Catriona Ward

Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for best novel and the August Derleth Prize for best horror novel, Little Eve is a heart-pounding literary gothic with a devastating twist. Eve and Dinah are everything to one another, together day and night. They are raised among the Children, a clan ruled by a mysterious figure they call Uncle. All they know is the gray Isle of Altnaharra, which sits alone in the black sea off the wildest coast of Scotland. Eve loves the free, savage life of the Isle and longs to inherit Uncle's power. But Dinah longs for something more, something different. With the dawn of the first World War, the solitude of Altnaharra is broken, and soon after, Eve's faith starts to fracture. In the depths of winter, as the old year dies, the nearby townsfolk awaken to discover a massacre on the Isle. Eve and Dinah's accounts of that night contradict and intertwine. As past and present converge, only one woman can be telling the truth. Who is guilty, who innocent? And who can be trusted?

Little Eve

I've only read one other book by Ward that I enjoyed, so I was excited to pick this one up. Sadly, it wasn't for me. There were some bits I liked, such as the cult itself, which I thought was interesting, and I loved the setting. It was everything else that was a miss. I never found myself invested in the story, so I didn't care much about what was happening. I listened to this on audiobook, which I don't think helped because it's told in alternating timelines and POVs, and it was occasionally hard to keep track. Overall, I found it to be a lackluster plot with characters I couldn't root for, and just entirely underwhelming.

Heather Harrington

'Where is Evelyn? Oh, I remember. She took our eyes.' Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Horror and the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel. New Year's Day, 1921. Seven mutilated bodies are discovered in an ancient stone circle on a remote Scottish island. The victims are 'the Children' - members of a nature cult ruled by the charismatic, sadistic patriarch, the adder. The sole survivor of the massacre, Dinah, claims that Eve is the murderer, apparently drowned while attempting her escape. Yet as Eve's story of the years leading up the massacre intertwines with Dinah's account of the aftermath, a darker, stranger truth begins to emerge. The Isle is all Eve knows. Hidden from the world, the Children worship the Great Snake who dwells in the ocean, dance in the stones at dawn and offer their blood in sacrifice. The adder's word is law. When Eve is forced into the world beyond the Isle her faith and love are tested by unexpected friendships that make her question everything. As she begins to see through the adder's macabre fictions, the world Eve knows collapses. Does she lose her humanity with her belief? Does it drive her to kill? A heart-pounding literary thriller with a devastating twist.

Jade Lee

I think I would give it a 3.5 star review. Was a bit confusing but I loved how things clicked and I was glued for the majority

Little Eve

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