Sundial is a mother-daughter trip from Hell, shrouded in family secrets where blood runs thicker than water.
(Full Review Below)
Ward repeats the story telling technique from The Last House on Needless Street, titling each chapter as the character whose point of view you will read from, present and past, the latter being what drew me out of the book for a bit. In the beginning we are in the present until around page 100 where the rest of the book dives into the past of the main character, Rob, a mother of two whose daughter, Callie is acting strange. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but the next 150 or so pages tended to drag a bit for me as I became too invested in the present that all I wanted to do was tear through the pages to get out of the past which is quite vast, possibly to a fault for some. I feel it could be edited down a bit to help the flow. Don't get me wrong, we need these moments in the past for the ending to come to it's amazing crescendo of discovery and, well...I'll just leave it there.
Sundial, the place where most of the story takes place is a character in of itself. I had a great time mapping out where everything was in my mind and Ward does a great job describing it and the desert and how isolated from the rest of the world it feels from the ground to the dog cages outside. Speaking of which, this novel may be triggering for some as the book has moments having to do with animal experimentation and not in subtle way.
Because of this rating system it's a 4 star for me, but in my heart it's a 3 1/2. The overstuffed middle kept me from becoming more invested, and I really wanted to. However, I will still look forward to whatever this author come at us with next.
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