Thank you to @netgalley and @harpercollins for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have to say I was excited to read this one but I do like to read reviews on Goodreads before I request a book from NetGalley. I understand why some people really loved this one and then some didn’t. I had a hard time deciding on how to write a review for this book.

So this book is about twin girls, El and Cat. In their childhood years they lived in a fantasy world called Mirrorland. They have a great time there but as the years go on something terrible happens. The opening chapters were great and really get you into the book. It goes back and forth between childhood and present time.

In present time, Cat is living in America; she has moved from Scotland where they lived in their childhood. El and Cat have become distant from each other but after El mysteriously disappears Cat is forced to go back to her childhood home after twenty years.

We come to find out what happened in Mirrorland, why El and Cat became distant and what led to El disappearing.

This was a great thriller and although I liked the world of Mirrorland I didn’t like fantasy and thriller mixed. I felt this book was two different books.

Star Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
Publication date: 15 April

Cat is called back to the house she grew up in when her twin sister goes missing. Everyone says she is dead but Cat is sure she isnt. Then she starts receiving emails from an account she is sure is linked to her sister. They give her clues to her sister's diary entries. Cat soon realizes that the past was never quite what she thought and she had repressed more than she ever knew but what happened to her sister and did her husband kill her like people are starting to wonder.

This was an interesting and twist filled story. It takes you on a real journey that leads you one way than spins on its axis and takes you another way. I figured out some of the plot along the way but certain bits caught me unawares. The plot is steady and builds to a cleverly written ending. The ending was brilliant and tied the story off perfectly. The characters are not instantly likeable even Cat seems a little too unreliable but you gradually warm to her. This was much creepier than I thought it would be and its been a long time since a book put me on edge like that. A brilliant dark thriller.

This is a strange book!

Cat and El are twins, but, estranged. Cat now lives in Los Angeles, whilst El has remained in their childhood home. Then El disappears at sea and Cat returns.

What follows is a mystery as Cat finds clues and hopes to also find her missing sister. It's also very gothic and flits between past and present as well as the various inventions of their childhood.

It's well written and kept my interest and therefore, I found it overall to be a 'Good Read'.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview.

Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone is a fantastic psychological thriller that will have you wondering who is telling the truth, what exactly that truth IS and what on earth could possibly happen next! I loved it.
The narrator is completely unreliable, mainly because she appears to have blocked out a huge part of her life.
Cat returns, reluctantly, to Edinburgh from California, because her sister has gone missing on her sailing boat. Cat seems unsurprised that her sister should have a boat - she and her sister spent hours as children playing in Mirrorland, pretending to be pirates, sailing the Seven Seas. But her disappearance is unexpected.
Has El been murdered? If so, by whom? Who is sending Cat on a treasure hunt and leaving written messages for her? Who is sending emails? Is El’s husband, Ross, implicated in her disappearance? And what DID happen to Cat and El when they were children?
This is such a delicious, rub-your-hands-together-with-evil-glee kind of book.
There are some pretty shocking subjects covered in this novel, so if you don’t like reading about abuse of any kind, this may not be for you. However, I was glued to it. I’m trying to think of some synonyms of ‘loved’ (I realise that i completely overuse this word when I talk about books), so: adored, enjoyed greatly, was besotted with, couldn’t get enough of. Well. You get the gist. It’s just well worth the read!
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole and to Carole Johnstone for joining in with the chat in the margins!

This is going to be a hard review to write and a book guaranteed to have everyone talking. The discussion might not always be favourable as Mirrorland teeters on the edge of being a love it or loathe it fantasy thriller of epic proportions. It isn't a book you are likely to forget in a hurry, so detailed and complex a plot that is horrific in many places and bewildering in the remaining gaps.
El and Cat are mirror twins. Together they create a fantasy world, an alternative reality, that stretches way beyond the powers of imagination, into a playground where the two can escape the trauma of what lurks upstairs in 36 Westeryk Road, Leith, Edinburgh.
So elaborate is their invented world that it can be hard for the reader to separate fantasy from reality and fiction from fact. Grim folklore takes are cleverly woven into a dark and menacing plot that writhes uncomfortably and always eludes the reader's clutches to lead you further into a maze of mirrors which deflect, disorientate and dump you into the sinister world surrounding the occupants of a house I would never want to step over the threshold of.
In spite of living so closely for so long, the twins do forge separate adult lives and it is only the news that El is missing, presumed dead, that brings Cat back from California, and into the house that dominated her childhood.
An elaborate and very convoluted game plays out where Cat must solve the riddles of the past to finally open her eyes wide and see what has been staring at her the entire time.
Shocking, compelling, puzzling, confusing, terrifying and often unbelievable, Mirrorland will haunt you as a novel and leave you marvelling at and gasping from the sheer creative powers Carole Johnstone has conjured up to produce her debut novel.
Read it and decide for yourself, good or bad, innocent or evil, real or imagined. Oh, and keep the light on.
(Thanks as ever to Pigeonhole, Netgalley, the author and publisher for granting access to this darkly explosive thriller).

‘To get to the heart of her sister’s death, Cat must revisit Mirrorland... ‘

My thanks to HarperCollins The Borough Press for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Mirrorland’ by Carole Johnstone in exchange for an honest review.

This highly anticipated Gothic psychological thriller is very twisty, and so I will tread carefully with respect to spoiler territory.

Twelve years ago Cat left Edinburgh for the USA leaving behind her twin sister, El. When she receives news that El is missing, having not returned from a solo sailing trip, Cat is forced to return home.

El and her husband, Ross, have been living at No. 36 Westeryk Road: an imposing flat-stone house on the outskirts of Edinburgh. This house was where El and Cat grew up. In it the twins created Mirrorland- a make-believe world filled with characters and places from their favourite books: pirates and outlaws, witches and clowns. A place of escape, but from what?

Cat discovers that El has left behind a treasure hunt for her that will unearth long-buried secrets and force Cat to confront the reality of her childhood – a childhood that wasn’t nearly as idyllic as she remembers…

One of the most powerful aspects of ‘Mirrorland’ is No. 36 Westeryk Road, which is based on the real Georgian house in which Johnstone’s grandparents lived for many years. She writes: “a lot of the elements of 36 Westeryk Road have been lifted wholesale from my memories”.

The house being based in reality created a very grounded setting for the novel. Reading it also brought back memories of the imaginative and exciting games that were an integral part of my own childhood.

There are definitely very dark aspects to Mirrorland though I felt that Johnstone sensitively navigated these within the context of the narrative.

There is also something of a dreamlike quality to ‘Mirrorland’ and as such it is a novel that demands quite a close reading due to this complexity. As such those looking for a fast paced thriller to zip through may find it somewhat frustrating.

Within the narrative Johnstone has woven elements of fairy tales, horror, and the Gothic tradition. These are all facets of fiction that I find strongly appealing. As a result, this unusual, dark, claustrophobic thriller was a clear 5-star read for me.

It is certainly a novel that I plan to reread in order to further explore its multiple layers and so have purchased its unabridged audiobook edition narrated by Katie Leung.

Highly recommended.

2.5 star rating. Twins, Ellice and Catriona have a strange childhood and “escape” via their imaginations. No contact between them for years when Catriona goes to live in California and Ellice marries their childhood friend. A tense, claustrophobic and strange story where it’s hard to work out what’s real and what isn’t. The flashbacks and there are many, just appear out of nowhere and unless there is a degree of concentration, is easy to be confused. Odd, unlikeable characters. The author has a great gift for vivid descriptive writing but she seemed to get a little carried away and it would have been better if there had been a lot less. There was a natural point in the book when it should have ended, but carried on, to the detriment of the novel sadly, losing stars, for me at least. An interesting concept definitely!

Ultimately, not a book for me.

There was some good writing but I found it hard to care about the events, or about where El was, or what had happened to her.

If the childhood stuff worked for me then I would have probably liked this a lot more but I just found myself feeling a bit ho hum about it all.

My thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Cat lives in Los Angeles, far away from 36 Westeryk Road, the imposing gothic house in Edinburgh where she and her estranged twin sister, El, grew up. As girls, they invented Mirrorland, a dark, imaginary place under the pantry stairs full of pirates, witches, and clowns. These days Cat rarely thinks about their childhood home, or the fact that El now lives there with her husband Ross.

But when El mysteriously disappears after going out on her sailboat, Cat is forced to return to 36 Westeryk Road, which has scarcely changed in twenty years. The grand old house is still full of shadowy corners, and at every turn Cat finds herself stumbling on long-held secrets and terrifying ghosts from the past. Because someone—El?—has left Cat clues in almost every room: a treasure hunt that leads right back to Mirrorland, where she knows the truth lies crouched and waiting…

Mirrorland is Carole Johnstone’s debut novel, which seems remarkable given how accomplished the writing is. The prose is beautiful and engaging, at times heartbreaking. It’s an emotionally complex novel. The story cleverly blurs genres so that it’s not quite as straightforward as a domestic noir novel, and yet not quite as oblique as a dark fantasy. To its credit it manages to work as both, and yet by so deftly blending them, it elevates it beyond either category. The writing style is confident, the plot development well paced, weaving important details into the story one bit at a time until the reader slowly begins to see the full picture. The characters felt rounded and their back story tragic. There are nice twists and turns and the narrative is captivating and imaginative. Mirrorland, as a concept, is so vividly recreated it makes me wonder whether there was some element of autobiography at work here. It’s a rich location, which offers plenty of nods to other aspects of fiction, especially the work of Stephen King. I particularly enjoyed the references to Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and Mirrorland makes fine use of them as both anchors to the story and as analogies to the girls’ lives. I have no hesitation in recommending this book. Carole Johnstone has written an assured debut novel, one that heralds in an exciting new voice to dark fiction.

This is a very unique mystery thriller that definitely kept my interest throughout the book.
Cat returns home after her identical twin sister El, is missing.
El’s husband Ross is beside himself with worry but Cat doesn’t believe she’s dead. She’s been missing a few days and the boat she was on hasn’t been found so Cat won’t accept it.
Cat then starts to get emails leading her on something of a treasure hunt round the house, which was their childhood home.
This book is very different as there’s chapters written in Mirrorland, which is where the twins used to escape to in the house. Ross was a childhood friend so he was involved as well.
A body is found on the boat that belonged to El, but still Cat won’t accept it as she knows she would feel it if she was dead.
Ross seems relieved it’s over and wants to start a relationship with Cat as they were close when they were younger but Cat is having conflicting thoughts.
It gets a bit confusing towards the end and you’re not really sure who to believe, but it does all makes sense in the end.
This is a different mystery thriller but an enjoyable one.
Thanks to Harper Collins UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Mirrorland is like no book I have ever read before. However, from the moment I stepped inside Mirrorland, I was completely engaged. Johnstone's writing is highly descriptive and despite the unusual story, it was very easy to picture the setting and what happened in the different rooms. I felt quite claustrophobic in places, which added to the tense atmosphere that Johnstone created.

The plot of Mirrorland is very imaginative and it was interesting to learn more about the characters of Bluebeard, Mouse and the Witch. The story moves from reality to imagination quite quickly, and although this is necessary for the plot, it did mean that at times I was quite confused! However, I was always compelled to keep reading and see the complex storyline come together at the end.

Through Mirrorland, Johnstone explores some issues which are sensitive and may be difficult for some people to read about. However, I felt that as this was done differently to how I have ever seen it done in a novel before, it was handled well and I was able to feel sympathy for the characters.

It feels as though Johnstone knows her characters inside out and the main characters, in particular, are really well developed. Cat and El's experiences mean that whilst, at first, I found it difficult to get to know them, I did end up rooting for them.

Mirror land is the debut novel by Carole Johnstone and for me is a 3.5 star read.
The storyline of this book was ok but at times I felt it hard to continue, the story did jump around a lot as it tried get your where it wanted you to go, some will love this book others won’t, me, I felt it was good but could’ve been a little shorter.
I voluntarily reviewed an advanced copy of this book through Netgalley.

I’m sorry but this book wasn’t for me. There was just too much fantasy tales of their childhood and reverting back to memories of when the sisters, Ellice and Catriona were younger. I found it didn’t hold my interest, although I know some reviewers really enjoyed this story. I received a copy and have voluntarily reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Unfortunately I found this book very hard going. I can appreciate the cleverness of the plot as I look back but whilst reading it I found it rather tedious. There were just too many twists and red herrings for me and so, with regret, I could not recommend this book unless it were to a reader with a great deal of patience.

No. 36 Westeryk Road: an imposing flat-stone house on the outskirts of Edinburgh. A place of curving shadows and crumbling grandeur. But it’s what lies under the house that is extraordinary – Mirrorland. A vivid make-believe world that twin sisters Cat and El created as children. Now in her thirties, Cat has turned her back on her past. But when she receives news that one sunny morning, El left harbour in her sailboat and never came back, she is forced to return to Westeryk Road; to re-enter a forgotten world of lies, betrayal and danger. Because El had a plan. She’s left behind a treasure hunt that will unearth long-buried secrets. And to discover the truth, Cat must first confront the reality of her childhood – a childhood that wasn’t nearly as idyllic as she remembers…
This isn’t my normal genre but I was intrigued by the blurb. A very well written book but not an easy read & it took me some time to read it as I had to keep putting it down & then I’d go back to it as I was compelled to find out the outcome. Not a light fluffy read but complex, compelling & with multiple layers
My honest review is for a special copy I voluntarily read

A gripping novel that had me guessing at what was real throughout. Seemed to have reached a natural end and then threw in one final twist

I liked this book. Right from the start it gives you just enough information to pique your interest and you feel the need to find out what happened in the past. The mystery continues as to what has happened in the present. It’s well written with excellent descriptions and you really get caught up in the story. I recommend this book, thank you #netgalley.

This book isn’t what I thought. When I read the blurb I thought Mirrorland was some fantasy parallel universe - it’s decidedly not.

Mirrorland is about identical twin sisters who as children used to had a make believe world that they used as a means of escape. When El goes missing, her sister Cat goes back home to help find her. The book flicks from their past to present as the search for El continues. The book explores the twins relationship as Cat tries to reconcile what she knows of her sister, with the relationships she had with her husband and her friends, and the life she lived.

This book is really a mystery thriller that covers what happened to the twins as children, what happened to cause their rift, and what has happened to El now. Cat is not a reliable main character/narrator. She refuses to face reality a lot and she often mixes reality with her make believe world so it’s hard to decipher what is real or not. Everyone we meet is also from her perspective so no one is really what they seem. There are some elements of the mystery setup that reminded me of gone girl.

Overall it was a good read. It started off a little slow and it took a while to decipher what really happened in the past but once you get past that it speeds up and becomes very interesting. 3.8/5 stars.

After many years living in the USA Cat has to return to the Edinburgh home she was bought up in because her twin sister has gone missing whilst sailing in a storm. Cat knows she is not dead so what is going on? A mysterious upbringing that the twins shared is the key to this mystery. This is a distressing read in parts with the witch being cruel to the twins and their mother but why? Who was the witch and what went on in the house eventually leads to Cat solving the mystery of her sister.
This is an amazing and frightening read and is well worth reading

3.5*
El and Cat are identical twins throughout their childhood and youth they are very close. Brought up by their mother and grandfather until one night when they go off to find their father.

Now, after many years of separation living in the U.S.A, Cat is told that El has disappeared after going out in her sailboat one morning. Although she vowed to stay away Cat returns to Scotland, to Edinburgh, to Westeryk Road, to Mirrorland.

Cat arrives to find El’s husband distraught over her disappearance, the police are keeping in touch both by the investigating officers and the family liaison officer whilst the coastguard searches for El and her boat.

Cat knows that El is still alive – why would she be getting messages otherwise? Texts, emails and hand delivered ones. As she follows the clues being sent to her Cat begins to recall memories of their childhood.

As I fell into this fantastical world I thought I’d picked a fantasy or sci-fi book but this quickly moves into a fascinating exploration of what has happened to El, why Cat is being sent messages and what they are being sent for.

This book is a mystery wrapped in a heart wrenching conundrum and keeps you engrossed wanting to understand what happened in the past, how it is linked to El’s disappearance and how everything will resolve. It shows the power that the close relationship of twins can have enabling Cat to understand after such a long separation what happened in El’s life and what that meant with regard to their past.

Not necessarily the easiest of reads but, after my initial uncertainty, I’m glad I continued reading this extraordinary tale.

Thanks: to Rachel Quin at HarperFiction for the invite to read via NetGalley.