**Many thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and Catriona Ward for an ARC of this book!!**

What if an experiment in nature vs. nurture went wrong...horrifically wrong?

Dark, dizzying, disturbing, and dazzling, Catriona Ward is BACK to explore just that in Sundial!

Much like Needless Street, you are GUARANTEED to leave this read with more questions than answers. To start the story off, you have Rob, wife to Irving, and mother to daughters Callie and Annie. She lived a sheltered and unique life growing up in a mysterious community in the Mojave desert known as Sundial. She is now settled into semi-normalcy with her husband and works as a professor, but has the darkness she was immersed in as a child followed her there? It certainly seems to be popping up in daughter Callie, who displays an odd fascination with animal bones and talks to figures nobody can see. Rob feels an urgency and a calling, driving her back to the desert and a desperation to protect her family at all costs. Are the murky and muddy waters of her mind clear enough to save her daughter from herself...or is it Callie who needs protecting before she becomes just one more secret the desert keeps?

Ward's books are deftly plotted, and Sundial is no exception. The opening provides a quick hook, and chapters alternate between Rob in the present and past, and Callie, giving just enough from each perspective and gore at different points to peak your interest...AND turn your stomach. The first 40% of this one whizzed by in a dizzying blur for me, as tiny pieces of Rob and Callie's worlds were brought to light. Ward's writing is as sharp and crafty as ever, painting the scenes that let you get absolutely entrenched in her horrifying world. She is an author who is dedicated to the craft, and this is ALWAYS evident throughout her work.

At this midpoint, however, things began to slow down dramatically for me, and several glimpses into Rob's past were revealed....and went on for quite a while. This sharp contrast to earlier chapters was a hit on the pacing and unfortunately, at the same time, the book started to veer into very dramatic animal abuse territory. Many of these scenes are graphic, and although they aren't my primary animal of choice, if you are a dog lover: TAKE PAUSE before picking up this book! You may be able to skip some of the content, but when it comes to Ward, details matter, and you won't want to miss much.

There is also some book-within-a-book content penned by Rob that could have been eliminated entirely. My guess is that it was included to urge the reader to question further what was real and what was fantasy, but then again, that seems to be a recurring theme with Ward's writing anyway. Like Needless Street, I CERTAINLY could benefit from a re-read...but unlike Needless Street, I can't say that I'd have interest in revisiting this one. As hypnotic, poignant, dramatic, and artfully crafted as this book was, I just didn't love the plot. I can't say too much about it for obvious reasons, but from about 40-80%, my interest definitely waned. Luckily, Ward's trademark whopper of a twist popped up in the third act to carry me to the finish line, and it was quite the well hidden surprise, certainly enough to keep my twist-loving heart happy!

There's a reason why many are calling Catriona Ward the heir to Stephen King's throne: she has the goods in spades and she can WRITE. Honestly, there's something breathtaking and haunting about her prose, and the fact that I didn't love this plot yet I am still dying to read her next book really speaks volumes about the dynamic superstar Ward has already become in the horror genre. I cannot wait to see what baffling, creepy, disturbing, and twisted tale she has ready for us next!

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for PHENOMENAL writing

This is Ward' sophomore effort and it's pretty good! I am a sucker for a Bad-seed Novel and this one doesn't disappoint. I find one of Ward's strengths is creating characters who ooze off the page with their malevolence and she nails this with several characters this go-round. I do think it is important to warn readers that scientific experimentation on animals is a major plot point and this may be off-putting to some readers.

4.5 stars, rounding up.

This book blew my mind. I love mother/daughter stories, desert folk, misguided hippies scientists, and suspense done well. Rob is an English teacher with a husband and two daughters. When one of her daughters, Callie, starts exhibiting disturbing behavior, Rob decides its finally time to tell her the truth about what runs in their blood. To have this conversation, they drive out deep into the Mojave Desert, to Rob’s childhood home Sundial. Sundial is a large compound where Rob’s father and his wife conducted mysterious scientific experiments and raised Rob and her sister.

Throughout the whole book, I kept thinking "this reminds me so much of 'Malignant'!" in that it dealt with twins and was a truly wild ride. When I got to the last page, I actually screamed. Ward is a master of suspense. Her pacing really flows here. I also love flashbacks, like two people having a conversation or recounting a moment in time. That's basically the whole book! Lucky me! As stated in other reviews, I didn't love the "Arrowood" chapters and the British spelling (the characters are American). I can't really talk about triggers without spoiling the book, but we will just say that there is a puppy mill. Plus, abuse towards women and children. If you can handle that stuff, I highly recommend Sundial. Catriona Ward's latest psychological thriller delivers another dark and twisty tale that will keep you guessing ‘til literally the last page.

2.5 out of 5
Rob is a suburban housewife trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage to Irving. They have two daughters Callie (Irving’s favorite) and Annie (Rob’s favorite) that they use as pawns to torment each other. When Callie is caught trying to poison her sister, Rob decides to separate the two sisters and takes Callie out to the desert to Sundial, the strange home/compound where she had grown up. Once in the desert, Rob struggles with what her daughter is becoming while Callie (and her imaginary friend Pale Callie) try to unravel her mother’s past but are confronted with more twists than an M. Night Shyamalan film.

What stopped me from loving this novel as much as Ward’s previous novel The Last House on Needless Street, is that I really didn’t care about any of these characters. Eric’s number one rule is that you have to care about your protagonist and I just didn’t vibe with Rob or Callie at all. However, Ward is an excellent writer so it was still an enjoyable read that will keep you turning the pages to see where the story goes- and where it goes is nowhere you’d imagine

Sundial is the second Catriona Ward novel I have read, and I can truly say that she is a talented author. Her story building, character development, and descriptive word choice are unique to any other author I have read. The characters have a depth and depravity that is palpable in her descriptions. Calling Rob's family dysfunctional does not quite encapsulate the entire emotion felt while reading, and while reading I just could not get enough of Callie and Rob's relationship and could not figure out where it was going. For readers who love imagery and twisted, unexpected turns, they will devour this book.

For me, I felt like there were times where my interest was lost. Especially in the story-within-the-story, I felt like it took the momentum of the relationship between Rob and Callie and gave it an abrupt pause. It was difficult for me to get back into it and re-connect with what was happening in present day. It ended up coming together in a way that made sense, but I was not quite as connected to this story as I was with her previous one.

4.5 stars. Wow. This novel starts out in somewhat domestic normalcy. Rob and her family are home on a Saturday, getting ready to go to a party next door when Rob realizes her youngest daughter, Annie, has the chicken pox. This also causes her to realize that her husband, Irving, is having an affair with the next-door neighbor. From almost page one, there is the underlying current of creepy tension running through the novel. Rob's oldest daughter, Callie, has been acting very strangely and Rob needs to get her away to her childhood home, Sundial, to figure out what is going on. But Rob has other motives for taking Callie out into the Mojave and you don't see them coming at all. And the ending makes you realize all the things you thought about Callie were entirely WRONG. Superb. No one does horror and suspense like Catriona Ward. Bravo. I liked this even better than The Last House on Needless Street.

*Special thanks to Tor-Nightfire and NetGalley for an e-arc of this novel.*

Y'all remember how I said I wasn't a member of the Cult of the Mother? Rob, the mother at the center of the pitch-black exploration of the Dark Heart of Motherhood, isn't a big fan of it either. And she, stupid jerk that she is, had a second baby with a man she dislikes despite the fact she doesn't like the one she already has.

So why the ever-lovin' hell did I keep reading the book? And what's that four-star rating all about? I can (sort of) explain....

I hate fewer tropes more than the Noble Woman Who Keeps Her Family Together™. This is that story. And I hate that about it. I'm not interested in reading about the vileness of animal experimentation. This is that story, too. I really, really do not like to read Exceptional Child narratives. I don't really need to say it again, do I? But once you open this story up, you're In It For The Duration. Believe me when I tell you, you're not going to come out the other side the same as you went in. Rob is really a bad, bad mother in that she became one at all, ever, after what her childhood was like. It's inevitable that very bad things would follow this woman around like roast-beef-and-brussels-sprouts farts. And yet her narrative voice never does the inexcusable and becomes whiny. She gets closest to it when she discovers that her best friend isn't. But even then, very early on, her tone is "not a-bleeding-gain!" instead of "how could this happen to meeeeee?" which last is the norm for most women's fiction/domestic thrillers I've perused.

It's what occurs to bring the matter to her attention that needs to be praised: Her youngest child contracts chicken pox. There is only one plausible way that could have occurred. And that, as the saying goes, is that. What matters as we go forward is what Rob is going to do about the stuff she learns: fix it. Every weird, unbelievably wacked out thing Rob does throughout this weird, wacked out story is aimed at fixing the problems she's got in her face right this minute. And it takes her less time to figure out what she has to do to have the best chance to fix it than you'd think, looking at the page count.

Not a one for deep self-reflection, our Rob. Had she been so equipped, there would've been no marriage and no children in her life. And believe you me, there should NOT HAVE BEEN.

So why were there a marriage and children in her life? Because...there are debts that one repays whether in this or another life, there are things that are absolutely yours and yours alone to atone for and to offer up to the evil life-force that this world was created to sustain. And that is where Rob and Callie are as this story begins its uphill climb against the gravity of reality.

When you start out a read as addictively written as this one is, you accept that there are things you won't like as much as others in it. Because something is marketed as horror, you know you're going to have to accept a certain level of gore, for example. The question is will you be too squicked to take the gore as it's intended, or will it just lie there on the book's floor waiting for the cleaning crew to make it all go away? This book seriously skated on the edge of calling the crime-scene cleaners as we got more and more into the scenes in the desert. I wasn't at all sure continuing was a good idea at multiple junctures.

I persevered, and despite the feeling that there could've been less of some gory moments, the fact is that the gore here is handled with deft assurance, and is applied to the plot with a care that one senses even as it deepens about one's ankles. The moments when the plot takes the path of least resistance, ie "it's the man's fault," there is in fact something more to it than that. There is a dark, echoing justice in the world the book creates, a seriously ugly but still urgent weighing of karmic scales that must happen to give this ending, any ending really, a hope of satisfying the reader.

The latent genetic flaw, or the generational trauma inheritance, or the epigenetic expression of ancestral agonies that come to the fore in the read are utterly predictable from the moment we meet Rob. But there's the small matter of how Author Catriona Ward writes to explain why one is compelled to keep reading on. It is this fact that caused me to power through very, very, very upsetting events that would normally have caused me to shut the book for good.

I don't think too terribly many of my regular readers are in it for horror reads. If that's you, skip this review. But horror people should, if they have not already, make this author welcome on their shelves. She's a good sentence-by-sentence writer, and while I'm not the most familiar with horror plotting, this story's absence of supernatural falderol accentuates the truth that I appreciate horror stories making plain: Humanity is made up of vile, irredeemable scum who, even when they say they're doing something for "the greater good" or whatever, are actually just looking for ways to excuse their inner cruel bastard coming out.

I tore through this book. I could NOT put it down. It made me scared, squeamish, disgusted, all of the things, but I had to keep going. This comes with many many triggers, but was a very well told story. I will read everything Catriona Ward puts out as Needless Street was also a big win for me!

I'm in the minority, but this fell short for me. I wasn't expecting domestic violence, genetic experimentation, child abuse, mistreatment of animals, mass murder, etc. I generally enjoy multiple POVs, but not in this case. Overall, I thought things felt a bit disjointed, dull, and a bit too slow. Perhaps a tighter edit wouldn't have fixed some of these issues.

Thank you to NetGalley, Torfire, and Catriona Ward for an E-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. My mind is still reeling from this one and I have questions about the ending!! I cannot wait to discuss this one with other bookstagrammers! Ward seamlessly and flawlessly writes this genre and keeps the reader engaged and questioning until the end. This one is out on March 1st, 2022!!

It took me until about halfway through the book to become slightly interested. The twists thereafter were intriguing… but at that point I was just too apathetic to care. There are some book within a book chapters throughout that add no value to the story and the ending is a little bit of a cliffhanger which I was not a fan of. Overall I’m left feeling extremely disappointed with this book, especially after loving The Last House On Needless Street so much.

3.5 stars

Sundial by Catriona Ward is a very dark, psychological thriller/horror novel.
Alternately narrated by the mother Rob and her preteen daughter Callie, the story jumps across timeframes—past and present—as well as Rob’s surreal unpublished book about troubled teens called Arrowood.
Rob’s upbringing in the Mojave Desert was bizarre—she was homeschooled on a ranch named Sundial, where puppies were abused and manipulated by her hippie scientist father and his wife. So it seems fitting that she ends up marrying a cruel serial philanderer, Irving, and has two emotionally disturbed daughters, one of whom, Callie, kills and save parts of small animals. It echoes the “bad seed”. Oh, Callie also speaks in emoticons and has a ghostly best friend named Pale.
None of the characters was likeable and all were off-the-charts, disturbed individuals. Besides the unattractive characters, the scenes of animal abuse were off-putting, to say the least.
The author is a clever writer and has some memorable lines—“The past always has its hands around your neck.” Unfortunately, the past and the present action in this domestic horror novel augmented by animal cruelty made me realize that this type of story is not something I will choose to read in the future.

Thank you to Tom Doherty Associates and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my unbiased review.

Experiments? Unreliable characters? Count me in. Rob and Callie against the world. The writing was amazing, the story was beautifully written.

Thanks, Tor Nightfire and Netgalley for the advanced copy. I was excited to read another book from Catriona Ward after loving The Last House on Needless Street but Sundial ended up being a bit of a letdown. I struggled to get through this book, I just wasn't invested in the characters or the plot. The storytelling just felt jarring with the back and forth between characters and timelines, every time I felt like I was getting into the story it would completely shift perspectives. While Sundial ended up being a letdown for me I will definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever Catriona Ward releases next.

Thank you Netgalley and TorNightfire for my E-ARC. Sundial is my first book that I've read by Catriona Ward. I didn't know anything about the book but from the cover, I was super excited!!! At first it did start a little slow but not slow enough where I wanted to DNF. I loved the dark desert atmosphere. It made the story that much creepier!!!

The characters are also a huge highlight in this story. Yes, there are some that you love to hate, but you can't look away. One minute you're rooting for Rob and the next you don't know if she will go off the deep end. The last 100 pages of this book just left me with my mouth open! It will be a book that I will keep thinking about.

I will be picking up more books by this author.

CW: animal abuse, animal death, toxic relationship, miscarriage, and child abuse.

What a fabulous thriller/horror book! In all honesty, it took me some time to relate to the main character and understand her. I also found the plot difficult to follow at first. However, once the story started to evolve, I could not put this book down! Wow!

Sundial is a well-written book told from the viewpoint of Rob, the main character, and her daughter, Callie. The storyline goes back and forth between then and now. The book kept me trying to figure out the end and left me guessing until the very end.

Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge, for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed above are my own.

I had a hard time getting through this book due to the extreme amount of abuse contained within it. The book contains child abuse, spousal abuse, and animal abuse. Instead of getting a creeped out feeling that I did with Ward's book "The Last House on Needless Street" I was left with feeling disturbed. There's a huge difference between the two. One can enjoy feeling a bit fearful and uncertain. Sundial left me borderline disgusted. While I don't consider myself a prude with horror (I grew up on Andrews, King and Koontz) I still felt the most uncomfortable with the extensive hatred between Rob and her husband Irving. The experiences of the children were also too much for this mom of three.

The plot of Sundial was a great concept and design. Callie, Rob and Irving's daughter begins to get violent within the household and Rob takes her cross country to the home that she grew up in to reconnect with her. The idea was great but for me the violence was taken too far.

Each of the characters was very well developed and the pacing within the book kept me turning the pages. Ward's writing is great and I never wanted to DNF the book. I just didn't like how I felt while I was reading it.

Readers should skip the 3 or 4 sections within the book which contain Rob writing the book "Arrowood" to help her process what is going on around her. The editor of Sundial should've cut these sections out entirely. The sections don't make sense since Rob tells us directly that she writes it with names of people she knows and then proceeds to later erase the names of the people. Readers shouldn't even attempt to figure out which family member that Rob might be potentially be referencing. The "Arrowood" sections add nothing to the overall plot of Sundial and cause transitional problems. It felt interruptive & choppy for this reader.

The twist at the end was a complete surprise. Ward develops characters so well that I didn't see anything coming. The ending was abrupt and without a satisfying resolution. As a reader, if you cause me to feel fear and suspense; I need to know what happens in the end. I need an interaction with that character in the end even if it ends with a creepy smile and no words.

“It’s possible to feel the horror of something and to accept it all at the same time. How else could we cope with being alive?”

Yo, yoooooooo not gonna lie y’all know I was obsessed with ‘The Last House on Needless Street’ and after finishing ‘Sundial’ @catward66 has made her way to the top of my Fav Authors List.

There’s something about Ward’s writing that is both unique and SO so satisfying. She had me engaged from the jump with no clue where we were headed. With crazy twists and turns, my brain is still trying to process what I’ve just completed.

Another one that will be living ‘rent-free’ in my brain (as the kids say) for the indefinite future.

Thank you to @netgalley and @tornightfire for access to this ARC. And thank you Catriona for writing yet another masterpiece.

‘Sundial’ to be published March 1, 2022– I’d recommend it to thriller and horror fans alike. It was interesting for me to read this coming off of a romance binge so please be warned this is no soft subject, proceed with caution.

Rob has an interesting backstory. One filled with mysterious apparitions and violence. When she notices her oldest daughter, Callie, talking to what appears to be ghosts and collecting Animal bones she starts to worry. Is her perfect life falling apart? Rob knows exactly what to do. She takes Callie to Sundial, her family ranch. Sometimes our past comes to back to haunt us, and there’s no escape, but Rob will do anything to save both of her daughters.

Sundial by Catriona Ward is a psychological horror that digs its nails into you. I could not put this book down! It’s full of twists and turns that throw the reader into a whirlwind of dread and terror. When you think you’ve figured it out, Ward pulls the rug from under your feet. With realistic characters and intense emotions, Sundial is a perfect roller coaster that plays with your emotions up until the very end.

It’s hard to say much without spoilers but if you’re a fan of psychological horror pick this book up. You will not be disappointed. Catriona Ward is becoming one of my new favorite horror writers.

SUNDIAL kept me up late. I'm bleary-eyed today, but I had to run, scratch, and crawl with these characters until the bitter end. Rob, Jack, and Callie--you gripped me by the throat. There are stories within stories within stories and I had to rip away layer upon layer of wrapping to hold the truth of this story in my head. It was worth it every hour I spent reading.

Five stars--a MUST read for fans of thrillers, horror, and mystery. Twists upon twists. A beating, bloody heart of pain/love and love/pain. Ward’s prose is sparse, with jolts of vivid description and uncanny insight that made me stop and read again, just to feel the impact once more.

"Everyone has one story that explains them completely. I thought I knew what mine was. I was wrong [...]."

Rob has two daughters and a cheating husband. To her, that's "normal" bad, which is safe because Rob has seen "unthinkable" bad. But normal starts to escalate. Rob suspects her oldest daughter Callie has poisoned Annie, the younger sister. Rob recognizes this darkness.

Turns out...murder is kind of a family problem.

Rob knows there isn't much time. She needs to get back to Sundial--the abandoned home/lab/kennel where Rob and her twin sister Jack grew up. At Sundial, Rob will unwind the tangled cord of truth in front of Callie and hope her daughter will understand.

But Callie owns parts of this story too. And Rob has no idea what untangling the truth will truly mean until mother and daughter are forced to stand together in the darkness of the Mojave Desert.

If you're uncomfortable reading about violence against animals, you might be disturbed. The descriptions, however, are brief and purposeful as if the author respects the animal's pain and refuses to use it for shock and gore. Other trigger warnings include miscarriage and domestic violence.