Little Eve

Ward is back (after Sundial, 2022) with a proven winner, the American release of her 2018 Shirley Jackson Award--winning novel. In 1921, on a high-cliffed island just off the coast of Scotland, Dinah recounts the winter morning when the local butcher found her family laid out in ritualistic style, all but her dead. Dinah's sister, Evelyn, is identified as the killer, but she has gone missing. This disquieting, atmospheric story is unveiled through intertwined threads with Dinah narrating the story's present and Evelyn from 1917. For the first 70 pages, the reader will squirm as the characters and plot slowly emerge, but as the details come into horrifying focus and the time lines begin to converge, it will be impossible to look away. When that inevitable twist comes it is a disturbing gut punch, not because of the shock, but from the deeply unsettling ramifications that ripple out from its center. While its ties to Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle are strong, this psychological horror gem will also appeal to fans of creepy, character-driven cult stories like Mr. Splitfoot, by Samantha Hunt (2016) and original takes on the traditional gothic such as Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2020). HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With a 250K print run, expect this to be one of the biggest spooky books of spooky season (aka October).

This powerful novel from Ward (The Last House on Needless Street), originally published in the U.K. in 2018, won the August Derleth and Shirley Jackson awards. Justifiably so, as Ward's skillful weaving of horror and mystery forms a dense, rich tapestry. In 1921, Little Eve commits a mass murder so heinous that, a quarter-century later, the villagers of Loyal still whisper about her attack on those with whom she shared the island of Altnaharra: cult leader Uncle, who ruled with honeyed fingers and the bite of a captive snake; Nora, perpetually pregnant; Dinah, tempted by the wider world; and Baby Elizabeth, a mute and filthy 11-year-old. Multiple narrative voices fill in the details of what happened, which initially appears to be a familiar, albeit exceptionally well-told, description of an incestuous cult devolving to its horrific end. Then Chief Insp. Christopher Black, in an improbable white suit, meets Eve on a woodland path, and the expected trajectory shifts deliciously. Ward works in so many motifs--Bible resonances, colonialism, science versus faith, and the pall of war, to name just a few--that the play of imagery is as engrossing as the plot twists, making this a rewarding outing from any angle. Horror fans won't want to miss this. (Oct.)