Sundial by Catriona Ward: Summary and Study Guide

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Quick Facts {#quick-facts}

| Field | Detail | | --- | --- | | Author | Catriona Ward | | Publication year | 2022 | | Genre | Psychological horror | | Setting | Sundial, a remote family compound in the Mojave Desert, with scenes in suburban California and at Arrowood School | | Narrator | Alternating first-person (Callie, Jack) and third-person (Rob, Arrowood) perspectives | | Structure | 37 chapters, alternating between the present-day desert journey and flashbacks to Rob's childhood |

Short Summary {#short-summary}

Sundial follows Rob, a mother who takes her twelve-year-old daughter Callie to the remote Mojave Desert compound where Rob grew up, hoping to protect her younger daughter Annie from Callie's disturbing behavior. As the two spend days alone in the isolated house, Rob begins to reveal the dark history of Sundial: her childhood as a test subject in her parents' genetic experiments, her twin sister Jack's unraveling, and the buried truths about the nearby puppy farm. Callie, guided by her imaginary companion Pale Callie, uncovers her mother's plan and the family's legacy of engineered violence. The novel builds to a confrontation with Rob's abusive husband Irving, a revelation about which daughter is truly dangerous, and a final drive to save Annie from a threat Rob never saw coming.

Full Summary {#full-summary}

Sundial opens in suburban California, where Rob is preparing for the Goodwins' January party when she discovers chicken pox blisters on her younger daughter Annie. She cancels the family's attendance, and the household settles into an uneasy domesticity. Rob's husband Irving is controlling and abusive, and Rob privately writes in her Arrowood notebooks as an escape. The chapter establishes the family's tensions: Callie, the older daughter, is difficult and secretive, while Annie is favored.

The novel then shifts to Arrowood School, where Callie is a student. She overhears her best friend Jack and a teacher, Miss Grainger, discussing a theft from Jack's locker. Miss Grainger suggests Callie may be responsible, referencing a promise to Callie's deceased mother and calling Rob a witch. Callie, distressed, hides and considers self-harm.

Back in the present, Rob is called home because Annie has vomited and an empty bottle of diabetes medicine is found. Rob realizes Annie could not have removed the childproof cap herself. Searching Callie's room, she finds a hidden backpack containing animal bones, hydrogen peroxide, superglue, and the missing cap. Rob concludes Callie has been harming animals and decides to take her to Sundial, the remote desert compound where Rob grew up, to separate her from Annie.

Callie narrates the drive to Sundial, accompanied by her imaginary companions: Dumpster Puppy, a ghostly dog, and Pale Callie, a presence who has been to Sundial before. Callie plays a game called 'warm or pale,' guessing whether people they pass are ghosts. She reflects that her mother lies and does not like her.

Rob and Callie stop at the ruins of Honesty, a ghost town, where Callie explores and finds a mine shaft she calls a portal. She hears strange music from within and panics when she cannot see her companions. Dumpster Puppy bites her ankle, and Pale Callie says it is not time yet. Rob drags Callie away, furious.

At Sundial, Rob reflects on her unusual childhood, raised by her father Falcon and his partner Mia. The compound includes laboratories, dog runs, and a stone sundial that gives the house its name. Rob considers the headstones she placed near the house—graves for Falcon and Mia. She calls Irving, who has not done what she asked, and learns Annie's fever is improving.

Pale Callie wakes Callie and warns that their mother brought them to the desert because of Callie's bone collection, suggesting the mother's leniency resembles a last meal before execution. Pale Callie claims she read the mother's thoughts in the car: the mother was choosing between Callie and Annie and thinking of Callie dying. Callie recalls how she and Pale Callie secretly investigate the household, reading diaries and checkbooks, and notes her mother writes violent stories.

Before dawn, Rob leaves the house on a private pilgrimage, carrying a trash bag of cheap meat cuts. Along the west fence she throws handfuls of meat over the fence as offerings. She follows the sound of running water to a stone cairn enclosing a spring, before which stands the sundial. As the sun rises, Rob steps onto the marker and her shadow reveals the date, January 23. She whispers words of grief and love, then cries.

The novel then shifts to a flashback: Rob and Jack, both seventeen, are milking cows at Sundial when they find a coyote puppy. Falcon agrees they can keep it if it is still there at five. The chapter describes Sundial's layout and the girls' habit of reading a hidden boarding-school novel. Jack tells Rob about their English mother Lily, who died when they were four and is buried by the sundial. At five, Mia helps Rob tranquilize the coyote, which tests positive for the right genes and enters the pack. Pawel, a Polish man who lost his family, shows Rob a tattoo of nine chess pawns. That night, Jack has a breakdown, claims she sees ghost dogs, and bites Rob's thumb.

In the present, Callie's mother forces her to hike to the stone garden before sunset. At the top, the mother confronts Callie about the animal bones. During their struggle, the mother falls backward off the rock and rolls down the slope. She regains consciousness and accuses Callie of pushing her. She reveals she once had a sister named Jack, who was lost to Sundial. She questions Callie about the pill bottle incident involving Annie, and Callie admits it will happen again.

The flashback continues: Rob and Jack are milking cows when they hear a strange howling. They find a coyote puppy, and Falcon agrees they can keep it. The chapter describes Sundial's layout and the girls' habit of reading a hidden boarding-school novel. Jack tells Rob about their English mother Lily, who died when they were four and is buried by the sundial where her rosebush grows. At five, Mia helps Rob tranquilize the coyote, which tests positive for the right genes and enters the pack. Pawel shows Rob a tattoo of nine chess pawns representing his lost family and suggests Jack suffers, which angers Rob. That night, Jack has a breakdown, claims she sees ghost dogs, and bites Rob's thumb.

In the present, Callie's mother stops telling her story and takes a break. Callie throws the meat over the fence and climbs the west ridge, seeing the site of the puppy farm she researched at the library. Returning, she finds the meat gone, including the lamb leg she left inside the fence. She tells her mother something is coming through the fence; her mother locks the house and forbids her from going outside alone. Later, while her mother sleeps, Callie takes her phone and calls her father, telling him her mother shook her and broke her camera. She speaks to her sister Annie, saying their mother is sick and warning her not to tell their father. Callie searches the kitchen, finds the knives hidden, and discovers a broken black box with buttons, which she pockets.

The flashback continues: Rob chops dogmeat after a sleepless night following Jack's encounter with ghost dogs. Jack apologizes for attacking Rob's hand, blaming a dream, and urges they put the Plan into action. At breakfast, the twins ask Falcon about attending regular school and college; Falcon refuses, and Jack erupts in anger before breaking down. That evening, Mia shares her story at Sacrifice, burning a peppermint-soaked handkerchief. Later, Jack and Rob discuss their mother. Jack misses milking for a third day, and Rob watches Mia train Twenty-Three, a dog with brain electrodes. Rob presses the hunt button, but the dog chases a bird instead; Jack observes and walks away. That night Jack withdraws, and the next morning Rob finds her bed empty, belongings gone. Mia realizes the research assistant with the white Chevy has left and pursues them, finding Jack twenty miles down the highway with a blown tire. Falcon privately speaks with Jack for an hour; afterward, Jack tells Rob she will never leave Sundial, then chokes her before apologizing.

The novel shifts to Arrowood, where a violent battle erupts between school factions. Callie searches for Jack, wanting to confess something. She discovers Little Annie trapped beneath a pile of girls. Annie, frightened, accuses Callie of being the school thief. When Callie tries to help her up, Annie screams and strikes at her, and Callie slaps her. Jack witnesses the incident and is horrified, refusing to believe Callie's denials. Callie explains that Miss Grainger drugged the breakfast porridge with something from a blue bottle, causing the girls to attack one another. Jack remains unconvinced and leaves. Callie, devastated, wipes her straight razor clean and heads toward the observation classroom above the ocean to confront Miss Grainger.

The flashback continues: After the other children leave Sundial, Rob watches Falcon and Mia surgically implant electrodes into a captured coyote, which becomes number Thirty-One. Mia offers to bond the coyote to Jack instead of Rob, and Jack accepts. That night, Rob sneaks into the lab and drips ergot-derived medicine onto the coyote's tongue, whispering that it belongs to her. During training, the coyote snarls at Jack but then licks her hand. Later, Jack and Rob argue near the fence; a blinded jackrabbit repeatedly runs into the wire. That night Jack slashes the Rob doll's face, then cuts her own wrist. At the hospital, Rob donates blood. Afterward, while digging a grave for dog Fifteen, Jack pushes Rob into the hole, then buries her red notebook pages with the corpse. Rob runs off, finds Nimue's bell by a fence post, and concludes the cow is dead. She asks Mia for help, and later Jack lies to Falcon about her bruised face.

In the present, Callie wakes at dawn in the desert. She recalls her father's advice to obtain a weapon and remembers seeing a certain look on her mother's face during a conversation about hitting. She plays with a ghostly dog companion, then removes a bone from its picture and sharpens it into a knife using a grindstone from the kitchen. Back in her room, she tests the knife by stabbing her pillow repeatedly. Her mother appears, takes the knife, and orders Callie to stay in her room. After a long absence, Callie spots her mother outside near the perimeter fence, making quick movements with something metallic. Callie sneaks downstairs and outside, where she finds her mother leaning on a shovel beside a pile of earth, having dug a rectangular hole roughly five feet by three. Callie returns to her room with her heart pounding.

Rob examines the small bone knife Callie made and weighs her options for stopping Irving from keeping her daughters and preventing Callie from hurting Annie, concluding only one course remains. She takes a shovel from the toolshed and digs in the dog graveyard at Sundial, searching for something she buried there. She uncovers bones, a mirror fragment, and eventually a blue plastic case holding a syringe with pale purple liquid. She also finds a rusted Snoopy lunch box she thought was lost, containing folded pages in neat handwriting. Back inside, she checks on Callie through her closed door, then reads the pages in her bedroom. The contents move her deeply; she cries and feels transformed. She calls Irving, who has phoned seventeen times, and tells him she is divorcing him and taking the children. He responds with concern, mentioning that Callie said Rob shook her. Rob hangs up, then calls back to appease him, crying. She goes downstairs to where Callie waits.

Rob stands at the kitchen window holding a letter, deciding to leave the mysteries buried in the dog graveyard. At dinner, she announces she earned her GED through the mail and was accepted to college on a full scholarship in Cielo, three hours from Sundial. Jack reacts with sadness, wishing she could go too. Jack then reveals that she and Rob are adopted, taken in from Nebraska at age five. Falcon and Mia confirm this, explaining that Jack invented the mother named Lily and that Rob chose her own name at age six. Rob, furious, leaves the table and destroys her Jack doll. Jack tells Rob she kept the truth hidden to help her escape Sundial. Jack says the adoption was closed and Nebraska is all they know. Rob cries, feeling betrayed by everyone.

Rob starts college and struggles to fit in. She meets Irving Cussen at a bar, and they begin a relationship. After two years, Irving proposes; Rob laughs, they briefly separate, then reconcile. They travel to Sundial, where Rob introduces Irving as her fiancé, and Jack faints. At a family fire, Rob burns the head of her childhood doll, declaring she wants children. Mia whispers a plea. Later, Jack warns Rob against Irving, claiming she slept with him. Rob accuses Jack of drug use and confronts Falcon, who admits they know. Rob and Irving leave abruptly. On the drive back, Rob realizes Jack was telling the truth. She confronts Irving at her dorm, and he drives off. Rob is comforted by her roommate.

The novel shifts to Arrowood, where Callie searches the ocean observation classroom, finds it empty, then hides in a supply closet when she hears Miss Grainger approaching. Through the keyhole, she watches Miss Grainger write strange symbols on the blackboard, suspecting a code for spying. Miss Grainger senses her presence and compels Callie to come out. Callie accuses her of being a thief, poisoner, and spy. Miss Grainger removes her hat, revealing copper hair like Callie's, and claims to be Callie's mother, a witch who swallowed the real Miss Grainger years ago. She proposes taking Callie as her daughter, but Callie refuses, saying she cannot abandon Jack. Jack then appears in the doorway. Miss Grainger decides to take Jack instead and spares Callie. Jack refuses, and Miss Grainger transforms into a golden dog, then vanishes with Jack in a flash of light. Callie is left alone, having failed to save her friend.

The flashback continues: Rob, now at college as Berta, builds a new life away from Sundial. She discovers she is pregnant and privately chooses the name Callie for the baby. Jack unexpectedly arrives at Rob's dorm, having escaped a doctor's appointment in the city, and reveals she is also pregnant. Rob drives Jack back to Sundial and decides to stay. She cleans Jack's room, removes mirrors and occult objects, and disposes of drugs hidden there. Months pass as Rob secretly protects her own pregnancy while monitoring Jack. Jack attacks Rob violently, causing Rob to lose her baby. Rob buries the remains beneath the sundial. Jack watches. Rob punches Jack. In the following days, Rob contemplates killing Jack but refrains because Jack is pregnant, instead supervising Jack's medication and defacing a book.

In the present, Callie's mother goes into the kitchen, leaving Callie alone in the living room. Pale Callie suggests their mother is escalating and may have killed her sister. Callie searches her mother's purse and finds a copy of Pride and Prejudice with certain letters blacked out—I, G, R, N, V—which spell IRVING. She takes out the controller and whispers 'Hunt.' Her mother returns, sees the controller, and tries to take it. They struggle, Callie pulls her mother's hair, and runs to her room. There, she reflects on reading about killers and escalation, and considers she would