Catriona Ward appears to be one of those unicorn authors who actually made a turn from thrillers to the dark side. It’s admirable; most go the other way, from the more niche horrific territory to the all-too popular mystery thrillers. Jennifer McMahon being the only exception I can think off, who started off with conventional thrillers, veered into the supernatural territory and now appears to be coming back around. And, of course, there are myriad things that constitute what is scary to a reader, from creature features to psychopaths and tons in-between. But…
But when I selected this book to be my first book of the year, I was expecting something from the realm of conventionally horrific. The way it looks, the cover, the category the publisher had it under on Netgalley…kind of steer you that way. Alas, it wasn’t the case. Or wasn’t quite the case. There’s plenty to horrify you within the pages of Sundial. Plenty to horrify you about Sundial, the place the main protagonist is raised in, a remote desert compound dedicated to psychological manipulation of animals. MK Ultra for puppies. Nightmarish, really. Certainly, not suitable for weak stomachs and puppy lovers. But… But if I had to classify or categorize this book, I’d label it a thriller, specifically a mommy thriller, a subgenre of all these ubiquitous female-authored female-centric thrillers that are powered by mother’s milk. Granted, it is much, much darker than most, but still very, very recognizable as such. The protagonist is a woman who by all rights should have never reproduced and yet she ends up being a mother of two, one of whom she suspects of latent psychopathy. So, she takes that one back to Sundial for some mother/daughter time and there amid the decrepitude of the place and the graves and all the terrible memories, they have a reckoning of sorts. This is a book that heavily exists in the past, a past so messed-up, so tragic, that it seemingly had no choice but to shape the protagonist the way it did. But then again…her spectacularly terrible marriage might have been avoided. Instead of taking up so much of her life and the book’s time. You make a lot of excuses for the character because of all she’d been through and the dramatic unconventionality of her upbringing, but still…she was raised smarter than that. Literally, homeschooled to be smart. Anyway, if the mother/daughter thing isn’t enough to flood you with a warm river of estrogen, there’s also a strong sisterhood theme going on, both in the past and in the present. It’s nearly every version of girl power you can think of and every relationship in this book is completely and profoundly f*cked up. The fact that the protagonist survives her past only to find herself in this future/present is… just lamentable. Good for drama, but lamentable. You do want her to succeed, presumably, but she isn’t an easy sell. No one in this book is, arguably, except maybe for Callie. That’s one of the most interesting things about this book, actually. It’s populated with thoroughly to mildly unlikeable and unsympathetic characters and yet makes for a surprisingly compelling narrative. I suppose that says a lot about Ward’s skills as an author. Dark and disturbing as this book in, it drags you in, quicksand style. Makes for a strangely engaging reading experience. Once I’d still class as a dark (stygian, pitch black) psychological thriller above all, but opinions may vary. Difficult to recommend this one. Read at your own discretion. Thanks Netgalley.
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