Even in daylight, the place has a foreboding menace that occupies the pages with an unending supply of patience. It’s isolated and surrounded by darkness most of the time. It feels separate from her home in the suburbs, and really out of time and place generally. She really makes the compound of Sundial feel like a place that has baggage. Secondly, Ward delivers on atmosphere, which adds another string to one’s suspension of disbelief. It also pulls the tension to a tripwire tightness during interactions between Rob and Callie. It forces the reader to speculate, following the clues down a mad rabbit’s hole.

But since Ward has never given the reader any idea that something in particular is missing, all you can feel are the contours of space left behind. The absence of the information is distinctly felt. You can feel the character hiding something from themselves, or from the world.

And Ward not only controls information this way, but heightens tension. I didn’t become the character, I just had a stronger idea of who they were. I rarely felt like I was looking into one’s mind, instead being invaded by it so that I can see their narrow view. She engrosses the reader’s mind with her character’s thoughts, emotions and perspectives. But Callie sees her mom unraveling, and with the help of her friends, Pale Callie and Pale dumpster puppy, she may have to fight to survive.Įven though this is only my second novel of Ward’s, it’s clear that her strength is her ability to write subjectively. Fearing the worst, Rob spirits Callie away to her childhood home of Sundial, where her adoptive parents ran mind experiments with dogs and begins to tell Callie about her twin sister, Jack. Along with the cap to the empty pill bottle, Rob finds a rotting animal corpse and several paintings with animal bones attached to their backs. Underneath Callie’s floor boards is her backpack full of things people should not see. Rob finds the evidence that Callie may have done it, and much much more. The younger daughter was found in a near comatose state after overdosing on insulin pills. Ward’s latest novel is a clever and emotional ride through both gothic and serial killer tropes that delivers on deconstructing both.Ĭallie has almost killed her sister, and her mother, Rob, needs to do something about it before it becomes worse. Sundial enchanted me in ways both unexpected and expected. Sundial, by Catriona Ward, is the first book up for review.

It’s October babay! And that means I have to read horror and horror alone, because that’s just the way I am.

Sundial book ward