Little Eve

by Catriona Ward

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

We’ve been BIG fans of Catriona Ward since The Last House on Needless Street in 2021. However, Ward’s been holding out on us. Little Eve dates to 2018 and is finally getting wide release by Tor Nightfire. If you want fright and suspense then Catriona Ward will become your new favorite horror author, too!

Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel • Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel • A LibraryReads Hall of Fame Pick!

From Catriona Ward, author of The Last House on Needless Street, comes a heart-pounding tale of faith and family, with a devastating twist

“A great day is upon us. He is coming. The world will be washed away.”

On the wind-battered isle of Altnaharra, off the wildest coast of Scotland, a clan prepares to bring about the end of the world and its imminent rebirth.

The Adder is coming and one of their number will inherit its powers. They all want the honor, but young Eve is willing to do anything for the distinction.

A reckoning beyond Eve’s imagination begins when Chief Inspector Black arrives to investigate a brutal murder and their sacred ceremony goes terribly wrong.

And soon all the secrets of Altnaharra will be uncovered.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250812674
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/12/2023
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	109,845
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

CATRIONA WARD was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in the United States, Kenya, Madagascar, Yemen, and Morocco. She studied English at the University of Oxford, and later, completed a Creative Writing Masters at the University of East Anglia. Ward won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel for her debut, The Girl from Rawblood, and again for Little Eve, making her the first woman to win the prize twice. Little Eve also won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel. Ward is the internationally bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street and Sundial.

Editorial Reviews

Ward’s skillful weaving of horror and mystery forms a dense, rich tapestry....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.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

"Ward is back with a proven winner ... disquieting, atmospheric ... impossible to look away." —Booklist, STARRED review

"Little Eve is the sort of book that will both surprise and shock you...It’s delightful and disturbing by turns, and almost impossible to put down once you’ve started." —Paste Magazine

“As elegant and strange as it is dark and complex. …One of Ward’s best books, and that’s saying a lot. …[I]t’s a book every lover of dark fiction should read.”—Locus Magazine

“Told in dual timelines, Little Eve is a deliciously spooky book, with prose like whispers on the wind. This one is for fans of cult stories (like me) and the gothic (also me), with dynamic characters and intense pseudo-religious psychology.” —Tor.com

“Haunting, stunning, Little Eve offers a grand tension to shatter the world. Ward is consistently brilliant, and her deft hand once more guides us into humanity's deepest shadows. Atmospheric and unforgettable.” —Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth

“A wonderful literary gothic tale.” —Sarah Pinborough, New York Times bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes

“A smart and moving examination of self delusion and the lengths people go to to keep faith.” —Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies

“A sublime, utterly compelling tale which grabbed me by the lapels and wouldn't let go.” —Irenosen Okojie

“Brilliantly plotted, wonderfully well written and full of surprises.” —Andrew Cowan, author of Pig and Worthless Men

“Little Eve brims with dark energy, full of haunting, surprising turns. You will be guessing and gasping till the end.” —Philip Womack

From the Publisher

★ 06/13/2022

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.)

Publishers Weekly