Looking Glass Sound: from the bestselling and award winning author of The Last House on Needless Street

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The Daggerman, the throuple between friends, and the book being stolen were all wildly different tones and didn't seem to mesh well together at all. It’s white clapboard with blue shutters, and I think – I’ve never seen anything so neat, so perfect. His entire life has been shaped by the events during the summers of his youth, and his perspective is skewed at best. It’s the sort of thing that when I finished I’m driven by the urge to go and find someone else who has also read it so we can spend hours discussing it. High tide has eaten away at them, making little holes – kind of like the finger stops on a flute – and when the wind is in the east, coming over the ocean, it whistles through.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward REVIEW: Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

So, perhaps I am similarly not realizing the depth of this particular novel because I've only read it the one time. He’s so easy in himself, unloads the truck in quick, decisive movements, every now and then spitting a thin vein of brown juice into the gutter. According to Harper, a supernatural force is at work – a monster whose lair might be in a tidal cave across the beautiful cove. The truck is battered and rusty with panels beaten out badly where they’ve been staved in by collisions. This book is vague in the synopsis (purposely so), but the main character Wilder Harlow is writing a book about the tumultuous childhood that he experienced in Whistler Bay, Maine.Looking Glass Sound is one part coming-of-age saga, one part true crime drama, and one part meditation on the meaning of truth and memory, with a little bit of metaphysical horror thrown on top. Everyone has their secrets and ever since THE LAST HOUSE ON NEEDLESS STREET, I know that Catriona Ward likes to spring those secrets on you at the very last minute. It wasn’t my favorite of hers, but I’d still highly recommend it to those who love a book within a book story (with a twist! I always keep it very light on specific plot details and preserve reading discoveries at all costs, but be very, very careful reading other responses/reviews on Goodreads or other reviewing platforms.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward - Lightspeed Book Review: Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward - Lightspeed

As if that weren’t creepy enough, the Dagger Man also takes threatening Polaroid photos of children as they sleep.A marvel of storytelling, sinister as hell, and, at points where I thought I understood where it was going, Catriona drowned me with her signature 'oh no, you don't' dark turns.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward - Fantastic Fiction Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward - Fantastic Fiction

I will be very surprised, even at this early stage if this doesnt end up being my favourite read of 2023. Flawless multi-layered storytelling like this ensures readers are going to come back to revisit it time and time again. Wilder’s relationships with these two will define not only this Summer and the one after, but the rest of his life. My sincerest appreciation to Catriona Ward and Tor Nightfire for the physical advanced reading copy. It would be easy to pity Wilder, but by turns, he is both the hero and then the villain of the piece.And while her book’s picturesque seaside setting masks more than its fair share of dark secrets, its protagonists’ all carried varying degrees of darkness within themselves long before they set foot on its shores. Now Wilder is writing from the perspective of Skye - a girl version of Sky - and we pretty much just get a retelling of what we already read but with some fictional elements added it.