The only problem I have with this book (other than it not being out yet) is that I can't really go into why I love it without spoiling what makes it so great. I was hooked on the first few pages. And it's one of those rare books that make you want to flip back to page 1 and start reading again immediately. I loved Skyward Inn, I had... issues with Three-Eight-One that were more about me than the book (I listened to the audio and the use of footnotes made it very difficult for me to find my footing). I think this book seals her as someone I'll definitely add to my must-buy list.

The main issue may come with the ending, which I can see being divisive. It definitely makes you think, and I really think people will have a wide range of opinions on it.

I have been following Aliya Whiteley for a while now and am always pleased by the uniqueness of the world's she creates. What starts as a medieval-esque fantasy spy thriller soon turned into a daring tale of alternate dimensions, where you're never quite sure who to trust. She paints wonderful characters whilst giving you very little of them (I had no idea of the protagonists gender for the first few chapters, because it felt like it could land either way!) The ending was a thinker, and I enjoy the way that Whiteley is an author who plays around with the words we see on the page; which is very refreshing in a world where everything seems to be a repeat of something else.

I am at a loss at how to introduce this book without betraying it and depriving the Reader of the pleasure of discovering it for herself. The story unfurls humbly from a conventional beginning set in a fantasy setting (a devastating war, a captive magician interrogated in a pinnacle of a prison-stronghold, stories spun unhurriedly as the war edges ever closer). And then, an escalation. One would be tempted to say the plot thickens, but it is more like a blossoming in vivid technicolour, or a metamorphosis, or a passage into another world that locks the fantasy in a reality that is both fascinating and frightening. The Misheard Word pits one world against another in a sort of game of double bluff, and the conclusion/collision/collusion is most thrilling. I will stop here. If I say any more, I will say too much.

I read, and greatly enjoyed, a couple of Aliya Whiteley’s books, but I absolutely loved this one. In Whiteley’s trademark fashion it is unpredictable and surreal, metaphysical and poignant. It is a fantasy, magical realism and existentialism blended together into something highly original and engrossing. The characters are dynamic. They are revealed, layers of mystery peeled off them slowly, with the Reader not really knowing them until the very end. Whiteley modulates her prose expertly to fit within each world and match it to each narrator. The tale has left me thinking about the true nature of our world and its many faces, about who controls it and who controls them in turn, and how little does it take to destroy it. Themes of cultures coming together and clashing, and scrambling over each other, and the role a humble individual plays in such a clash of titans are wonderfully explored.

As with any great book, The Misheard World will appeal to different readers in different ways, but appeal it will.

A magic trick of misdirection; a russian nesting doll of contradictions. Grimly clever, an unflinching actor strutting implacably on a tightrope that asks whether a moral choice ever exists—or if that’s just a bedtime story we tell ourselves to sleep better. THE MISHEARD WORD is smart and compelling, with a surprise at every turn.

Wildly weird. starts out as a standard spy drama before spinning wildly out of control to something much more unique. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

This is a novel best entered blind because half its power lies in how quietly it leads you astray.

The Misheard World begins as something deceptively straightforward - an interrogation between spies, a soldier with secrets of her own, a war that feels familiar in its machinery and moral compromises. At first reading like a taut meditation on conflict, power and truth. Then Aliya Whiteley starts to turn the lens and what seemed like traditional commentary fractures into something far more layered, inventive and unsettling.

This is wildly imaginative fiction, alive with ideas. Whiteley’s prose is phenomenal. She toys with language and dual meanings, inviting the reader to read between the lines of reality itself and uncover the truth for themselves. Meaning here is not just delivered — it’s discovered.

At its heart, The Mishear World is a celebration of stories and how truth is shaped, how memory is weaponised, how perception can both liberate and deceive. Whiteley works with extraordinary sleight of hand. Every time you think you understand where the story is going - what the characters mean, what the war is - she draws back the curtain just enough to widen your perspective, defying expectation and drawing you deeper into her mind bending spell.

The characters remain lightly sketched, sometimes even deliberately elusive, with the emotional weight carried by theme, implication and slow reveals, layer by layer until you realise how carefully you've been guided - and misled.

Thank you to Solaris and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, just wow. It's been a long time since a speculative fiction novel has so disoriented and disquieted me, and it is going to be difficult to describe without spoiling what makes this book special. What I will say to potential readers is that this book is Literary Speculative Fiction, with an emphasis on challenging and disorienting the reader, in misdirection, ambiguity, and re-framing until the world looks very different when you start this book than when you finish it. If that emotional experience intrigues you, pick this book up with no other information and let it carry you. This book is, in some ways, an extended magic trick that Whiteley pulls off deftly, never showing her hands fully to the audience, only just enough information that you start to think you understand what is happening. It is a book about how power distracts, about the illusions of othering, and the pull of gambling. It is, often, a cold impersonal book, except when describing what has been lost. I feel so lucky to have had the wool pulled over my eyes by this book and I am excited to go explore Whiteley's backlist!