There’s so much to unpack within the pages of Catriona Ward’s creepy thriller Looking Glass Sound that a quick glance at it may seem overwhelming – yet Ward has arranged the book so beautifully that this powerful story about friendship, discovery, and betrayal, not to mention the bundles of terror and eeriness, make the novel an effortless endeavour.

The settings are perfect and the storyline, veering between absolute terror and rose-tinted nostalgia, examines that unnerving line between beauty and horror in a way Stephen King himself would be proud of. Told over several different time periods, we meet Wilder Harlow, an author writing his last ever book. In his old family cottage he recounts the tales of the killer that cast a shadow over the local town when he was a young boy, the local legends of the nearby sea and the friends he made and lost. But is the book writing him or is he writing the book?

On the back of Sundial and The Last House On Needless Street, you can now add Looking Glass Sound to Ward’s growing CV of highly enjoyable, nerve-shredding thrillers.