"When people say something is 'unthinkable,' what they usually mean is that they don't want to think it. They are resistant to an idea. But that is not what unthinkable means. I understand that, now. It means to be confronted with a thought so vast, dark, and monstrous that it will not fit into any known shapes in your mind. It is poison and madness flowering behind your eyes."
Thirty pages into Catriona Ward's "Sundial," I was already terrified. The feeling didn't abate much over the ensuing 250+ pages.
Set in the Mojave desert, this book is a psychological thriller, a ghost story, and a true-to-life depiction of the unerasable scars of abuse and neglect. Featuring an untrustworthy narrator, the tale winds through a series of harrowing events as a mother seeks to protect her daughters from the past, the present, and the future.
"I am caught in his golden eyes. All the desert is in them. He is still a king."
With frantic pacing, "Sundial" features a breakneck rhythm with a satisfying ending, replete with the twists, turns, and ghosts that turn it into an irresistible read.
"It's possible to feel the horror of something and to accept it all at the same time. How else could we cope with being alive?"
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