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[katara]

Sundial by Catriona Ward

Series:
N/A

Genre:
Horror, Gothic, Dark, Suspense, Thriller, Psychological Thriller, Contemporary

Publication Date:
March 1st, 2022

Pages Numbers:
292

Read Date:
July 3rd, 2023

Date Finished:
July 3rd, 2023

Rating:
DNF'ed @ 40%

Blurb:

Sundial is a new, twisty psychological horror novel from Catriona Ward, internationally bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street.

You can't escape what's in your blood...

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.

Review:

When I approached friends and TikTok's book community for my next read, this book came highly recommended. The book would start out slowly, I had been told, but the last forty percent of the story is when it starts picking up. The book had a lot of trigger warnings especially when it came to lovers of animals. I could handle that. I had read worse books in the past.

This book bored the hell out of me. The characters and storyline were bland and the plot dragged like a dead body being dragged across a long hallway. Seriously, no matter how hard I tried to soldier on, I just could not find a reason to continue this book any longer. It was not worth the disappointment. Not worth waiting for the big climatic end everyone was talking about.

So, at forty percent, I decided to call it quits. I am hoping to come back to this book in the future but I don't know if I ever will.

Final Thought:

Before picking up this book, there are some trigger warnings that you will need to be aware of beforehand. There is animal abuse, graphic depictions, self-harm, suicidality, drug abuse, mental illness, infidelity, etc. Please make sure that you can handle these before you try reading this book.