Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone

Happy Friday! 

Today I'm super excited to be part of the Random Things Tours for Carole Johnstone's debut, Mirrorland!

When her twin sister El goes missing in Scotland, Cat returns to her childhood home certain that her twin is still alive. What she finds there are clues not only to El's fate, but reminders of a past she'd buried long ago.

Mirrorland is an unsettling read about the bond between sisters who've shared deep trauma. 

Throughout their early childhood, El and Cat used their budding imaginations to cope with things that only become clear as the book progresses. 

They live in a creaky old house with their grandfather and their mother, both of whom have temperaments that are as tempestuous as the sea their grandfather once made a living on. 

Each of the rooms in the house has a different theme. There's a clown room,  a jungle room, a princess's tower, and through a secret door in the pantry, there's Mirrorland. 

Mirrorland was their secret and their salvation. 

But Cat left years ago. And now El has disappeared. Cat feels in her soul that her sister is alive, and that feeling is spurred on by notes Cat begins to receive. Notes that hint at El's fate. Notes that bring up memories Cat has long forgotten. 

It quickly becomes clear that Cat has something of a hard time determining the difference between what she remembers as fiction and her very real past. Johnstone's debut is both twisty and disturbing, forcing the reader to face—alongside the main character—a very dark history and the ways in which Cat has coped with that for so long. 

As I said, it's unsettling, to say the least. And parts of the story are quite disturbing as well. But in Cat, and El, Johnstone has built two characters who are complicated and full of depth. Characters who clearly have been through things. 

Johnstone is such an immense talent! The pacing is so exquisitely thought out, and it's really all I could do not to jump ahead just to find out what happened to El and how Cat would come through it all!

Mirrorland is out now in the UK and in the States!