I have been struggling with this one - after The Last House on Needless Street I was looking forward to Catriona Ward’s next book and got even more excited when I received this ARC with the beautiful cover design. The story is very strange and it’s difficult to read at times - there are depictions of domestic violence that is extremely triggering. I’m very sad to say that I had to DNF this one.

I would struggle to be able to review this book due to issues with the file/download. The issues stopped the flow of the book. The issues are:
- Missing words in the middle of sentences
- Stop/start sentences on different lines
- No clear definition of chapters.

Not sure if it was a file/download issue but there were lots of gaps, stops/starts which really ruined the flow. I would love the chance to read a better version as the description of the book appeals to me.

Uh, very disturbing describtions but I was prepared for animals, not for children.

I really like the writing, I wanted to know what had happened and how it would end. I was partialy right, but the ending was not so much my thing unfortunately. I could do perfectly without the fantasy story.

Beside the ending it was really a nice greeping story for me. I enjoyed the dicovering of new stories about the past. The present left me a little meh. But ok, it was still a good book, just not so much for me.

Thank you to my special buddy reader Jennifer to get through this together. We had plenty to discuss.

Having read The House On Needless Street last year, I was aware of the author's unusual style and I was interested to see how she would approach a second book. I found it very well written with some vivid description, but at times the plot felt too obscure to follow. There are also some instances of child and animal abuse which may be upsetting for some readers.

This is about a woman named Rob. She is married with two children and on the surface everything seems normal. But the family is extremely dysfunctional. When Rob fears that her older daughter, Callie, is not normal, she fears for her life.

Rob and Callie take a trip to Sundial, where Rob grew up. Sundial has a dark and disturbing history… one Rob hoped she left behind forever. But the past has a hold on her family that won’t budge.

This has been quite a ride. I loved the past of Sundial. The narrative is divided between past and present, which sometimes I tend not to like. But in this case it works perfectly.

The story was hard and difficult to read because… big trigger warning for animals – dogs in special- being experimented on. There’s a lot of hard moments if you are sensitive to that, I wouldn’t recommend it. But it’s definitely interesting!

The pace was overall quite slow even tho it had a lot of interesting things happening. It made it a bit more difficult to fly through it.

Sundial has a unique atmosphere tho, it was super cool to read about it. I couldn’t guess the end at all! There’s so many twists and turns, and it’s creepy and stressful.

Absolutely love the end. You just learn to be incredibly into knowing what the family is going through – it’s far from a normal family, and you couldn’t believe all of what’s happening and has happened to them. And the end just grips you. And overall, it was an interesting and fun read. Also Callie is the most unreliable character I’ve read about in a while. But she is not the only one!

This is hands down my favorite read of the year!! And nothing the next 9 months do can change that.

I went into this having absolutely no idea what this was about and it stayed that way throughout most of it. Every little piece of this story is so expertly fed to the reader, at the exact right moment, to keep you thinking “what the f*** was that?” I promise that if you can just get passed the first 15% of suburban abuse, you will find the most amazing story.

The most haunting phrase is, “Is this what happens when you teach your kids to scream in silence?”

And for those who can't handle horror... I promise that it’s not that scary precisely because it’s just so beautifully written! It makes you love the story instead of being afraid of it.

Thank you's all around- to netgalley, publishers, and the author!

I loved this book – a complex and twisty thriller where the characters are haunted as much by themselves as by the past. It very cleverly opens in a beautifully decorated suburban house, with Rob, a frustrated woman caught in a fraught marriage. These opening pages lull you into thinking this could be yet another domestic thriller full of affairs and marital secrets. But then we realise that one of Rob's daughters, Callie, seems intent on killing her sister, and suddenly we're catapulted out to Sundial, a remote desert ranch where Rob grew up in a strange hippie-style environment with scientist parents who conducted complex experiments on a huge pack of dogs. We learn that Rob had a sister, who exhibited behaviour not unlike that we now see in Callie. I don't want to write much more because it's a hugely complex story and I'd hate to ruin any of it, but I was so impressed with this multi-layered, dark and disturbing novel.

More originality and brilliance from one of our best writers. Quite different to House on Needless Street but equally as magnificent. A Gothic treat.

WOW!!

What a book! I don’t even know what to say! I didn’t want it to end. I want more! I need a second book!

I can’t find fault in this book at all, and I always find something! Really well written, with lots of different aspects and time frames. Loved the characters even if they could be pretty scary sometimes.

Loved it!

This was my first Catriona Ward novel, and while it wasn't for me, I won't stop reading her other works. The premise of this book piqued my interest right away. It was creepy and mysterious, and it drew me in from the start. The story then took a different turn, and I lost interest, so I DNF'd the book at 52%.

The story is told from the perspectives of both the daughter (Callie) and the mother (Rob). This was fantastic at first, but a large portion of the book follows the mother during her childhood years, detailing what happened to her, and I suppose there's a link between the past and the present. But I didn't stick around to find out.

I was enjoying the current storyline but became disinterested when we seemed to abandon it in favour of the past storyline following Rob. I just couldn't get past that point, even though I'm still curious about what happens in the present. I may return to the book in the future.

I can see why this would appeal to those who enjoy strange, dual timeline books, but it's just not for me.

This is a book which has captured my interest from the beginning. I love how this is written. It is filled with a mix of characters and has been a book I have been unable to predict.

Review
Shut the front door!! This book is instantly one of my top 5 books of 2022.

I read this book within 24 hours. I was obsessed with it. There is nothing that I can write that will do this book the justice it deserves but my god you need to read this.

I thought I had it sussed about three quarters of the way through and then it changed direction and it went from a 4⭐ to a 5⭐ very quickly.

I will shout about this book to anyone who will listen and is a 2022 must read.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rob has a husband, two daughters and a nice house in the suburbs. But Rob is worried about her oldest daughter Callie. She collects bones of dead animals; she talks to imaginary friends, and she is scaring her sister. Rob sees a darkness in Callie that brings her fear as it reminds of her of her family who she has left in the past. She decides to take Callie back to her childhood home, Sundial. Callie is worried about her mother as she has begun to look at her weirdly.

This was a really compelling and gripping novel. I could not put it down, desperate to see how things ended. I really liked Ward’s writing, it was creepy, haunting and sometimes sad, so I am really looking forward to reading her debut now.

The story is told in past and present. We see Rob’s childhood living in Sundial, as well as her in the present and we also get her daughter, Callie’s, point of view. I really enjoyed the differing perspectives and thought they were done really well. I liked how we saw both Rob and Callie, and their fears of one another. As well as getting a look at Rob’s past and her relationship with her sister and how her childhood has made her into who she is today.

The parts I didn’t love were the Arrowwood chapters. These were a book within a book. Rob is writing a book in her spare time, and I get why they were included but they didn’t fully work for me.

Some great twists and turns. Be aware of the trigger warnings as there is a lot of dark content. I’m looking forward to picking up The Last House on Needless Street off my shelves now.

So, this was a great read. A very unique and dark story, with undertone of the supernatural, a fav combination for me.

The story was engrossing, with twists and turns that I didn't see coming and an ending that blew my mind.

Would recomend !

I'm going to start by saying that the authors previous book "The last house on needless street", was one of my favourite books last year. I think because of that I had very high expectations for "Sundial".
It's a story about Rob and her family. We learn about her past, her connection with her twin sister Jack and their childhood home Sundial where her parents run various experiments. Those stories alternate with present time where we follow Rob and her daughter Callie.
The book is very eerie and atmospheric and I really liked the setting of the Sundial.
I found the certain parts of the book very well thought through and well written but I felt there was enough going on to fill two or three books.
I liked that the book made you guess and speculate. But I found the going between different characters and timelines too chaotic to fully sppreciate the cleverness of the plot.

This book just blew my mind.

I read Sundial with my heart in my mouth, horrified, not knowing what could possibly happen next. Honestly, I thought I knew what type of story would be coming my way after reading The Last House on Needless Street, but this is nothing like that, yet at the same time, it’s still totally Catriona Ward! Everything seems a little off kilter, a bit strange. People don’t behave in quite the same way as ‘normal’ people would.

I mean, a bonding experience in the Mojave desert between a mother and her daughter, in the childhood home where her parents experimented on dogs (this is a horror book. Horrible things happen to not just the people, but the animals as well). How could anything possibly go wrong, I ask you!

I hadn’t read horror in quite a while before I read Needless Street, and now I seem to be on a roll. This book reminds me why I read a lot of this genre as a teenager. It’s that feeling of being transfixed, unable to turn away whilst horrific things happen. The mind games as well!

Love, love, loved this.

And now I need to go and read Ward’s backlist, and make sure I read whatever comes next!

Thanks to the marvellous Pigeonhole yet again for an amazing serialisation!! Keep it up!

Well that was dark and disturbing but so hard to stop reading! The plot appears to move slowly but there is much happening and the past of the main character Rob, adds to the twists and turns as all is revealed. Rob is in an abusive marriage with Irving and they have two daughters. The younger daughter, Annie is sweet and her mothers favourite. Callie, is a creepy kid, she collects bones and talks to imaginary friends. To protect Annie from Callie, Rob decides to take Callie to her childhood home, Sundial in the Mojave desert leaving Annie in the care of Irving at home. What follows is a brilliantly constructed psychological horror/thriller that had me guessing til the end.

This book didn't quite hit the mark for me. The writing was creepy and atmospheric, especially at the beginning, but I felt the unsettling-ness tailed off a bit after a while. I felt a fair amount of the backstory of the twins was not necessarily relevant to the issue at the center of the story. I mean it sort of was, but their origin didn't have to be yet another heaping of misery when it wasn't relevent to the 'science' of the story. Irving felt like a caricature of himself, there was a lot of purposeful not communicating over everything from everyone and it was a bit much in places. I also didn't feel like the extra story written by Rob added anything except for confusion most of the time. I think this is one I'm going to reread and probably pick up on things I didn't realise were relevant the first time, but as it stands it was an ok read. Not as clever and psychological as The Last House on Needless Street, but great writing and an ok plot.

☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️
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I devoured Sundial by Catriona Ward in a day. I started reading on Sunday evening, raced through my obligations on Monday morning & spent the rest of the day ignoring the world. Holy mortherforking shirt balls people. I don't know what I expected but what I got was powerful, dark & twisty & just to prove I, as the reader, have no control, it got even twistier.
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Ward goes to psychological depths I don't see in many other books. In fact, I can't think of another example that isn't her second book, The Last House On Needless Street. There is so much to unpack in Sundial. What's real, what's false memory, what's a complete lie? The use of language, the flow of the narrative, are all designed to keep you on edge & it's intensely unpleasant but so, so good.
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I try not to mention the review thoughts of others in my own but this time I feel I need to. Sundial is dark & wicked & is a lesson in how brutal the world can be (like we really need it) BUT if you come to Sundial thinking it will be like Needless St, you will be disappointed & it will be your own fault. Sundial proves Ward is writing in her power & we're just lucky to witness it.

I was so excited for this book and the twists in it did not disappoint, however it was a very slow burn so at times I felt I was not fully hooked on the book. The book started out so strong with a horror vibe and really complex, interesting characters. However, I felt the middle of the story was dragging out a bit before then producing some great twists and a dramatic ending. Some of the subject matter was dark but it all added to the horror, creepy vibe of this book. I feel like people who enjoy horror reads will like this book but just know the story unpacks slowly.
Rob fears for her daughters. For Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. For Annie, because she fears what Callie might do to her. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her of the family she left behind. She decides to take Callie back to her childhood home, to Sundial, deep in the Mojave Desert. And there she will have to make a terrible choice. Callie is afraid of her mother. Rob has begun to look at her strangely. To tell her secrets about her past that both disturb and excite her. And Callie is beginning to wonder if only one of them will leave Sundial alive