SUNDIAL :: Catriona Ward

Holy cats. If you've read Catriona Ward's prior novel, The Last House on Needless Street (which I HIGHLY recommend), you know not to believe a word she writes (in the best way ever). For me, this only amped the tension up to 11 in her latest, Sundial. Although I'm not generally one for genre labels, someone called this psychological horror and I can't really quibble with that. I took a dip into the "horror" genre a couple of years ago and promptly discovered Ward and Stephen Graham Jones, who are now two authors I trust implicitly to give me creeptastic entertainment. 

Rob and her husband Irving have two daughters, Callie and Annie. The issues with this foursome are evident right away. Irving is a serial cheater with anger issues, but he's not even the most troubling aspect--elder Callie is way too into dead things and Rob fears if she doesn't get her away from the family, Annie is going to end up as one of those dead things. Yet Irving has some level of control, forcing Rob to take drastic measures.

Rob absconds with Callie to Sundial, a supremely messed up property she inherited from her parents. Rob believes the only way to deal with the darkness in Callie is to divulge her own (and the property's) dark past, then make the hardest decision of her life.

The POV changes quite a bit throughout and the twists and arcs are many. Though they feel hard to grasp, it's mostly because Ward never lets the reader in on what is real or what any character's true motivation is. Some of the chapters are actual passages from author Rob's series books, which she writes with real names and then changes. They shed murky light on some of Rob's former trauma, yet nothing clear enough to make out.

Rob also revisits the past with Callie, and the prior goings on at Sundial were less than stellar. Fold in Callie's discussions with some kind of mysterious "friend." Is the friend real? Imaginary? Who is the monster? Why is Callie saving bones of the dead and where does she get them? What hold does Irving have over Rob?

Ward is a magical writer, because I was enrapt with what was going on even though I had no idea what was really going on. All you can hope to do is hold onto enough of the pieces to put together the puzzle with as few missing pieces as possible. It was a wild, magical ride that I continued to think about for days after finishing. I found this much more complex than Needless Street and I'm very happy I read that first. It gave me a little insight into Ward's style and thus I wasn't worried about not having a clue. I knew I just had to hold on and she would take me where she wanted me to go. I will gladly get on her E-ticket rides as long as she keeps opening the gates.