Sundial by Catriona Ward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sundial follows Rob, a woman with a hidden past, and her daughter Callie, who has become a danger to others, especially her younger sister. Together, they travel to Sundial, the place Rob called home for her childhood and teen years, so that Rob can determine how best to handle Callie. Unfortunately, Callie becomes more and more convinced that she won’t be leaving Sundial alive, and must figure out a way to defend herself should it come down to life or death. But, just as the sands of the desert are vast, so too are the secrets that Rob keeps close to her chest.
I absolutely loved this book, and read it for the Ladies of Horror Fiction Discord book club for May, though it took me a lot longer to finish than I anticipated (we’ll get to that in a minute). Catriona Ward’s writing style suited me. It was beautiful and descriptive, but not overwrought. The story was atmospheric, shocking, and masterfully twisty. That being said, there are some topics that may be difficult for some people, so if any of the following bothers you, be safe; animal cruelty, animal death, drug abuse, domestic abuse, child abuse, miscarriage. I am a-okay with most topics, but animal cruelty is one that I have always struggled with. So, this book was a long and difficult read for me in some ways. Not necessarily because of the content, as I did actually manage it alright, but the dread that it would become too much made it difficult to pick up the book frequently. I got a lot of Lovecraft read in between Sundial.
Setting first I think. Sundial is set in the Mohave Desert, at a place called, funnily enough, Sundial. Here is where Rob grew up with her twin sister Jack, and her parents, Falcon and Mia. It was an unusual upbringing. The sisters were home-schooled, rarely left Sundial, and were often surrounded by strangers. Because Sundial was a research lab as well as home. Falcon and Mia did experiments on dogs, and many science students would intern with them for college. As for Sundial itself, it did seem genuinely beautiful, in an eerie way. I’ve never read a book set in a desert, so this was a fun experience for me, and the sprawling Sundial and the sea of sand it was surrounded by came alive in my imagination.
The characters are difficult to discuss without spoiling anything important, but I can tell you that they were complicated. Their inner lives, their relationships with others, the way they saw the world around them, all very complicated. Which made for some interesting scenarios and discoveries throughout the story. There were characters that were just trying to do their best, characters who were just downright awful, characters who were becoming corrupted, characters just trying to live their lives. And we witness these characters through three points of view. We have Callie chapters, Rob chapters, and Rob Then chapters. That’s right, multiple timelines!
In between some chapters, there were also Arrowwood segments. Arrowwood was a story that Rob was writing, just for herself. The characters were always named after people she knew, now or previously, and were often bloody and gory. They were a bit jarring honestly. I often get really excited by this kind of thing. Blog posts, in world stories, segments of something different from our normal pace, being spread throughout the story to give us more context and make the world feel more lived in. While the Arrowwood segments do make sense by the end of the book, they just didn’t feel overly necessary to me, and I found I was more likely to put the book down when I was feeling like a break if I saw Arrowwood as the chapter heading.
Sundial contained many twists, sprinkled throughout liberally, which was a lot of fun. As soon as I’d figure one out, a new one would be introduced, keeping me on my toes. When I did figure something out ahead of time, it was very satisfying, and because the Fanciful Sister had already finished the book, I messaged her with theories and my eureka moments, which was fun as well. There was one twist that seemed to divide some readers, but I found enough foreshadowing upon reflection that it didn’t seem totally out of left field.
All in all, I enjoyed my time in Sundial, even if it took me a little longer to get to the finish line than I would have liked. That was, as said above, down to my own limitations though, and nothing to do with the author. If you like your horror a bit more grounded in reality, and psychologically provocative, then you may enjoy this one.
Fanciful Reading!
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Rebecka O'Malley 