I am not really sure about this book. To be honest I found it just too bizarre, there were times when I could not tell fantasy from the reality of their lives. It was well written and must have taken a lot of writing, but it was not one I enjoyed returning to. Sorry

Absolutely loved this book! Loved that the twists were right up to the end. I liked that the story built up quite slowly then the last third was full of twists. Highly recommend.

A good and interesting read!

I would recommend this to everyone who loves a good story with captivating characters! Definitely a good read!

I really wanted to like this book, but barely got a quarter of the way into it before realising that I wasn't going to be able to persevere any further, which was disappointing because the premise of the book really appealed to me.
I already didn't like El (before I'd even met her - I was sure all along that she was probably still very much alive). And Cat was starting to get on my nerves. For some reason I just couldn't fathom what on earth was going on. I couldn't understand the total alienation between the twins and why Cat didn't even know that El and her husband Ross were living in the home that the twins had grown up in, which was obviously the scene of some childhood trauma, and the fact that everything was exactly as it had been all those years ago just didn't work for me.
Well, basically nothing here was working for me and I had to admit defeat!

This was not my usual type of book but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I really found it hard to put down, and I felt a real sense of being completely engrossed in the world created by the author. Definitely a book to curl up with on a winter evening.

Cat travels from America to her childhood home in Scotland when her identical twin sister goes missing. She believes that her sister is not missing but attention seeking and is trying to find out where she is hiding.
This is a complicated story and there is a lot of fantasy from the twins childhood.
A slow moving story that failed to hold my interest.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Complex and intricate thriller with lots of twists and turns. Found it quite hard to get into,didn't like/emphasise with the characters..

A really complex story which kept me reading. There is a lot this story. I feel that I am still working out what I have just read. In places this is a hard read. It is about abuse and lies within a family and turning to make believe to try and ease the pain. It is a memorable read and I feel I need to read the story again as I am bound to have missed some details the first time.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

"In Mirrorland, anything - everything - is possible. In Mirrorland, you are safe. Fear is never to be feared, horror is only make-believe, and escape is inside every bone and vein and breath and brick. And all it asks for in return is one thing. Only ever one thing. That you have to be brave."

Mirrorland is an extraordinary read, well worth persisting with as the earliest chapters had me bemused. Catriona and Ellice are identical twins - "mirror twins", rare and special, as their mother always told them - but as adults they have become estranged, and now El is missing, presumed drowned in either accident or suicide.

Cat returns to their childhood home in Edinburgh, where they once lived with their mother and grandfather and which is now El's marital home, and to the dizzying sweep of the imaginative world, centred on "Mirrorland", which they inhabited almost fully, it seems, until the age of twelve. A make-believe world inhabited by a cast of characters, of pirates and clowns, adventure on the high seas, terrors and escapes, the Witch and the Tooth Fairy...

Can El really be dead? And how far can Cat trust her own memories?

Dark, dazzling, full of surprises and perfectly executed, Mirrorland is a brilliantly atmospheric read which grabbed me and didn't let go.

A couple of minor gripes: I don't think British police refer to an unidentified body as Jane Doe, and I'm very sure they don't say at the time of arrest "anything you do say can and will be used against you" (in either England or Scotland).

A startling and memorable story with a tremendously satisfying ending. Loved it.

Intelligent and extremely well executed thriller.
This creepy tale was mesmerising, i just kept turning the pages well into the early hours of the morning, unable to stop reading it.
This is a complicated thriller involving twins in love with the same man. The setting is dark and claustrophobic yet it is magical and sad. It centres apon the twins past and present and the mystery of the vanishing sister.
At one reveal I thought how incredibly brilliant the author had set the story up. Such clever writing.
I can't really say much more for you have to discover the rest yourself. Read it.
Highly recommended.

YOWZA. This was one weird but delicious book that I needed quick breaks from as I was scared. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher!

This was, for me, an average read. I didn't really feel like I connected with any of the characters. This may only be me but I just didn't like or relate to any.

Brilliant!!! This book has everything. El and Cat are identical twins who fall for the same man. One fateful night dictates they separate, what follows is their tale of using their imagination to escape the horrors of abuse wrought on them by their grandfather and mother. Mirrorland is their safe space in the house. This story contains love, betrayal, murder and includes a happy ending on a desert island named after one of their pirates. Forced to relive her youth after El is found dead, Cat falls for her brother in law Ross all over again and ignores warnings from El from the dead. A definitive tale of intrigue and definitely worth a read.

Struggled with this. Clever psychological thriller but I just couldn’t get into it.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my review.

This was a dark, atmospheric psychological thriller. Full of twists and turns and an intriguing narrator.

Cat and El are special, identical twins. When El disappears and is presumed dead, Cat reluctantly returns home.

For the first few chapters I was confused – I could not distinguish reality from fantasy. Bingo! Neither can Cat! Then the rollercoaster ride began. I LOVED the descriptions of Mirrorland and how the twins spent their time there.

I quickly became engrossed in the plot and there were several reveals that I did not anticipate.

It is a dark story that’s filled with beautiful fantastical descriptions of love, friendship, family, betrayal and terror. The blurring lines of fantasy and reality, what we wish and believe to be true against what really is, reminds us that nothing is ever as it seems. You can’t trust yourself and you definitely can’t trust those you love.

And…I REALLY enjoyed the ending. It couldn’t have ended any other way!

#netgalley #mirrorland #carolejohnstone #harpercollins

I really enjoyed this psychological thriller. Quite different to the norm and although I had my suspicions as to how it would end, I still wasn't sure.

Cat's twin sister Ell has vanished, presumed drowned in her yacht off the coast of Edinburgh. Cat returns to Edinburgh, to the house they grew up in, and has to face their complex past - including their childhood hideaway of Mirrorland. The stories they told themselves are a mixture of fantasy and reality, but what are they based on? What's true? Who are the monsters?

I found this quite hard going, to be honest. It's twisty and dark, but some of the phrasing was hard to grasp and keep straight in my head. I'm glad I persevered though, because the ending was really clever. It's also a story of healing from trauma, and of what people tell themselves to get through hardship. Cat isn't always the most sympathetic of characters, but as Cat and Ell's story becomes clearer it's easier to sympathise with her. Ell remains something of a mystery throughout the novel, although the ending does resolve that somewhat.

Overall, worth reading - especially if you like psychological thriller type books.

A very clever and well written psychological thriller which has the reader's perception of the truth constantly changing throughout. Merging and revealing childhood games vs reality, both in the past and present, made for a very complex story with challenging characters... But which are real and which are imagined?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and would definitely give 4.5 stars if I could. However in the final section I found my enjoyment waning a little (but not disappearing!), as revelations continued again and again each time everything felt resolved. If the book had finished 10% ish before the end it might have been 5 stars for me. Having said that, the final plot does have me admiring the author's cunning to craft such complexity.

I will certainly be recommending this book to a lot of people!

This is a strange but powerful book. I'll be honest, I struggled with it initially, but the further I got the more I understood it, and the more I loved it. So, what do we have?

El goes missing while sailing off the coast of Scotland one day, and her estranged twin sister flies back home from LA. Now, with hindsight, I realise I made a mistake picking this book up when I did purely because it's only a couple of months since I read a book about a twin sister who goes missing in Paris and her slightly estranged sibling flies in from California. They're very different stories, but on some level, I suspect I couldn't help comparing the cold Scottish with the glamourous vices of club DJs in Parisian catacombs. So that one's on me, and it may also have meant I was less receptive to Mirrorland's early strangeness. Because entwined with the story of the police investigation and coastguard search, we had a fantasyland (Mirrorland) they created as young children. And I just found myself wondering about it all. Okay, their pretending to be pirates as children might somewhat explain the adult El's interest in sailing but it mostly seemed like slightly random filler during a pleasant but not exactly inspiring investigation into a missing person.

And then things started to click into place and the whole story morphed into something rather amazing. This is a love story to literature and imagination. The shelter that we can find in its escapism during trying times. As its first life ended, the second life blossomed, and as the story unravelled, it showed a third life too.

Yes, that random filler I was trudging through ended up revealing itself as a sophisticated and essential aspect of the whole story. For a world of imagination, it actually makes the rather fantastical reality seem plausible and realistic. It's a truly clever piece of writing that I can't help but admire.

The plot twists and turns, revealing countless horrors (this book has more trigger warnings than a rifle range) and slowly uncovering yet more lies and deceptions. Every time I thought I had this figured out something else was thrown at me. The fantasy of Mirrorland creates a thick fog of confusion, a subtle questioning of reality that fits the themes of the book so well. The more I view it with hindsight the more I see the nuances that elevate this so highly. Johnstone doesn't tell a story - she crafts it masterfully.

If you've ever truly got lost in a book, this is a book to set sail on once more. I enjoyed my voyage, and look forward to drifting away once more.