medical school one day. From the beginning it is not clear how these 2 vastly different women are related to each other, but as told in alternating chapters, their storylines quickly merge.
For me, I think knowing this is the 3rd book by Catherine Steadman that I barely liked, giving all 3 average ratings, I will probably have to quit this author. I don't know if it's because I don't typically enjoy thrillers or the writing style or perhaps both, but while I finished this book... it wasn't for me. Overall, I'm just left still puzzled about what the point was and felt like the plotting was uneven and not well paced.
Thank you to Random House Ballantine and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

I LOVE Catherine Steadman! She always finds a way to work in the creepiest games... I don't want to say too much but this book is like The
Family Game on steroids. Loved it!

Catherine Steadman is getting high on my list of authors whose work I look forward to every year and this one doesn't disappoint. The setting and plot sucked me in right from the very beginning and this was an unexpected wild ride!

Nina is a academic in London grieving her father who recently passed when she learns she's inherited a luxury home in the British Virgin Islands. This seems highly out of character for her loving father to keep such a secret from her, but transportation has all been arranged so she heads on over to crystal blue waters and white sand to see if she can find some answers.

I was hooked from the very beginning and this was a hard to put down book. While most of her works have been a 5 for me, this one was a 4 given the ending didn't feel as tidy as the others did, but was still very much enjoyable.

Look in the Mirror
by CAtherine Steadman
Pub Date: July 30, 2024
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
When Nina’s father dies, she is left something in his will: a gleaming dream vacation home in a balmy tropical paradise.

Still grieving her father's death, Nina learns she has inherited property in the British Virgin Islands—a vacation home she had no idea existed, until now. The house is extraordinary: state-of-the-art, all glass and marble. How did her sensible father come into enough money for this? Why did he keep it from her? And what else was he hiding?
So this book was not what I was expecting… this was definitely different. I will say that this was a decent read, but not my favorite by Steadman.
This story is told in alternating POV’s between Nina, Maria, and Joon-gi (the electrician on the scene). I will say that I did enjoy Maria’s chapters the best. The rest of the story was a little too outlandish for me. I do enjoy thrillers and suspense, but this book had more of an escape room/survivor vibe. So if you like games with lots of rules, then you will enjoy this book.

I would also like to point out that this was a fairly short read with quick chapters. However, the ending was very abrupt and rushed. There were also some twists at the very end that were thrown in to try and redeem this story, but they didn’t quite work.

I've loved several other Catherine Steadman books and was excited to see this one available on NetGalley. However, I found it disappointing. The writing was engaging, and the author kept up the suspense., but parts were hard to follow, and in the end, I didn't understand the motive for the forever anonymous, evil antagonist.
The story is told mainly from the POV of two different women with little in common who each end up trapped in the basement of a secluded luxury mansion on Virgin Gorda. The house is rigged as a type of deadly escape room where participants must rely on survival skills to advance to the next section without dying.
We first meet Nina, a young professor whose father has recently passed away. She's his sole heir. She receives a letter stating she has inherited a property in the British Virgin Islands, about which she knew nothing. She elects to go visit the place before putting it on the market; perhaps it will help her see another side of her father that he has hidden from her.
Then we alternate to Maria's POV. She's an American medical student who earns extra money to help with tuition by taking on nanny jobs with wealthy clients, often allowing travel to exotic locations. Her new assignment is on Virgin Gorda, and we soon realize it's the same house that Nina just inherited.
I was a little confused with the timeline, as the chapters do not have time stamps. I assumed the story was being told more or less chronologically. So I was waiting for Nina to find Maria and perhaps rescue her. But much later, I learned that Maria's experience took place months before Nina arrived on the island, even before Nina's father died.
A few chapters are told from the POV of Yang Joon-gi, the electrician who works on the house. He has similar encounters with each woman, which further confused me about the timeline.
Some attempt is made to wrap things up at the end, but I didn't find it very satisfying.

Catherine Steadman pleasantly surprised me with Look in the Mirror. I truly thought I had her writing style pegged, but wow, did she knock this book out of the park. I have been a fan of hers since the beginning, and every thriller gets stronger. But there was something especially badass about this one. The female main characters were seriously fierce. They were driven. They were strong. They were intelligent. It seems redundant to say, but they were badass. That’s the best way to sum them up. The women in this story needed no heroes, because they figure fit out themselves. The men were supporting characters and WOW I loved it. What a fun book. What a fun ending. I really loved this one.

This one was WILD!!!!! I did not expect what was coming in this book at all…def got vibes of a semi-current headline! (Don’t want to give any spoilers but is rhymes with Bernstein)…

This follows dual POVs from visitors at the same house. One a nanny & one whom inherited the house. &&& OH WHAT A STORY they both had to tell. This was suspenseful & pretty tricky! I got the final twist before it was revealed but this was still a wild read that I enjoyed.

Lovers of suspense & cat & mouse will love this one! This was a fun, quick read! Enjoy my friends!

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book.

This was a mixed bag for me. The novel utilizes a couple viewpoints--most notably, a young woman who arrives at a state-of-the art home to accept a post nannying (for the uber-rich) and another young woman, a professor in London, whose father has just died. The set up started out quite strong for me; however, once I saw where things were headed, my enthusiasm tempered a bit.

The events of the story are possible but immediately plausible. I think had I known more of the genre going into this I might have liked it a bit more. This is a high concept thriller, one that plays around with the world of the uber rich and what they might do with their voluminous wealth. However, it is a page turner and could be a fun summer read. I'm glad I had the chance to give this a read and will read Steadman again.

This was really intense! The setting of a beautiful location on a remote island, in addition to a house of horrors, made for an interesting read. It was difficult to know who to trust and, the intertwining of Maria and Nina’s stories made it that much more perplexing.

This is the third book I’ve read by this author and my favorite so far. Thank you to #NetGalley for an eARC of #LookintheMirror by #CatherineSteadman in exchange for honest feedback. -4.5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. It got me out of my reading slump. This book was fast paced and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I really enjoyed the characters and this made me want to keep reading. I would highly recommend this book.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

At this point it's hard to write a mystery/thriller that feels fresh and unique, and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the end. That's what Look in the Mirror is and does. I had no idea where the plot was going to take me--with so many twists and turns and reveals. Even the epilogue threw one last surprise in.