Mirrorland: the dark and twisty fiction debut from 2022's new voice in psychological suspense

Product Information

What Russia and China have in common goes much deeper than their status as authoritarian post-socialist states or perceived menaces to Western hegemony.

If there’s one thing that I would critique about Mirrorland, it’s that I think the book tried to do a bit too much. Behind it’s seemingly ordinary façade, 36 Westeryk Road is home to Mirrorland, a vivid make-believe world of populated by pirates, cowboys, and jailbirds- Bluebeard and Blackbeard, the brave and handsome Captain Henry, and the aptly named Mouse. Although a somewhat unreliable protagonist, I became utterly drawn into Cat’s world – and into the world of Mirrorland – very quickly.

But then something happens that tears them apart and sends Cat across the Atlantic Ocean to America. As children they were inseparable, spending their time in Mirrorland, a place of magic and mystery where nothing is quite what it seems. In the prologue, we meet twin sisters Cat and El, who’ve run to the harbor at night to join a pirate ship. Charting an unconventional course southeast through Siberia, Inner Mongolia, the Russian Far East and Manchuria, anthropologist and linguist Ed Pulford sketches a rich series of encounters with people and places unknown not only to outsiders, but also to most residents of the capital cities where his journey begins and ends. identical twins Ellice and Catriona show up at Edinburgh's Granton Harbour at dawn, covered in blood and badly beaten, seeking passage aboard a pirate ship.

The unique way the past and present were mixed created a dreamlike feel which was both intriguing and, at times, confusing. Mirrorland is part horror part psychological thriller and I spent every minute I could gripped to the pages, desperate to know what exactly was really happening. We also get to meet El through flashbacks, though these are told from Cat’s POV and so are slightly skewed, but we also get to read a little of her POV through diary notes and letters that she has left for Cat to find round the house.

Right before I picked up “Mirrorland” by Carole Johnstone, I gave up on a thriller novel involving twin women, one of whom goes missing off a boat, and the other who finds herself getting closer to her twin’s husband after her sister’s supposed death.

I will be reading this as I’m currently reading a thriller that got my out of my slump and I love these sorts of books.The atmosphere of the novel, set mostly on this wild Greek island, echoes strongly the classical tragedies of Greece.

Instead, he’s looking out at the firth, his mouth open and teeth bared in a wail of despair and horrified grief that I can almost hear. He pauses, and even though he's only being filmed from the waist up, I can tell he's widening his stance, like a gunslinger. 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. There are a multitude of other characters from Ross, El’s husband, El’s friends, the police investigating El’s disappearance as well as the characters of Mirrorland, they all play a large part in the story, some giving you little clues that help pull the story together, and others that just add to the horror aspect of the story. There were genuine surprises to go with it, and some of the big reveals totally caught me off guard.Her memories of the past are so twisted from reality that we as the reader never quite know what is truth and what is fiction. But I pushed on and once I got my head around their games and understood the reasons for them, I really got into it and from then on I was gripped! Cat is convinced that El is not dead, because twins are psychic and she would have known, and the fact that postcards leading her on a treasure-hunt across their home and history seems to confirm that – dum dum dah!