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

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The author of The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward, delivers a masterful story about friendship and betrayal, dark obsessions, and the impossibility of escaping your own story. “Here’s your next obsession.” (Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble)

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward | Crime Fiction Lover Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward | Crime Fiction Lover

No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does. The book (initially) opens in 1989 and follows the story of lonely teen Wilder Harlow, who makes his first real friends while his family is summering on the coast of Maine. His tightknit bonds with handsome working-class neighbor Nathaniel and British vacationer Harper will go on to impact him for the rest of his life, as will their mutual obsession with a local legend known as the Dagger Man of Whistler Bay, who allegedly takes threatening Polaroids of children while they sleep. And when the trio makes a grisly discovery in a seafront cave, it seems as though the infamous Dagger Man was something much darker than a simple local creep, and there’s much more to the townsfolks’ lingering stories of missing women than anyone could have initially predicted. Mind-bending, gasp-inducing, and impossible to put down, Looking Glass Sound is horror-thriller superstar Ward’s best work yet.”Vernon’s crabby,’ Dad always said. ‘Doesn’t much like women or kids.’ Uncle Vernon was the last of that side of his family. We Harlows aren’t much good at staying alive so Uncle Vernon did better than most; he made it to his seventies. This is also a book about writing. A pretty common element in many novels, it’s on steroids in this one, cruising along in the meta lane. Writers are monsters, really. We eat everything we see. The book is a mirror and I am stepping through the looking glass. ‘Writing is power,’ she says. ‘Big magic. It’s a way of keeping someone alive forever.’ I think about our three names, us kids, as we were. ‘Wilder,’ I whisper to myself sometimes. ‘Nathaniel, Harper.’ We’re all named after writers. It’s too much of a coincidence. Harper. Wilder. Harlow. The names chime together. The kind of thing that would never happen in real life but it might happen in a book. ‘You wanted to live forever,’ Harper says gently. ‘You both did, you and Wilder. That’s all writers really want, whatever they say.She also gets into the morality of story ownership. When does your personal tale become a commodity? Who has the right to tell your story? For me, one of the highlights was the different types of relationships explored and the characters were all so well done. I did listen to the audiobook and recommend that format as the narration style fit the characters fantastically.

Looking Glass Sound - Macmillan

An Ode to the Horniest Sitcom Parents, the Belchers and the Wilkersons By Clare Martin April 11, 2023 | 10:40am The Guardian - 3/13/21 'Every monster has a story': Catriona Ward on her chilling gothic novel by Justine Jordan The Best Comedy Movies on Netflix Right Now (October 2023) By Garrett Martin and Paste Staff October 16, 2023 | 11:20am The author of The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward, delivers a masterful story about friendship and betrayal, dark obsessions, and the impossibility of escaping your own story. "Here's your next obsession." (Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble)It gets spooky when Wilder already suffering from fiction versus reality finds notes from Sky. He knows they are from her for she writes them in green ink her go to color. I remain a huge fan of Catriona Ward and will still be reading anything she puts out. I guess I can't love everything all the time from a certain author, but I cannot deny my disappointment here. I couldn’t tear myself away. Looking Glass Sound is slyly addictive. Falling into a Catriona Ward book means knowing you'll be caught and never let go. Unconventional, imaginative, and brazenly twisted.” I can't wait to read it again someday. I think upon reread, I could end up enjoying it even more. Ward is too smart and honesty, I'm in awe of her brain. I'm probably going to dream about this one for a while...

Looking Glass Sound: from the bestselling and award winning

This is for sure a coming-of-age novel, the characters start as young adults and by the end, are much older. The story really unfolds in distinct acts: Childhood/Adolescence, College life, and Adulthood. The three main characters are bound together by an evolving mystery. And that’s all I will say about that. Inside the cottage everything is bare and white and blue, like a shore washed clean by the ocean. My room has a single bed covered in rough wool blankets, and a round window like a porthole. No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder feels his grip on reality slipping. And he begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does. I’ve used Scream some time ago in Manjaro, because audio through spice wasnt working for me. But then i was fixed after one of updates so I stopped using scream. However I still have setup for that in my host and VM. So maybe this will help: Wilder is left broken and alone as he begins collegiate life, unable to cope with the psychological trauma of his summer at Whistler Bay. Enter the overly friendly Sky Montague, a Proust-obsessed aspiring author who insists on becoming roommates with Wilder. But is Sky truly the altruistic friend that he seems, or is he just pumping Wilder for information about the Whistler Bay murders?My scholarship makes it possible for me to go to Scottsboro, which is very expensive. All I have to do is hold on for a couple more years. It has to end one day. Just hold on, I tell myself over and over, in my head. I’ll go to college and from then on, everything will be different. I’m going to write books. What’s a brain bend, you ask? It’s what Catriona Ward’s books do to my head. My brain has to work so hard while I read them that when I’m finished, my mind feels bent. Ironically, that’s why I struggled a bit with this book. I usually enjoy that psychological fun house aspect of her writing, but this got almost too convoluted with a lot of past and present events getting muddled, identities changing, and book within a book (within another book?) confusion. Also, since the story started when the MCs were teens, the first part read YA to me, but even as adults they seemed childish. To Ward’s credit, though, this is an ambitious and highly creative plot, and once again, she blew my mind with that ending! As usual, her writing is stellar.

LOOKING GLASS SOUND by Catriona Ward – Review LOOKING GLASS SOUND by Catriona Ward – Review

Unfortunately, it didn't really work for me. I was engaged at first and then the story turned into a weird fever dream. The reader isn't sure what is real and what isn't. Problem is, that for me? I didn't care what happened to any of these people. Readers will question every word as Ward expertly weaves together an enigmatic story of friendship, young love, obsession, and horror." The wind billows in the fabric of my shorts, filling them. For a second it looks like I am still in the shorts – invisible, struggling, impaled. One of those books that as soon as you finish reading you immediately want to read again. Darkly mind-bending and softly gut-wrenching, this is another masterpiece from the incomparable Catriona Ward." - SJI HollidayThe Guardian – 9/26/22 - Catriona Ward: ‘When done right, horror is a transformative experience.’ by Hephzibah Anderson