Mirrorland is a dark and compelling story set in Scotland and told in two timelines, it starts with twins Do and Cat being found on a harbourside traumatised and blood on their clothing, no one knows where they have come from so they are put into care, nearly 20 years pass but when Cat hears that when El has disappeared, Cat comes home to Scotland and the memories she thought she'd run away from, Mirrorland takes a little bit of getting used too but for a debut novel i think Carole Johnstone is off to a flying start.

#netgalley thankyou for allowing me to advance read this book
When I started reading this book I did find it really strange and within a few chapters realised it is more fantasy based which is definitely not my thing so I apologise for not completing the book

Mirrorland - Carole Johnstone

I had really high hopes for this one, although there were definitely parts that I did enjoy, I just thought it fell a little flat for me, but from reading other reviews I can see that I am very much in the minority with this view. I would 100% give other titles from this author a go. Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for allowing me the chance to read and review this one.

Wow! Beautifully haunting!!

To begin with, I just couldn't get my head round what was happening but just stick with it as evetually you begin to understand why it's written like this. I'd go into more detail but I may accidentally give something away.

Very clever ending, most definitely.

Good to see a new Scottish author come through to the fore. Well done Carole for putting Argyll & Bute on the map :0)

I absolutely loved this book. From the very start, it captured my attention and that never wavered. The story of Cat and El is one that will stay with me for quite some time and for most of the book I read with anticipation and a slight worry of what was to come. The dark undertones are present throughout the story and the author did a fantastic job of pulling the reader in and keeping everything hidden whilst still conveying a feeling that something wasn't right and that something dark and sinister lay behind the story. I loved the make-believe that kept the girls sane through their childhood and all the references to books and stories. It felt so real. There were outcomes I didn't see coming and even a few tears towards the end. Powerful storytelling and characters that felt so real made giving Mirrorland an easy 5 stars and I can't wait to read more for this very talented author.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher HarperCollins UK for the ARC.

This must be one of the best psychological thrillers I've ever read. So well-written, excellently plotted. It begins almost benignly but becomes progressively darker and chilling as the reader, at the same time as the main character, Cat, begins to understand the true horror of hers and her sister El's childhoods, which spills into the present narrative as truths are revealed.

El and Cat are mirror twins, living with their mother and grandfather in an austere house on the outskirts of Edinburgh. They construct a make-believe world in the garden where they can be anybody they want to be, have make-believe shipmates on a pirate ship sailing the oceans, live in tepees, and feel safe away from Blackbeard and the Tooth Fairy in the house. They have one "real" friend, Ross, who moved next door and secretly joins them in Mirrorland. Their mother reads to them, tells them of their father's adventures on the high seas, and generally feeds their imaginations. El is the oldest twin by a few minutes - her responsibility is always to protect her younger sister Cat. When they are 12yrs-old there is a catastrophic event which changes their lives forever.

Now in her thirties, Cat returns to the house after learning that her sister is missing, having taken her boat out to sea. Everyone except Cat is convinced she is dead - Cat will not believe it - she'd know. She stays at the old family home with Ross and then starts to receive anonymous cards telling her she's in danger. She also starts to receive emails she is sure are from El, giving clues to areas of the house where pages of El's diary have been hidden. Cat is drawn into Mirrorland again as she begins to question whether her "memories" are fantasy or fact, until the real horror of it all is realised.

A very clever storyline. I will admit to being rather confused as the author immerses the reader in the sisters' fantasy world - but it really is worth continuing to read as all gradually becomes clear.

Excellent read.

I am very sorry to say that I could not get into this book. I tried many times but the fantasy element was just not for me. I really think that for someone that enjoys fantasy books this will be great and I hope it does really well.

Absolutely brilliant story, full of twists. I wasn’t sure about it to start with but became drawn in to the fairytale, sometimes frightening plot. If someone had described it to me I would probably not have read it - I would have missed a fantastic story!

This book is the first novel by Carole Johnstone.

This book is quite complex and at the beginning takes some concentration.
It’s got lots of twists and turns.
An interesting plot, with lots of twists.
Original thriller with an element of fantasy.

This book is a bit bonkers in places. And I mean that in a good way but you will maybe - like me - have to sit with a few things along the way until eventually they will all come out in the wash.
Twins Cat and El grew up in a Gothic house in Edinburgh where the dreamed of pirates and invented a strange land under the stairs full of exotic characters. Cat moved away, El stayed.
Fast forward a bit and El has gone missing when out sailing. Cat gets the call and races "home" back to her childhood home that is, where Cat had been living with husband Ross. It's the first contact for 10 years as the two sisters were estranged. Being twins they feel for each other and El is convinced Cat is still alive. This is reinforced when she begins to get messages from Cat, clues to locations where she finds information. Information leading back to the world they created, to Mirrorland...
I've already said that this book is a bit strange. It is, and you will have to go through some confusion to get to the end. But it is way worth it. If you flounder along the way hold onto this - it will all come good. It will come together. I just fear that some will fall by the wayside. Hopefully there will be enough for you to hang on to, Me I was determined as I really wanted to find out what was really going on.
It's creepy and fantastic and you never really know what to believe. There's alike a veil obfuscating the truth. Fingers pointing every which way. What is real and what imagined? It helps if you clear the decks and dedicate a fair while to reading a chunk rather than dipping in and out. Wits have to be front and centre - make notes if you need to.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

This is an extraordinary debut by Carole Johnstone full of psychological suspense, supernatural and imaginary worlds, and sibling rivalries. Cat and El are identical twins to most people who see them,but actually they’re mirror twins. This means that not only are they the same sex and blood type, they have identical but asymmetric physical features. For example, if one is left handed the other is right handed. Yet they’ve spent twelve years definitively apart. On separate continents. Cat has been living and working in L.A. In the meantime El has been married to their childhood friend Ross and even living in the girl’s childhood home. No 36 Westeryk Road is a large Gothic house that becomes for me a central character in the story. When Cat gets the news that El has gone missing while out sailing, she travels back to Edinburgh; towards her past.

The facts are that El has gone missing and there have been no sightings of her or her boat. Ross, who is now a psychologist, meets Cat and takes her back to the house. She’s shocked to find that a lot of the original furniture is still at Westeryk Road, and she’s been put in a guest room instead of their childhood room. It takes a while for her to get her bearings because in their childhood world all the rooms had names: Clown Cafe, The Kakadu Jungle, The Donkshop. The clown cafe was a candy stripe American diner. The Kakadu Jungle was richly wallpapered with a rainforest. The only room without a name was Bedroom 3. There is an old-fashioned servants bell pull with a bell for each room, but Cat doesn’t want to investigate when the bell rings from bedroom three. The world of imagination doesn’t end there, because tucked away under the pantry was another world called Mirrorland populated by clowns, witches and pirates. My therapist’s mind was whirling round at this point - why would someone want to live exactly as they had when they were children? Are these real or imaginary spaces? Is the imagery of mirrors significant? Which sister is a reflection of the other?

Back in the real world we meet DI Kate Rafik and DS Logan who are heading up the search for El, and seem confused by Cat’s reaction to her disappearance. Cat doesn’t trust her sister, she thinks she’s alive and possibly playing a game with them. It seems that the sisters have a symbiotic but unhealthy relationship, where El could be spiteful and play tricks on her sister. There’s also the relationship with Ross - Cat loved him first, but El couldn’t stand to be left out, taking drastic measures to be noticed. Underneath this tale I had to keep reminded myself that this was Cat’s version of events. Was she an unreliable narrator? There’s also the issue of notes being left for El just before her disappearance, but the sender hasn’t been uncovered. It doesn’t take long before Cat starts to receive similar emails, but are they from El? If so are they real warnings or a game? Or could someone else know what’s really going on at Westeryk Road?

I did find the combination of real life and flights of fancy a little difficult at times, it was as if my head was being bombarded with different information: visual, aural, imaginary, factual. I was in sensory overload a lot of time and struggled to take in the detail that might unravel this strange mystery. I also didn’t like any of the characters much, so couldn’t get behind any of them. I instantly felt suspicious of Ross because I’m used to psychologists being untrustworthy characters in fiction. However, the skill it has taken to create these worlds - imaginary and real - is incredible. The way Johnstone creates a sense of place is by layering so much detail and I was drawn in by real life details like their grandfather having the football results on so loud everyone in the house knew who’d won. Probably because I used to check off Grandad’s pools result with him every Saturday. These pieces of the twins early life ground them in reality, just when you think everything at No 36 is imaginary. Cat describes the house as a mausoleum, a preservation of something long buried. Yet the house is alive. The description of the kitchen where there are still wonky units, but a sapphire blue Smeg fridge tells us things have changed. Time has passed here.

This book is an epic reading experience from a masterful writer, and I defy anyone to have guessed what’s really going on. I had to stop myself reading it at night because it kept my brain whirring so much I’d struggle to sleep. It wasn’t that I was scared, I was just intrigued as to what would happen next. Well, that and I don’t trust clowns much either! This was a fascinating mix of mystery, magic realism and psychological theory. You have to read it to the very end for it all to make sense, and once you do you’ll want to go back and find the clues you missed. I’ll need something restful to read next because this one well and truly worked my grey cells and my imagination to the limit.

To appear on the blog tour in April.

Wow! This is a very dark and twisted read.

I have to admit probably until about a quarter of the way through I wondered what the heck I was reading.... but then it started making some sense. There is an element of fantasy which isn’t my usual genre but then it’s also very psychological and a thriller which made me gripped and I just had to finish it quickly!.

I would give this 4.5🌟

This was a very clever story, almost too clever in that I found it confusing at times, particularly at the beginning. It then becomes more like a Grimm's fairytale with bits of well-known film and book plots added to the mix, but in the end I really enjoyed the twisty ride.
Thank you to netgalley and Harper Collins for an advance copy of this book

OMG - what a shocker!

The first couple of chapters of the book are slightly confusing but I think that's intended but all of a sudden about a quarter of the way in it just clicked and I became immersed. It really sucked me in deep!

Incredibly strong debut and a total #WTF that ending moment!

4.5 stars rounded down.

What the heck did I just read? That was some crazy ride for sure! This was a psychological thriller with a richly developed and dark atmosphere, a whole bunch of unreliable narrators, dark secrets, a toxic love triangle, hatreds and betrayal and revenge. It is the story of identical twins El (Ellice) and Cat (Catriona) and the house they grew up in with their mother and grandfather and returned to as adults and their secret playground in Mirrorland where even reality could be bent.

Ok sure, it started a little slow as there was a lot of childhood reminiscing, setting the scene and describing Mirrorland and all its wonders. I noticed that some readers gave up before the 20% mark. So I couldn’t give it the five stars the rest of the book deserved but if you persevere you will be rewarded with an epic story where nothing is as it seems and anything is possible. It even felt creepy without actually being creepy. I was totally transfixed and riveted by this book.

Cat returns to Edinburgh after hearing of her sister, El’s, death. She took out her yacht one day and never returned. Cat had been away in California for 12 years. She fled Edinburgh in acrimony after El had won the battle for Ross’s heart. Ross lived next door to them when they were children and would drop in to Mirrorland and play with the girls, inevitably they both wanted to be his special friend.

When she returns, Cat insists that El is still alive. They are twins, she would FEEL it if El was dead. But she does have a strange sense of unease in the house. Something terrible had happened here when the girls were 12 and Cat can’t understand why El would return to this house. She is also receiving anonymous cards with cryptic warnings and then the emails start. Cat is convinced the emails are from El (even when she is assured by a friend of their’s they are not) and they lead her on one of El’s famous treasure hunts where each clue leads to a page from El’s diary. The revelations lead Cat to question everything she believed was true about her childhood. But will she heed the warnings in time?

This story, well the last 80% was simply magical, fantastical, sad and very suspenseful. The revelations, when they came, were shocking and transformed the nature of the story into something dark and twisted. I absolutely loved it and will be very keen to see what Carole Johnstone comes up with next. Thanks to Netgalley, HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and Carole Johnstone for providing a copy to review. My opinions are my own.

This book opens with 12 year-old identical twins El and Cat being found on the Granton docks on the Forth of Firth near Edinburgh, asking for a pirate ship to join. What lead up to this point and what happened next makes for a suspenseful tale.

El and Cat grew up in a house in Edinburgh with their mother and grandfather. Together they created an imaginary world called Mirrorland full of clowns, jungles, princesses, cowboys, pirate ships and even a prison block. Their mother fed their fantasies by reading adventure tales to them and telling them they must learn to be brave and clever.

As young adults, Cat and El had a falling out over a boy called Ross who they both loved and Cat moves away to LA where she establishes a successful career as a freelance journalist. El would later marry Ross and move into their childhood home. She and Cat loose touch until 10 years later Ross phones Cat to tell her El went out on her boat and hasn't returned. Disbelieving her twin could have died without her feeling something, El flies back to Edinburgh and back to their childhood home.

For me, I found the first half of this book to be very slow reading. There was so much information about El and Cat's imaginary world and it really wasn't gripping me. However, about half way through, all that changed and bang! I was hooked into what was under the surface of the twins' childhood fantasies and also what came afterwards. The two make for a twisted tale provided you can make it through the first half of the book, and the ending may just make it worthwhile.

I thought this would be a fantasy, from the blurb. It's actually a thriller/mystery, and sadly I found it wasn't grabbing me. It's too slow to explain things for my taste, though I'm sure some readers will love trying to piece it all together. It wasn't for me, sadly, but I hope it does well.

I started this book not really sure what I was reading. I found it intriguing and this book shows just how powerful a tool the imagination can be. I did feel the book was a little long in parts but overall I enjoyed it.

When sisters El (Ellice) and Cat (Catriona) were children they were as close as sisters could possibly be, after all they are mirror twins.  In the old house where they lived in Edinburgh, with mum and grandpa, they invented their own magical world, Mirrorland.  A place where they could make believe pirates and clowns and other games, and also a place they could escape to when things got tough.  But as adults the sisters are not so close anymore and when El goes missing Cat finds herself returning to the old house in Edinburgh, a place she never wanted to have to return to ever again.  Her sister is missing, presumed dead, but Cat refuses to believe it.  They aren't close any more but they are still twins.  Surely she would feel it if El had died, and to Cat El still feels very much alive.
This book is extremely far-fetched but that really doesn't matter.  It is a wonderful mystery to get lost and engrossed in, and the old house and Mirrorland world building is fantastic, somewhat dark too.  A very entertaining read.

What a debut novel from Carole. It’s a fascinating, dark, unputdownable read. You start of thinking what on earth is this book about, but soon become completely engrossed in it. Twins El and Cat have a strange upbringing involving a fantasy world brought about by their mother. Life takes plenty of twists and turns for them with a totally unexpected ending.