5 Of The Best Catriona Ward Books In Order

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“Anyway, the trick to life is, if you don’t like what is happening, go back to sleep until it stops.”

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If you’re a fan of psychological horror and gripping suspense, Catriona Ward’s novels are not to be missed. With her expert blend of eerie atmospheres, complex characters, and chilling twists, Ward has fast become one of the most celebrated voices in modern horror. But with multiple books to choose from, knowing which Catriona Ward book to read first can feel overwhelming. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to the best Catriona Ward books in order, helping you navigate her works from debut to latest release. Whether you’re looking for a haunting standalone or a deeply immersive read, this Catriona Ward reading order will ensure you experience her novels in the perfect sequence. From early hits like Little Eve to recent bestsellers, we here at What We Reading have picked out her most compelling picks just for you! 

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The Last House On Needless Street (2021)

We’re kicking off our list of the best Catriona Ward books with arguably the British-American author’s best-known novel, The Last House on Needless Street. This gripping thriller centres on Ted Bannerman, a reclusive man living in a dilapidated house at the end of a dead-end street near eerie woods. He shares his home with his enigmatic daughter Lauren and a Bible-quoting housecat named Olivia. 

Ted’s life is governed by strict routines, shadowed memories, and whispered suspicions from his neighbours. Eleven years prior, a young girl vanished by the nearby lake, and though Ted was once questioned, he was never charged. When a determined woman named Dee, whose sister Lulu vanished that day, moves into the vacant home next door, she becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth and convinced Ted holds secrets about Lulu’s fate. Narrated from multiple unreliable perspectives, Ward’s novel blurs the lines between reality, memory, and perception, hauling readers into a haunting mystery where nothing is quite as it seems. 

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Little Eve (2018)

On the wind-battered isle of Altnaharra, off the wildest coast of Scotland, a clan prepares to usher in the end of the world and its imminent rebirth. The Adder is coming, and one of their number will inherit its powers. They all crave the honour, but young Eve is prepared to do just about anything for the distinction. 

A reckoning beyond Eve’s wildest imagination begins when Chief Inspector Black arrives to investigate a brutal murder, and their sacred ceremony goes terribly wrong. And sooon all the secrets of Altnaharra will be uncovered. One of the books that helped showcase Catriona Ward as one of the best gothic horror writers of her day, Little Eve is a heart-pounding tale of faith and family delivered with a devastating twist. 

Sundial (2022)

All Rob wanted was a normal life. She almost got it, too: a husband, two kids, a nice house in the suburbs. But Rob fears for her oldest daughter, Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her too much of the family she left behind. She decides to take Callie back to her childhood home, to Sundial, deep in the Mojave Desert. And there she will need to make a terrible choice. 

Callie is worried about her mother. Rob has begun to look at her strangely and speaks of past secrets. And Callie fears that only one of them will leave Sundial alive. The mother and daughter embark on a dark, desert journey to the past in the hopes of redeeming the future in this intense, twisty psychological horror novel by Catriona Ward. 

The Girl From Rawblood (2015)

In 1910, eleven-year-old Iris Villarca lives with her father at Rawblood, a lonely house on Dartmoor. Iris and her father are the last of their name. The Villarcas always die young, bloodily. Iris knows it’s because of a congenital disease, which means she must be strictly isolated. But when she forces the truth from her father, she learns the disease is biologically impossible. A lie, to cover a far graver secret. The Villarcas are haunted, through the generations, by her. When a Villarca marries, when they love, when they have a child – she comes, and death follows. 

Iris makes her father a promise: to remain alone all her life. But when she’s fifteen, she breaks it. The consequences of her choice are immediate and horrific. Iris’ story is interwoven with the past, the voices of the dead – Villarcas, taken by her. As the narratives converge, Iris finds a confrontation which shatters her past and her reality, revealing the chasm in her own fractured identity. 

Looking Glass Sound (2023)

In a lonely cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coastline, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood summer companions and the killer that stalked the small New England town. Of the body they found, and the horror of that discovery echoing down the decades. And of Sky, Wilder’s one-time best friend, who stole his unfinished memoir and turned it into a lurid bestselling novel, Looking Glass Sound. 

But as Wilder writes, the lines between memory and fiction blur. He fears he’s losing his grip on reality when he finds notes hidden around the cottage written in Sky’s signature green ink. In Looking Glass Sound, Catriona Ward delivers another mind-bending and devilishly devised tale about one man’s struggle to come to terms with the terrors of his own past before it’s too late. 

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