Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone
I would like to thank Anne from Random Tours and Borough Press for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Borough Press
Published – Out Now
Price – £12.99 Hardback £4.99 Kindle eBook
One twin ran. The other vanished. Neither escaped…
DON’T TRUST ANYONE
Cat’s twin sister El has disappeared. But there’s one thing Cat is sure of: her sister isn’t dead. She would have felt it. She would have known.
DON’T TRUST YOUR MEMORIES
To find her sister, Cat must return to their dark, crumbling childhood home and confront the horrors that wait there. Because it’s all coming back to Cat now: all the things she has buried, all the secrets she’s been running from.
DON’T TRUST THIS STORY…
The closer Cat comes to the truth, the closer to danger she is. Some things are better left in the past…
Fantasy is a key part of childhood. We merge all the stories we read or see on screen or on the TV with our local geography. This part o the school may have been a TARDIS; that wardrobe leads to Narnia. As a child we use all of this to try and make sense of the world. Stories are important for working out what life in. In Carole Johnstone’s haunting thriller Mirrorland we are drawn into the lives of two sister’s whose unique childhood has haunted them for the rest of their lives.
Cat has been living in LA for twelve years as a freelance journalist when she is told her estranged twin sister El has disappeared at sea back in the UK; Cat returns to Edinburgh to meet El’s husband Ross who is distraught at her vanishing. Cat is suspicious and feels another of El’s games has been played but cards and emails start to arrive saying El has been murdered. Cat staying at what was her childhood home starts to relive painful memories of her childhood and the children’s sanctuary and various play areas where they could hide from the Tooth Fairy and Bluebeard. Cat now feels someone is watching her and realises her memories of the past are incomplete, but danger is getting closer.
This is a very successful thriller fully immersing you into the world of Cat and El. The mystery of what happened to El is finely handled but it’s Johnstone’s addition of the concept of Mirrorland that give this tale a dark magical yet nightmarish atmosphere as we see childhood strangely distorted and unsettling. Two twins who have been cut off from TV and film are taught primarily through reading and create an imaginary world of pirates, cowboys, clowns, and secret tunnels. For the adult reader, these tales and references feel strange for Children who are living in the late 90’s and as we start to pull the pieces of the sister’s lives together, we see Mirrorland is reflecting back some darker realities. This tale pulls you into unravelling hidden codes and clues and Johnstone succeeds in this as in the present-day Cat’s mysterious emails lead her around her old home finding evidence triggering long lost memories. We are discovering this world at the same time as Cat re-discovers it which makes for a very well-paced set of reveals never cheating the reader.
If that world is for me the main attraction the emotional heart of the story is the story of the siblings’ lives. It is very clear from early on that Cat is very mistrusting of El and we see how after their initial years growing up the girls’ relationship fractured how their childhood friend Ross (E;’s now husband) was a key factor. This makes us view the tale through Cat’s point of view as our primary narrator and we see the pain and torment that she felt from her sister who seemed to punish her for wanting to live forever in their own strange world. As with our understanding of Mirrorland though we start to see the whole picture and that sets up some tensions as that we see Cat herself was good at keeping secrets from El. I loved the complexity of this relationship from a twin who both feels certain that she would know in her gut if her sister has died to also being someone who very much doesn’t agree with El’s friends about how lovely she was. Like any sibling relationship there are both tensions and love combined in a powerful mix that has consequences for the story.
In terms of mystery the reader gets the puzzle of what happened to El and who was involved but the unveiling of the sisters’ pasts too. Both mysteries while going to dark places that explore abuse handle this topic sensitively and honestly. In particular I loved how all the characters could move from light to dark very quickly as their motivations for their actions are explored. We see all the main characters have their secrets and inner desires that drive the mystery and create many suspects for Cat before an extremely satisfying finale explains what has been going on.
Mirrorland is a really intriguing thriller taking us to dark places and exploring how imagination can both save us and hide us from crueller realities. Atmospheric with two key characters that keep the story going as we see the lives entwine made this a compelling read. Highly recommended
