*Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for providing me with an eARc in exchange for an honest review - all opinions and thoughts are my own*

I loved Catriona Ward's last novel The Last House on Needless Street. It was one of my favourite books from 2021. I was very excited to read her new release.

What I enjoyed was Ward's writing, like her last novel it is lush, unique, clever and really intriguing. I really enjoyed the premise and set up. The atmosphere of the story is eerie and unsettling, you don't really know what is going on which I really liked. I really enjoy creepy children's stories where you don't know what's happening to the children and the family. Also really liked how the ending was done and liked the overall conclusion.

However, what didn't work for me is very subjective and it may not be a problem for everyone. There is a large portion of the book that revolves around animal cruelty and experimentation, particularly on dogs. This is something that bothers me quite a bit and I found it very hard to read. If that would bother you, I would not pick this book up as its explicit and on page. If I would have known this ahead of time, I know I would not have picked this book up.

Unlike The Last House on Needless Street that could be arguably not horror, this is a horror book. Love the unsettling atmosphere, beware of gore and violence, heavy CW for animal cruelty, child abuse, child death and miscarriage. I am sad that I didn't enjoy this book as much as I wanted but I will read Catriona Wards next book for sure.

This is big part domestic suspense (2 for 1) and Criminal Minds episode. Therefore some psychological horror, some slasher film, some cautionary tale. It takes skills to take tired tropes and fashion them into something new, and Ward has done that.

Many have complained about the book within a book. For me, the book within a book basically told you what was coming if you could see it. None of the characters have the full story, partially because of secrets and partially because of avoiding the uncomfortable.

Everyone in the book is a monster, and they're also all very human. Rob is a suburban mom with a history of shoving her past so far down that she forgets it. Callie is her daughter who is haunted by the spirits of things whose bones she collects. Someone is killing all the animals who had these bones. Rob is married to Irving, a total stereotypical jerk / narcissist / possibly psychopath. Her younger daughter Annie is her world since Callie is a daddy's girl.

But that's only the set up that you're meant to forget by the end so the "reveals" can happen. Meanwhile, you are taken to the desert for a rollercoaster ride through Rob's past. It's a world away from suburbia, and even the parts that seem light are dark. Every part of it has a piece to play in the present, but it is it's own story within a story, It could be a novel on its own. Then there's the book within a book, where Rob tries to reconcile this twisted past with not only suburbia but her romanticized ideas of normalcy based on novels about an upper class all female boarding school.

If you're paying attention to the details, you know the plot before it happens, and it's really an experience of watching the characters uncover it. If you have troubles with multiple povs, twists and turns, etc, just let those details wash over you and go on a ride with the characters - mostly Rob. It's clear that Rob is meant to be someone who the target audience can relate to.

The importance of memory and facing the uncomfortable is the cautionary tale. But it seems that the characters don't quite get that by the end. This book just kind of stops. I know it was going for artistic symbolism or something, but it didnt work for me. Also, we never got the origin of the symbol, but only Rob's "it's always been there."

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge / Tor Nightfire for an ecopy of this one!!

I think it’s safe to say that Catriona Ward is quickly becoming an author I will not hesitate to read in the future. I love her writing style, her stories are never what they seem and she manages to completely pull the rug out from under me. Sundial is a psychological thriller/horror that was perfectly creepy, sad and just a book that totally consumed me with its perfectly twisted plot. I was a huge fan of this one and honestly just blown away by her ability to bring about such beauty and ugliness at the same time. Big fan here! 4.5⭐️

Sadly, I think I'm done with Catriona Ward's work. I really disliked 'Last House on Needless Street,' but this synopsis drew me in, so I thought I'd give her horror another shot. I...really did not like this. The one thing I try to avoid in media is animal torture, particularly extended scenes of it, and the dog stuff here was way too much for me, and made the reading experience kinda miserable.

💀ARC REVIEW 💀
Sundial by Catriona Ward
Pub date : March 1,2022
Publisher: Macmillan-Tor/Forge

This book holds an immensely frightening, suspenseful thrilling story within it’s pages.
I would recommend reading it with minimal knowledge of the contents because it will take you on an exhilarating, twisted ride.
There are so many layers to the narrative.
The story is about Rob, a suburban mother with two young daughters. Her marriage to their father is a disaster and when she learns that her daughter might need her help she does whatever it takes to help her.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: animal cruelty, domestic violence, substance use, some gore.
🌟🌟🌟🌟/5

I would have omitted the book within a book aspect as I found it distracting from all of the action.

Thank you to @NetGalley and @torbooks for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sundial is the first book I've read by Catriona Ward and it was very interesting! I really liked the premise of how one chooses to revisit their past to make sense of their present. The use of the desert brought an interesting twist to this gothic novel. While some of my theories were correct, there were quite a bit of twists that I didn't see coming. This was something I mostly enjoyed and will definitely try to get my fellow horror fans to read.

SUNDIAL by Catriona Ward is a horror take on an old, sad country-western song.

Specifically, STAND BY YOUR MAN by Tammy Wynette. But not so simple. That would be too easy.

Maybe it’s like A HORSE WITH NO NAME by AMERICA, on PCP. Yes, it’s probably something like that.

40 pages in and I can see the author playing with structure.

Everything is up for grabs.

“Two words, three lies”
Le Diaboliques 1955

Everything is plural. Except what isn’t.

Wards writing is interesting as it’s very rocky. I love that she will introduce unexpected characters and povs and they may not always resolve themselves.

Rich with detail, writing like a rocking boat. All kinds of beautiful folkish features.

90% of the time you might feel disoriented and confused. There are so many characters. And combine that with the multiple povs. It’s a lot.

You might come out of it asking: “Wtf did I just read” and maybe that’s the beauty of it.

For me as a reader, I couldn’t connect with any part of the story. And from the beginning, it felt more like a spectacle than an immersive experience. Unfortunately, I was too outside of my reading experience to truly enjoy the enrapturing quality.

For those of you who are going to pick this up, try to allow the details to wash over you like some kind of literary starfish. Don’t get caught up on all the details.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I will most likely re-read this at some point to see if I’d rate it higher. Such a unique story!

Thanks to Tor/Nightfire for the advanced copy and Netgalley for the galley!

I can honestly say I have never read anything like this in my entire life. It is not something I would have thought I would actually enjoy reading (I clearly did not read the description of the story before I requested it).

It is dark (very, very dark), it is creepy (in that little creepy kid way), it is smart (those experiments!), and it is way beyond weird (bones, maggots, and ghosts galore).

But it sure did hook me and would not let me go until the last page!!

This mother/daughter trip is not like anything you’ve ever experienced - it is WILD.

The story is told from two perspectives (Mother - Rob, and daughter, Callie) from the past and the present, plus a fantasy story that Rob has written to tell their story, kind of.

What a strange and interesting ride that was!! This book is not going to be for everyone, but it gets a big five stars from me!

I'd like to thank NetGalley for providing me with access to an advance copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.
Sundial left me shaken and nervous, especially around my dog (our furry children play an important role in this novel), and I had to let this one percolate for awhile before tackling the review.
From the outside looking in, Rob appears to have the perfect life - a husband, two daughters, a comfortable home in a nice neighbourhood, a fulfilling career as a school teacher. But it's all a sham. Her husband, Irving, is a world-class douche (I'm not spoiling anything you wouldn't pick up on within the first 10 sentences) and her daughter, Callie, has a strange fascination with dead critters. Even Rob's behaviour left a lot to be desired. You're not sure who the good and the bad guys are. My skin was crawling within the first chapter, thanks to my creepy radar. The descriptions of chicken pox didn't help.
After a disturbing incident involving her two daughters, Rob decides to take Callie on a road trip to the family's ranch, located in the Mojave desert of California, for a "bonding weekend." And there, things get real weird as she recounts her childhood - complete with freaky dog experiments that reminded me of Richard Adams' book, The Plague Dogs - to Callie. By alternating the story between the past to the present, the reader learns about Rob's weird upbringing and her twin sister, Jack.
I read this book with an increasing feeling of dread - but it was good dread, if that makes any sense.
Sundial was a great read with a surprising twist at the end that I didn't see coming (and I usually do). But be warned - there is some depictions of animal abuse. And child abuse.

I love anything Catriona Ward writes, this proves it.

The Last House on Needless Street was one of my favorite books of 2021 and this is well in the running for 2022 already. It was my first five star read of the year and it very much deserves it.

I don’t want to say too much, because like her previous book, Sundial just needs to be experienced blind. This book begins almost like a domestic thriller but turns into so much more. Thriller? Cultish? Mystery? Even a bit of sci-fi too. It’s got some meta aspects as well, with a book-within-a-book story telling and some other story telling devices that add to the unreliable nature of the story. I saw a couple reviews saying the book-within-a-book was unnecessary but I really think there are some hints hidden within those sections that could be picked up on. Which brings me to my last point…

I read the last page and immediately wanted to reread it. Which for me is a sure fire sign I loved this book. Any book with hints and details I need to catch upon a second reading just makes me so excited and this book checks those boxes for me.

Overall, highly recommend this one, even if you didn’t quite connect with the Last House on Needless Street. It’s got a different flair and covers some different topics so I think it’s worth a shot for anyone looking for a psychological horror/thriller.

Note: there is a great deal concerning animal death and abuse. It plays a big role in the plot so I think it merits a warning. I was able to still read and enjoy this book outside these aspects because they served a purpose within the plot and weren’t just there for shock factor alone.

The Last House on Needless Street blew me away, so requesting Ward’s next release on NetGalley was a no-brainer.

Right away you know this is a dysfunctional family – a husband with anger problems who’s had numerous affairs, an unhappy wife who clearly has issues of her own, a daughter obsessed with nearly anything involving death. I felt bad for the daughters who had to witness the toxic, abusive relationship between their parents. Rob has always found it difficult to connect with her oldest daughter, Callie. At times, she even struggles to like her. She feels like Callie is more her husband’s daughter, while Rob’s strongest bond is with her youngest daughter. After a jarring event, Rob knows she has to take Callie away to her childhood home, Sundial. And what a twisted place it was to grow up.

The gradual reveal of Rob’s past sent icy fingers inching their way up my spine. It’s no surprise her greatest desire is to have a normal life. Shocking, horrifying secrets some to light, and you’ll never see them coming. The ending is difficult to describe. Just trust me when I say you’ll need uninterrupted time to finish those pages and then more time to think about it.

There’s no doubt the psychological suspense is well-crafted, but I struggled with this novel due to the many mentions of animal death and cruelty and had to skim through several pages. If there was any hint of this in the description or a content warning, I probably wouldn’t have requested it. If that topic is a trigger, you might want to skip this one.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is a book where nothing at all is what it seems. It starts with a woman with two children who lives with her husband in the suburbs. She is a stay-at-home mother, and her husband works as an educator at a local college. Their two daughters are Callie and Annie. It soon becomes very obvious that she and her husband have some issues, and that she doesn't have anyone she can trust.

Rob, the mother, becomes convinced that she needs to separate her daughters, as she is afraid that the older girl might harm the younger. Callie's artwork freaked me out as did Pale Callie, her imaginary friend. Rob leaves with Callie to travel to the place where she grew up, a ranch called Sundial, out in the Mojave Desert. Her parents ran a lab there where they experimented with dogs. College students would intern with them. The only place nearby is a ranch called the Puppy Farm, which has been unoccupied for years.

This book is beautifully plotted, one of the best books of slow, creeping horror that I've ever read. Thanks to the author, publisher MacMillan Tor/Forge, and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review an advance reader copy of this book. All opinions here are my own.

“Clocks are everywhere if you know how to recognize them. A dandelion is a clock, obviously. Rice pouring into a bowl is a clock, each grain marking the passage of time. …. Each of these things measures living moments, what remains before death. Tick, tock.”

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward was one of my favorites last year. It is my idea of absolute perfection. This year she brings Sundial and I can’t imagine that it would be as good as Needless Street but it is!

This is a hard one to review without revealing spoilers. I will do my best! Two sisters, Rob and Jack, raised in the desert at a place called Sundial, and unconventional upbringing for sure but we don’t learn too much about it until a bit later in the book. The book starts with Rob, mother to two daughters, married to a cruel abusive man. When Rob believes her 12-year-old daughter, Callie, to be showing signs of being like her sister, Jack, she decides to take her to her abandoned family home, Sundial, to make a terrible choice. Just how far is Rob willing to go to save her children?

It’s on this trip when insight into Rob and Jacks life is gained and a fair amount of it is quite brutal and gruesome. I will say this here and now *THERE IS ANIMAL ABUSE IN THIS BOOK* it is graphic and sad. Reader beware. This is a tough subject for me and I skimmed the majority of it.

This is psychological horror at its finest! The atmosphere is overwhelmingly dark with a twisty plot and an ending that I was not expecting – not even a little bit. So, surprise! This is where I’ll end this because I think going in with as little knowledge as possible will give the reader the best reading experience!

My thanks to Tor/Forge for the gifted DRC.

Sundial, by Catriona Ward

Short Take: Oh goody, there was a shortage of animal abuse in my life. NOT.

(*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*)

(Warning: There are spoiler-ish comments below!)

Usually I say something witty and hilarious in my intro, regarding the weather or whatever is interesting in my life, but I just want to get this one over with, so let’s get to it, k?

Rob is married to Irving, a really terrible husband and person, and has two daughters, Callie and Annie. Callie appears to also be deeply troubled, and after a frightening incident with Annie, Rob Makes A Decision.

Mother and daughter head to Sundial, the weird desert commune-slash-animal-torture-lab where Rob and her twin sister Jack were raised. Through flashbacks, we learn what happened to Jack, as well as Rob’s parents, and we’re also treated to long, detailed passages of dogs being tortured.

There’s some weird, confusing, sci-fi-ish stuff about the behavioral modification experiments being performed, and how they work so well until they randomly stop working. Eventually, of course, Past And Present Collide, leading up to a big final confrontation but oops apparently the author just forgot to write that chapter.

There seems to be a trend of non-endings in new thrillers lately, and I don’t just mean a couple of loose threads. I mean, the whole stinkin book is leading up to a collision between main characters, and it just never happens. There was one really great book last year that did that (no I won’t tell you which one) and suddenly, everyone is doing it.

Once is great and subversive and innovative, but by the third book, I’m over it. And I could maybe have even forgiven that, but everything that came before was just a nonstop slog of overly convoluted misery and did I mention the dog torture? There’s not a single speck of light or hope to be found anywhere in this mess.

The Nerd’s Rating: ONE HAPPY NEURON (and some prozac, either for me or the author, I don’t even know anymore.)

I finished this book in a weekend, and for being a slow reader, that speaks volumes. Ward has become an auto buy author for me, after both The last House On Needless Street and now Sundial have both exceeded all my expectations in what I look for in a horror book.

Ward has undeniable magic as an author, her words not letting the reader go until the last sentence, and Sundial is no exception. The thing I love about Ward's stories is how unpredictable they are, and she can write damn good twists. Do yourself a favor, lovers of horror and thrillers, and pick up Sundial. The story of Rob, Callie, Annie, Jack and Irving will haunt you long after. Five Stars!

This is one of the most complicated, maddening, unnerving horror stories that I've read in a long, long time. I haven't read from Catriona Ward before but was intrigued by the hype surrounding The Last House on Needless Street. Based on review for that book, I wasn't expecting an action-packed story full of jump-scares and I'm glad my expectations were set appropriately before I stared reading.

It took a lot for me to get through this book, especially the first half. I had to force myself to pick up this back up because I just wasn't feeling any motivation to continue reading. However, once I got through the first half, things moved a little bit better. This book follows dual timelines and multiple POVs, but I found myself getting bored when we spent too much time in one timeline or one POV, especially during Rob's recounting of the events of her childhood and how her relationship with Jack changes. I understand that this backstory was important to build the overarching story between Rob, Callie, and Irving, but I needed to have more of a breather in-between events to keep me going.

Another thing worth noting is that there were several typos and formatting errors. I am hoping this is exclusive to the eARC and will be fixed in the final printing. Also, this book uses British spelling and phrasing at times which just feels weird when the main character grew up in the Mojave Desert and lives in California.

What I liked
- The premise (i.e. Mia & Flacon's work) felt very unique and original. I've read my fair share of horror and psychological thrillers and I have yet to come across a similar storyline.
- This book didn't sugar-coat much. It was bloody, offensive, and downright hard to read sometimes which I think made it all the more impactful and memorable.
- The cover of this book is absolutely beautiful and eye-catching!

In the end, I found this was a 3-star read that I would definitely recommend to fans of the horror genre.

Retail reviews will be posted on release day.

I’m a sucker for a gorgeous cover. That’s what sold me on Sundial before I even cracked the first page. I don’t mean to gush over it, but the cover is so beautiful and haunting all on its own, I really should have been more prepared for how haunting and beautiful the story within was going to be.

The story grabbed me almost immediately, the beautiful writing making it nearly impossible not to become completely enraptured. Almost immediately, too, we notice that while Rob, our main character, might have a beautiful view of the world, she has far from the lovely life she’s tried to build. She tends to her youngest daughter, a quiet, shy girl, who has come down with a case of chickenpox, we see her rocky marriage and her fractured relationship with her oldest daughter, Callie. After a frightening night, Rob has one idea for how she can finally repair her relationship with Callie and get some much-needed time away from her abusive husband.

She and Callie are going to her old home in the middle of the desert, a place she calls Sundial.

It’s at Sundial when we discover the meat of the plot, which takes place not in the present day, but many years ago when Rob lived there with her twin sister, Jack. It’s when Rob begins recounting this story within a story where things fall apart a little bit for me. It’s not that the writing didn’t hold up, it’s just that I’m not a big fan of the format. The story-within-a-story works well for this book, but made it harder for me to care about things when they did jump back to the present day

Everything in the present was shrouded in mystery and I think things suffered a bit for it. Because I wasn’t aware of what was happening, I couldn’t fully appreciate the imagery being laid before me; I was more engrossed in past-Rob and Jack to worry about what Callie was doing with Pale-Callie and Dumpster Puppy. I knew it was going to make sense to me eventually, but in the moment I was reading it, I just wanted to get back to past-Rob and Jack and find out what was happening in past-Sundial.

It’s really just that I tend to dislike the ‘story within a story’ format – there’s almost always a set of characters that’s more interesting, and it ends up feeling like there are two separate stories going on instead of one intertwined plot. Since the ‘within a story’ requires a separate set of characters, it feels like reading a new novel, that requires a new introduction, which halts any forward momentum and brings me back to stage one. I had to establish that sort of trust with Rob again because she was a new Rob, a different Rob than the one I’d been reading about.

This isn’t to say I wasn’t engrossed in the story. Just that the format lent itself to having something of a soggy middle when it started to delve into the past. Despite this, the book was fantastic and I found myself latching onto the ‘new’ cast as easily as if they were old friends to become re-acquainted with. The characters were deep and interesting, and every one of them had a rich backstory that connected all the threads together with shocking clarity that built a tension that started on the first page and stayed with me all the way until the very last page.

Dark and creepy.
TW: unethical actions towards animals
I had to skip over portions as I cannot read anything about animal abuse.
Thanks NetGalley for the arc.

Full review to come on Goodreads and Amazon. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a review copy.

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillian-Tor/Forge (Tor-Nightfire) for allowing me to read a digital ARC of Sundial, which has a March 2022 release date.

OMG! Reading this book was like trying to find your way out of a labyrinth. This is the first book I’ve read by Catriona Ward, and she is a master of suspense and deception. I thought I had figured out what going on in the story, but the author pulled the rug out from under me multiple times. This story is told over multiple timelines and includes many unappealing topics (I.e., graphic spousal abuse, child abuse, animal abuse, manipulation, betrayal, infidelity, etc.) and themes (nature vs. nurture), but the author piqued my curiosity as I plowed through the book to its stunning conclusion. I will never forget this novel and it’s well-developed, complex characters-Rob, Kenny, Irving, Callie, and Annie. I must say, the story within a story was confusing.