Sundial by Catriona Ward Blog Tour!

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Hi hello and welcome to the blog tour for Sundial by Catriona Ward, hosted by JeanBookNerd! I'm so excited that I finally get to share my review for this incredible book. This was such a wild ride and I was not expecting any of the twists and turns that it had! Please be sure to check out all of the other tour stops here and stay tuned to the end of my review for an awesome giveaway where you could win a copy of Sundial! Let's get started!
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Title: Sundial
Author: Catriona Ward
Pages: 304
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Release Date: 01 March 2022

From Goodreads: "All Rob wanted was a normal life. She almost got it, too: a husband, two kids, a nice house in the suburbs. But Rob fears for her oldest daughter, Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her too much 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 worried about her mother. Rob has begun to look at her strangely and speaks of past secrets. And Callie fears that only one of them will leave Sundial alive. The mother and daughter embark on a dark, desert journey to the past in the hopes of redeeming their future."

Thank you to JeanBookNerd and Tor Nightfire for sending me an ARC of this book for review! All opinions are my own.

Trigger warnings: Animal abuse/death, domestic/child/sibling abuse, drug use, graphic depictions, miscarriage, self-harm

Plot:
There is nothing that I can really say about the plot without giving away too much. And trust me when I say this is a book you want to go into knowing as little as possible. Because of this, I will be very vague and this section may be a bit shorter because I don’t want to spoil anything! I don’t know what I was expecting when I picked up Sundial, honestly. I was initially drawn in by the cover (how could you not be, it’s absolutely stunning!) and the synopsis sounded interesting enough for me to want to give it a shot. Man am I glad I did because it’s easily one of my new favorite books! It’s basically a mother daughter trip to the desert on acid; I don’t know if there’s really a better way to describe it. It’s so twisty and at times uncomfortable but the way that things unfold is absolutely genius. There may be times that you have no idea what’s happening and may think that what you’re reading has no relevance to the plot, but you’re wrong. Everything is related and nothing is what it seems. This plot was executed masterfully and I understand that everyone will have a different opinion about what happens and how the story is written, but I was hooked almost immediately and I don’t think I’ll ever stop singing the praises for how fantastic this book is! 

Characters:
I’m not sure where to even start about our cast of characters. Rob was easily my favorite unreliable narrator I’ve ever read from. I had so much sympathy for her right from the start because all she is and has been trying to do is be a good mother to her daughters, even if one of them hates her. She has so much love for her girls and only wants to do what’s best for them, no matter the cost. It feels weird to say that I loved finding out more about Rob’s incredibly strange backstory but I really did. I enjoy seeing why characters are the way they are and I can’t say more about Rob’s story without giving things away but just know it was insane. At the end of it all, I love Rob and her story and the love that she has for her daughters. 

Callie is our other narrator and her story is also pretty crazy. Getting to read some of the events of the story through a child’s eyes made everything feel so much more real. You get to see things how Rob sees them but also how a child perceives them, which are two different things. I think it really adds to the story having some parts told by Callie because you can never really know what’s really going on between her and her mother. Who is telling the truth? Are the events that are occurring really happening this way, or is it the perspective that is shifting how things are unfolding? I don’t normally enjoy multiple POV books, but Sundial did it in a way that made the story that much more interesting for me as a reader. Just know that Callie is fantastic and so is Rob.

There are other characters in this book but I don’t want to talk about them because spoilers and I’m afraid to give too much away! But the other characters in this book were just as strange and unreliable as you can imagine. It made things so much more eerie for me because the characters just never feel right but they justify their actions and words in a way that makes you feel like it should be right. The cast of characters really give this book a distinctive feeling that you’ll definitely remember long after you finish reading!

Writing:
The writing was probably my favorite part of this book. I will say I did initially struggle with reading this and I think it was because of the writing. But once I really got into the style and how unique it is, I didn't want to put it down. It's something that takes getting used to, that's for sure because it feels like it's overly flowery or just plain weird. But I honestly think that this was done for a reason, to give almost an uneasy feeling and show that Rob may not be the most reliable narrator. There's a constant sense of "Can I trust what I'm reading?" but it's not overly obvious. You just constantly feel strange when it comes to the story that is unfolding in front of you, almost like there's an itch that you can't scratch but you don't know where it's at. Some people may not enjoy that but I love that it adds tension to the experience! This is such a unique writing style, as I said above, and it's probably one of my new favorites to read. I had so many moments where I was confused and uncomfortable and wanted to know more and I love that I could get so many feelings while reading this book. There were several quotes that when I read, I felt if that makes any sense. Almost like something in my soul was like "Ah yes, this." And I know that sounds cheesy, but I really did love the writing and these quotes that I came across while reading.

"I don't know what it's like for other people but love and nausea are often indistinguishable to me."

"Living is enough. It is so intense and painful."

"It's cold inside the MRI machine. Narrow, cold, and full of noise like ghosts knocking on your coffin."

"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?"

"It's these little details between people that sometimes seem to spell the future when you look back on them."

"Everyone has one story that explains them completely. I thought I knew what mine was. I was wrong- I am in it, here and now. This will be the choice that defines me. The decision tree unfolds before my eyes, the terrible fruit at the end of each branch."

"Everything comes around the dial in the end."

As I was reading the end of this book, I found myself absolutely bawling my brains out. It felt like a strange reaction to have honestly, especially with the events that are occurring during the finale, but I was just so overcome with emotion and seeing everything that I had read throughout the book come together all at once. Crying while reading is a rare occurrence for me, so that’s how I knew that I had found a book to add to my all-time favorites list. It actually made me text my mother to tell her I loved her, that’s how much this book affected me! 

Something about this book just spoke to the weirdo in me. Sundial is one of the craziest books that I've read in a long time and it was such an enjoyable experience. It’s not going to be a book for everyone, but I was absolutely the target audience. With a twisty plot, unreliable characters, and a writing style that will make you both enthralled and uncomfortable, Sundial is easily the best horror book of 2022.

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About the Author:

CATRIONA WARD was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the United States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She studied English at the University of Oxford and later earned her master’s degree in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Ward won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel for her debut, The Girl from Rawblood, and again for Little Eve, making her the first woman to win the prize twice. Little Eve also won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel and will be published by Nightfire.


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