The wild part is that I'm gonna say that this is probably my favorite of Ward's stuff but I just took forever to finish it. It's a toss up between this and Needless Street but I think this edges forward just a little more to me.
One of the things I love about how Ward writes is that she's absolutely fearless in exploring different avenues of setting, themes and vibes. I'd argue that no two of her books so far have been very alike. Her twists do tend to vary in terms of effectiveness but I'm never mad at her for trying - I'm always wholeheartedly or tentatively on board for what she's trying to do. Little Eve is imo her absolutely at her best and having fun with it.
There is an ancient stone castle there that houses a handful of young girls (and Abel) alongside the limping old man known as 'Uncle'. Uncle speaks of the end of the world. He tells them that they are children of the sea and to the sea they shall return. But these girls must heed his warnings and stay close to the source of power in Altnaharra. If not, they suffer consequences, mental abuse and abandonment.
But village life of the 'Impure' edges closely to the confines of this castle. It's influence slowly calls to the titular Eve and her 'sister' Dinah. In time following an incident that befalls the local school master, Chief Inspector Black sets his sights on this life in the stone castle. Will he ever be able to break the hold that Uncle has on these girls?
And it's from there that the true nature of Altnaharra comes to light in ways that Eve could never have imagined. This book was a treat from start to finish. As with most Ward books she chooses to tell the story by skipping back and forth between time periods - starting with the harrowing ordeal of Dinah being the sole survivor of a massacre perpetuated by Eve then following the lives lived in Alnaharra through Eve's eye(s). Along the way we meet a few of the impure locals and learn about their wary relationship to the girls and more importantly the dark horse of the novel Chief Inspector Black. Once Black shows up, he's relentless in his mission to try to break Eve free from the brainwashing that comes from Altnaharra, even taking her away to Inverness at one point before she escapes back to Uncle after seeing a 'premonition'. I really loved his characterization and would adore to have more about him in perhaps a solo book. He had a genuine care and kindness to his character that has this kind of waning exhaustion to the situation. He's by the book and good at his job but understands when to be on the defensive rather than attack. The girls are sufficiently weird but I found them a lot more palatable than some of the other characters that we've tangled with in some of her other works.
Eve is complex and we as readers can understand why she does the things she does - she's struggling with layers of trauma and a highly unconventional lifestyle forced upon her. I found it refreshing that each of The Adder's 'wards' had interesting characterizations that set them apart from one another and there was this bittersweet love and care they had for each other. Uncle himself is a quiet kind of monster- he's the kind of subtle character that's very easy to hate because of the way Ward alludes to his true nature from small additions to the text - for example, the children must count how much meagre food they eat per bite but he eats full plates of meat...
As to be expected, there's a ton of twists in this book. My favorite was absolutely the reveal about the benediction - that the honey was tainted with what gave Eve her otherworldly touches. Really cool twist. The same about Nora being Eve's mother - that she was baby Amy. I was somewhat already toying with the idea but mostly I was just really pleased at the place of these reveals - it didn't give me fatigue trying to keep up with all the twists and turns. The reveals were fun and made sense above all else. I guessed early on that Dinah was Eve but I didn't really mind knowing because I was more curious about how it came to be. Mary's existence made for a really fun plot point to suss out too. Honestly this book just felt original (like most of Ward's books) and I fell in love with the atmosphere. This was a perfect choice to end the Summer with. You could really tell that time was taken to understand the inner workings of Uncle's cult but she knew when to hold back on certain details. It was explained but not over-explained.
A lot of my praise also comes from the aura of fridge horror that comes from a lot of the late revelations - I feel like this book would be a blast to reread at some point knowing the twists just to pick up on some of the more subtle alluding about Uncle's abuse. I'd definitely find myself reading this again next year perhaps.
Though if I have to give some critique, I think the pacing sometimes dragged a little too much for me which led to my few instances of not settling in to read this - I'd start but get distracted by something else or I felt that sometimes the daily life on Altnaharra was a little slow in the first half of the book. But that's neither here nor there. I felt like Rose was a little pointless and flat, we didn't really get to know much about her, she felt a little bit more like a plot device rather than a character - a means to go from point A-B. Generally the circus bit felt that way.
