On New Year’s Day 1921 on a remote Scottish island in a circle of stones lie ritually arranged mutilated remains. 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. 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. Un aislamiento asfixiante, pergeñado por el "tío" sí, pero también por el entorno que los rechaza y se desentiende. This crumbling, stone fortress on the isle of Altnaharra is only accessible at low tide, the path is covered by the sea and guarded by an iron gate most of the time.

The cult vibes in this one were really creepy and well done, I am 100% with you regarding the atmosphere!

Andrew Cowan, author of PIG and WORTHLESS MEN Little Eve is brilliantly plotted, wonderfully well written and full of surprises. El que se cría en ella sin lazos familiares sin más sentimiento de pertenencia que a la secta en sí. Settled in the nineteenth century by Highlanders fleeing the fire and blood of the Clearances, Loyal was a kelp town until there was no more kelp. Any story dealing with cults turns out to be horribly fascinating, and this one sounds no different: I believe I will need a special frame of mind to sit down with this one, but I’m also sure it will prove an engrossing read.

On an altar near an abandoned church, Jamie discovers a horrific site: five bodies are laid out on the stone, arranged in a star shape. Each novel I have read from her is totally different from each other and also like nothing else I have read. Whilst Eve is embedded in the situation, and it seems normal to her, as a reader you become gradually more aware of the situation little by little, and become more and more horrified by the realities of it.Many thanks to NetGalley, Jordan Hanley at Tor/Nightfire, and Catriona Ward for an ARC of this book! Most of all, I loved the way the story changes as each character takes the stage to give their narrative. In particular, Evelyn's accounts of inexplicable visions make it difficult to entirely discount the possibility of some otherworldly influence.

From there, the story flips back and forth between 1917 and 1921 to reveal how this gory sacrifice came about, honing in on the conflicting accounts of Dinah and Evelyn. One half of the narrative deals with the aftermath both immediate and in further years, through letters and diary entries from Dinah, the sole survivor; the other half follows Eve as a child, moving steadily towards the murder and making more sense of Dinah’s letters, but also making it clear that at least one of these accounts is unreliable. It’s a bloody fast pacing Northern Gothic for the horror fans and truly dedicated fans of the author like me! The family isolated there believes all of the outside world will soon be gone, and only those familiar with the Adder shall survive and therefore rule.Birds circling in the brightening sky; the hills painted in russet brown and grey, rolling on and on into the deep north.

The story alternates between the past and present, beginning with an event that occurred in January of 1921. by the time i reached the big "reveal" at the end of the book, i was already feeling so detached from the characters that i found the climax incredibly underwhelming. The characters were interesting and while you might root for some; others are quite nasty, and you will want to boo and hiss at them. Ward’s third breakout novel The Last House on Needless Street (2021 - Viper, Tor Nightfire) won the August Derleth Prize and has been shortlisted for the Kitschies, the British Book Awards, the South Bank Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Another magnificent example of Northern Gothic, with all the winning elements of her previous novel RAWBLOOD: the fille fatale; the mysterious cult, the ritualistic lifestyle, the isolated house, the creeping menace.

Ward's storytelling voice for Little Eve is decadently rich with carefully constructed details that painted a vivid, cinematic picture in my mind. Altnaharra could only be reached at the ebb, and if he had dallied, the sea would have been lapping at his thighs by the time he came to cross. He did not relish the idea of falling into deep water with a hundred pounds of steer strapped to him.