I really enjoyed this one. This was a slow paced mystery that just slowly and methodically unravels and reveals itself to you in such a well paced manor. Initially a little confusing to get into as you try to tell apart the real from the imaginary, this book eventually reels you in and captures you in a web of lies, half truths and buried secrets that it keeps you reading to find out the truth. The reveals are tantalising but never quite give you the whole picture so you have to keep reading to find out more and more.

The imaginary world created by the twins in there youth is dark and mysterious and a really inventive way to convey the story to the reader as Cat rediscovers what was part of the game and what had more sinister connotations. It gives this book an almost horror like feel as the lines between imaginary and reality blur for Cat as she tries to work out what has happened to her sister. Is her disappearance just another game or something more sinister itself. The unreliable nature of all the characters and their memories just adds more to the tension. It was really good seeing the flash of childhood memories as they changed for Cat, as she replayed them and restructured them as her understanding grew. I really got a sense of all the clues piecing together and conclusions changing as we uncovered more and more about the sisters relationship, their childhood, Mirrorland and beyond.

I just found the writing, pacing of the twist turns and reveals, as well as the plot itself to be excellent. I am a little biased at the setting I don't live very far from Leith links and Newhaven harbour where the twins grew up, so I could really picture the layout of the townhouse and how Mirrorland would fit into it. The plot itself had you double guessing yourself, it was occasionally spooky, occasionally shocking and overall entertaining.

Wow! At the start of the book I felt like I was walking through a thick mist, not really knowing what was happening, but by about halfway the mist starts to clear and I was left with a lot of 'Ohhhh!' moments! All the way through the book I was questioning what everyone's motives were, were they who they said they were, and coming up with crazy theories partly because of the fantasy world of Mirrorland. I just didn't trust anyone, it really messed with your head! I thought I knew what the ending was going to be but the actual ending I never would have guessed, which was great!
If you struggle at the start with the fantasy world keep plodding on because it really is worth it!

I have never read a book where I have so many thoughts and feelings.
Told from the perspective of Cat, with the book beginning just as Cat finds out her estranged twin sister has gone missing we follow her as she tried to untangle the web of half-truths and clues her lost twin, El has left for her.
What begins and a mystery quickly turns into a thriller with so many twists and turns it will leave your head spinning.
I really enjoyed the flashbacks of the twins in their bizarre make-believe world of Mirrorland, I thought it was an interesting way to tell the tale from a child's point of view. I also really liked Cat and enjoyed her as the storyteller as well as unraveling the mysteries along with her. However there was just so much packed into this book, it really needed to have been double the length or some of the many, many twists edited out. There was so much going on with apparently not a lot of thought, there were so many plot holes that although they didn't affect the outcome of the book or my enjoyment they still niggle at me now that I have finished the book. And overall I did enjoy the book, I think to read it to its full potential you need to be along for the crazy journey and not overthink the mystery too much.
This book comes with many trigger warnings that I suggest you look them up - I am hesitant to give them all for fear of ruining the storyline but just to name a few... child abuse, rape, domestic violence, drug abuse, alcohol abuse.

I’m really not in the habit of not finishing books, but this book really beat me.
I found it so confusing at the beginning with the imaginary world of Cat and El’s childhood that I had to give up on it.
So not one for me, but lots of good reviews so do give it a chance if it sounds like your style!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me review it.

This is an incredible novel - one I shall be recommending to anyone I know that loves a great story. The characters are compelling, interesting and well written. The concept of the book brilliant and exciting - I swear I was holding my breath for much of it. It is drama, child and adult psychology, it is abuse and love and there are wonderful twists. Read it!!

I thoroughly enjoyed this tense and intriguing thriller, a story about sisters. Overall a great read.

I've had this on my TBR for a while, but I'm so sad I hadn't gotten to it sooner! It was so intruiging and I was constantly kept guessing at what would happen next!

I loved the prose style, the breadth of imagination and the gothic Edinburgh setting. Unfortunately though, this didn't quite come together for me, and I found much of the middle section a bit of a drag. I'd certainly read Carole Johnstone's next book though.

I really enjoyed this book. The perspectives of the sisters, working out what was real and what was not, and what actually happened kept me intrigued and guessing until the end. Recommended.

When her sister Ellice disappears off her boat in the Firth of Forth, Cat returns to their childhood home in Leith. As she tries to discover what happened to her sister, the events of the past come back to haunt her. Will the secrets of their Mirrorland home finally be told, and do they hold the key to El’s tragedy?

Mirrorland is a strange story, and one that at times seemed to be over complicated. Even with the map at the beginning, I still found it difficult to navigate through the house, with all the strange room names and the characters to be found there. Deciphering who was real and who imaginary in the memories of their childhood just added to my confusion. Even at the end, I still wasn’t totally sure exactly what had gone on.

Possibly a little too clever for its own good.

This was a very dark complex menacing storyline with very dark and twisted characters. Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone was an interesting and intriguing story.
Highly recommended

REVIEW
MIRRORLAND | CAROLE JOHNSTONE

With Mirrorland I had expected an almost fantasy meets reality story in the vein of The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert. However, what I got was something much darker. A twisty, intensely atmospheric, psychological gothic thriller whose twists about a missing twin and dark family secrets that won’t stay buried, keep you guessing to the end. It is a book about imagination, and the stories we tell to protect ourselves from the harsh realities of life. It’s a story about buried secrets, family and the echoes of childhood that impact our adulthoods. It’s a fascinatingly, complex debut.

Mirrorland is beautifully written and incredibly detailed. But it is a slow burner, whose pace will not appeal to everyone. With chapters encompassing the past, the present and the imaginary world of Mirrorland, it is hard at times to keep track of all these story strands, but for a debut author Johnstone does an astonishing job of knitting them all together for an astonishing ending.

A very clever, intense, psychological thriller debut ⭐️⭐️⭐️out of 5

A lovely mysteries tale .I was totally engrossed from the first page.I will definitely look forward to reading more of Carole Johnstone books and will recommend to my friends

Ever start reading a book and find yourself struggling to pick it back up? I've been fighting a slump all year and I really didn't care for the beginning of Mirrorland. The imaginary and real worlds blend together mid sentence and I just wasn't getting on with it.

I was a quarter into my Netgalley copy and after a week without reading it Dave invited me onto TheWriteReads tour so I forced myself to pick Mirrorland back up and I am SO GLAD.

I found Cat and Ross hard to like at the start and I seem to have read too many missing sisters in fiction lately but WOW does this story take a turn.

There's a fun little map of Mirrorland in the front of this book and you're going to need it, the imagination packed into the sisters' world is mind blowing for two little girls. As you learn more and more about their lives and their mother you come to appreciate just how much they needed the escape.

Mirrorland gets darker and darker as you read on, you'll be desperate for answers. Why did El and Cat fall out so catastrophically? What happened on THAT historical night? And what really happened to El? Everytime you think you've guessed it I guarantee you'll be wrong.

I don't provide trigger warnings in my reviews but for those who need them I'd advise you to look them up for Mirrorland before you go in, or feel free to drop me a message.

Mirrorland is told in first person POV by Cat via both past and present timelines punctuated by diary entries and emails.
The writing is easy to follow once you get into the rhythm of switching between reality and imagination, uncovering the truth alongside Cat had endeared me to her character by the end.

Mirrorland is an intense ride that I highly recommend, I will definitely be looking for more by Carole Johnstone in future.

I gave this book 4 stars because it was well written and cleverly written but I still can’t decide if I loved it or not.
It’s the story of twin sisters El and Cat. They became estranged and haven’t kept in touch for twelve years.
Cat returns home after her sister disappears while sailing her boat. Mysterious letters and emails start arriving with clues for Cat to discover what has happened to El and who is responsible.
The story jumps between the present and their childhood adventures in the mysterious world of Mirrorland, a secret and sometimes scary fantasyland created within their house .
As suppressed memories begin to return the truth about the far from perfect childhood El and Cat experienced is revealed.
As the book progresses the reader learns the truth about El’s disappearance and justice prevails. However, a clever twist at the end proves otherwise.
I enjoyed the book but towards the end got a bit bored with the stories from Mirrorland and just wanted the mystery of El’s disappearance resolved. At times I couldn’t differentiate between “then” and “ now” which made me very confused at times.
Good book but too much Mirrorland for me. Look forward to more from this author.

Mirrorland, the debut novel from Carole Johnstone, is a mind-bending, inventive, unusual and quirky book which absolutely blew me away. It’s about twins Ellice (El) and Catriona (Cat) who as children are as close as can be but as adults have drifted apart with El remaining in their native Edinburgh and Cat moving to LA. They haven’t spoken in over a decade and Cat has remained in the US, but a phone call from Edinburgh telling her that El has gone missing has her boarding a flight and returning to her family home.

No. 36 Westeryk Road is an imposing and foreboding place filled with memories of Cat’s childhood with El. As girls they lived a fantastical life, spending their days letting their imagination run riot, re-naming bedrooms The Kakadu Jungle, The Clown Cafe, The Donkshop and The Princess Tower and creating an imaginary world. Running under the house is a secret passage, used in the past by servants to access things like the wash house, but for Cat and El it is a secret world they named Mirrorland. This was a place where they pretended to be on a ship, sailing to an island to find their father, a swashbuckling sailor. They had a whole cast of shipmates, brought straight from their imagination and they’d spend hours down there playing and inventing stories.

El’s disappearance has devastated her husband, Ross, and he is fearing the worst. She took her boat, the Redemption out and neither she nor the boat have been seen since. It is looking like she has died at sea, but Cat, her mirror twin is sure she is still alive and when she starts receiving clues to a treasure hunt from somebody who knows too much about Mirrorland, she feels surer than ever that it is El sending them. But is it?

Returning to the house unleashes a whole host of memories on Cat and Johnstone takes us back in time, building Mirrorland and throwing us straight into the action. I have to confess to being very confused initially and I didn’t really understand what I was reading but I am so pleased that I persevered because the pay off was worth it. It is a fantastical world which feels incredibly real and I could almost feel the ship listing in a storm and was there in the Clown Cafe with the twins. Vivid and creative writing brings this world to life and provides important context for what is happening in the present.

A thriller wrapped in a gothic fantasy, Mirrorland is such a fun read, despite some dark subject matter. Once I ‘got it’ I was fully invested and unable to put it down, mainly because of its quite wonderful plotting. The writing is pin-sharp and precise, every word weighted to ensure maximum impact and to challenge perceptions. The characterisation in particular is excellent and my feelings towards Cat changed page by page which I loved, finding her a complex and three dimensional character.

A treasure hunt, time jumps, a fantastical world, characters who leap off the pages and ingenious storytelling mixed with a thriller make this such an inventive book. It almost feels like a giant puzzle, filled with clues and dispirit parts which only show the bigger picture once you stand back and it has made me want to re-read it as, although I did work out some of the ending, I want to see what clues I missed. It is SO clever and come highly recommended from me.

During their isolated, traumatic childhood in an ominous Gothic Edinburgh house, twins El and Cat created a dark imaginary world called Mirrorland where they’d have adventures with pirates, witches and clowns. As adults, the twins have drifted apart. Cat is living as a struggling writer in LA while El married Ross, the boy who lived next door to their childhood home, where El and Ross still live. But now El has gone missing and Cat is called back to Scotland to confront the past and follow the clues as to where El could have gone. Mirrorland is definitely one of the darkest, most twisted thrillers I’ve read in a long time. I really wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t, which added to the mindfuckery of it. It’s an intense exploration of the uniqueness of twinship where the twists just keep coming. Ice-cold and very clever, I have a feeling that this book will have a good year!

Interesting premise but the story went a completely different way than I expected and I wasn’t at all prepared for the magical realism. It’s a sub genre I don’t tend to do well with and unfortunately in this instance it didn’t work for me either.

This was a slow burner of a read, but well worth it.

It starts when Cat returns home to Edinburgh after her twin sister, El, goes missing whilst out sailing. The return to her family home sparks a myriad of memories for Cat, mostly centered around the imaginative fantasy games of their childhood.

As time passes, with no sign of El’s return, Cat becomes increasingly concerned and the mystery deepens as the story takes a thrilling turn into a tale of deception and betrayal.

I look forward to what Johnstone has in store for us next.

Thank you to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for the review copy.

This is a novel I wanted to like but found the fantasy element off putting and it slowed the narrative. I liked the theme of the twins and guessed the ending long before the final chapter but all the characters were unlikeable. Three stars.