Little Eve by Catriona Ward
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
Hot off the success of The Last House on Needless Street and Sundial, Catriona Ward’s 2018-novel, Little Eve was rereleased earlier this month.
I was super impressed with Ward’s most recent releases, so was very excited to check this one out as well. The synopsis sounded just as WTF as I would expect and the story itself didn’t disappoint in that regard.
This novel starts out with a bang, as the brutalized bodies of a family are discovered off the coast of Scotland, on the remote island of Altnaharra. The scene appears be ritualistic in nature.
The rest of the story fills in the pieces of the events that preceded that horrific event.
The narrative follows a few different perspectives and jumps around in the timeline as well. You mainly follow Eve and Dinah, who are two of the girls living on Altnaharra with the mysterious ‘Uncle’. Through their words you begin to understand what their life was like on the island.
There’s also the perspective of Chief Inspector Black, who becomes involved in Eve’s life. His view, from an outsider’s eyes, really helps to highlight the horrors of Altnaharra.
For the first quarter of this, I was well and truly confused. It is revealed later in the story why that might have been and I did come to understand why Ward would have written it that way. It made sense if you were seeing the world through the mind of these characters.
The tension and pace picks up at the story goes on. I had no idea who I could trust. I was loving so many of the reveals as the puzzle pieces began to fall into place.
Towards the end, it started to get a bit chaotic again and I was finding it a bit more difficult to track what was going on. In fact, I listened to a couple of the last chapters at least three times, trying to capture it all.
That is another thing, I did listen to the audiobook and I’m not sure, that could have added a bit to my confusion. The accent was a little tough for me, with my dumb foreign ears, so some names and words were hard to differentiate.
I think if I would have read a hard copy, maybe I would have had a slightly easier time keeping track of everything.
With this being said, the story itself was absolutely captivating. The atmosphere was rich and creepy as heck. I enjoyed the mystery of it all and finding out the truth.
While the ending wasn’t perfect for me, this was definitely a memorable one. Ward is unique and we love that. Each novel I have read from her is totally different from each other and also like nothing else I have read. That’s a gift.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Tor Nightfire and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I enjoyed this one. It’s dark content and stunningly-cold atmosphere is perfect for the Spooky Season.
I cannot wait to see what Ward comes up with next!!!