Looking Glass Sound
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3.6 • 55 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A USA Today Bestseller • Best Book of the Year (Vulture) • A Best Horror Book of All Time (Cosmopolitan) • A Best Horror Book of the Year (Esquire) • A 2023 World Fantasy Award finalist
Catriona Ward, author of The Last House on Needless Street, 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 The Book of Love)
In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write.
It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.
But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in the cabin, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?
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.
"Impossibly compelling, brilliantly plotted, and incredibly moving all at once."—Virginia Feito, author of Victorian Psycho
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ward (The Last House on Needless Street) examines the blurred line between reality and fiction in her unsettling latest. The story opens in 1989: lonely teenager Wilder Harlow is summering with his parents on the coast of Maine, where he meets handsome local Nat Pelletier and wealthy British vacationer Harper. The three quickly bond over local legends of the Dagger Man, a killer who leaves behind Polaroids of his victims. One afternoon, the friends make a grisly discovery that tests their connection and gives Wilder a chronic case of anxiety, which he manages by obsessively writing about the Dagger Man. Decades later, after the friendship has dissolved, Wilder returns to Maine to write a memoir covering the events of that fateful summer. Once there, he's dogged by hallucinations, an unreliable memory, and a sense that he's caught himself in some sort of time loop when events from his book start manifesting in the present. Ward dazzles with her ability to deliver satisfying narrative surprises at nearly every turn, though the novel's metafictional layers can become tedious. Still, patient readers will be rewarded by a worthwhile conclusion—and likely motivated to read it all a second time.
Customer Reviews
Strange
First time reading this author. I don’t know if I can read another. I was confused the whole time. Maybe that’s the point
Mesmerizing
This book is like a maze with many levels. You have to pay attention to every detail or you will get lost. It is about love, loss, fear, life and death. It is scary and beautiful. I love all of Ward’s books but this has become my favourite!
Not for me
Oof. Where to begin with this one? I’ll echo a lot of the other reviews here and say that I started off somewhat bored, got really into the middle, and then completely hated the end. It’s hard to review this book due to the plot, but suffice there’s a love story here that I really liked and that sort of becomes… nothing due to the bizarre semi-supernatural twist? I don’t know. This one definitely did not work for me in most aspects. If you’re into sci-fi or meta-fiction this might be for you, but honestly I’m too confused about the plot and characters here to even review it coherently.