Review: 'Little Eve' by Catriona Ward

I fell in love with Catriona Ward in 2017 when I read her novel Rawblood. I was blown away by the gothic and dramatic beauty of her writing and plots. I also enjoyed her 2021 novel The Last House on Needless Street, although it didn't quite pull on my heartstrings in the same way. Little Eve is an earlier novel of hers, now republished, and it felt like a return to the Ward of Rawblood for me. So of course I enjoyed it. Thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for the delay in reviewing.

Pub. Date: 11/10/2022
Publisher: Macmillan-Tor/Forge; Tor Nightfire

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.

Gothic fiction is entirely reliant on atmosphere. Perhaps this seems like too strong a statement, but there is nothing worse than a technically Gothic novel which doesn't truly lean into the genre. Little Eve fully leans into it and nothing is more emblematic of that than its setting. The first thing that drew me to the novel was the idea of Altnaharra, a windswept island off the coast of Scotland. This felt like the perfect setting for a Gothic novel and it truly was. Catriona Ward brings this setting to live, shaping the island into a character of its own. It is home, but it is also danger. It nurtures but it also hurts. I could picture it, from its crags to its berry fields, to its walkway which gets cut off by the tides, to the gate without a wall. If Altnaharra didn't come alive this way, Little Eve would be a lesser book. With Ward's skill, however, the setting and ambiance are perfectly formed for her plot and characters to take shape.

Eve and Dinah are two young women, part of a small tight-knit community on the distant Scottish island Altnaharra. They await the coming of the Adder, who will bring the flood and bring about a new world. But the strain of awaiting the end, along with their twisted relationship with those outside of Altnaharra and the conflicting loyalties on the island, causes ever more tension until everything comes to a head during a fateful, final ceremony on New Year's Eve. Little Eve presents us with the perspective of both women, showing us the aftermath through Dinah and the led-up through Eve. It is an excellent wat of building up tension and preparing the reader for twists and turns. Little Eve has a strong vibe which dominates most of the novel. By that I mean that as a reader the plot sometimes came second to me over the images and ideas Ward was creating and working with. 

Catriona Ward is a stunning writer. She has an impeccable eye for the detail that will have you invest, for the moment that shifts your perception of a character, for the seeming side plotline that will become rapidly relevant. I absolutely got lost in the world she created in Little Eve. The moment I closed my eyes I could picture Altnaharra, imagine the ceremonies, and feel the biting rain and wind. I also really liked her characterisation of Eve and Dinah, even if the latter is a little vaguer than the formers. Eve is the undeniable main character of Little Eve, as the title suggests, and following her from wide-eyed faithful to ever more questioning adult represented the major thrust of the novel. At times I did kind of lose track of some of the plot, felt a little confused by the different details and themes running through it, but Ward's writing always kept me engaged and intrigued. I adore Ward's more actively Gothic-leaning works and I can't wait to read more of these in the future.

I give this novel...

4 Universes!

I was gripped by the world Ward created in Little Eve. While I occasionally got a little lost in the details, it is nonetheless a great Gothic read, full of strong imagery.