April 13, 2023
Previously released in the UK and currently being adapted into a movie, the latest from Hurley (Devil's Day) offers readers a slice of folk horror salted in grief. Richard and Juliette Willoughby move to Starve Acre, a bucolic hideaway in remote North Yorkshire, to have a quiet life with their son Ewan, who tragically dies there. After Ewan's death, Richard immerses himself in work, and Juliette is distraught, until she is visited by a group of occultists called the Beacons. While the Beacons seem to help Juliette, they also unearth sinister secrets about what happened to Ewan and what lurks in the fields and forests. Hurley's work brings to mind British folk horror movies of the 1970s, where the terror isn't necessarily in the house but under the earth and demanding a sacrifice. However, the real root of this book's power is the parents' gnawing grief, which essentially blinds them to the horror that gradually reveals itself to the reader. VERDICT Reminiscent of Henry James and Shirley Jackson's slow-burn scares and bubbling unease, this book is for readers who like their scares to come with a tauntingly slow drawing back of a stage curtain rather than the spring-loaded explosion of a jack-in-the-box.--James Gardner
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 8, 2023
In this meditative, dread-filled novel from Hurley (The Loney), the lives of bereaved parents Juliette and Richard Willoughby become increasingly bizarre as they attempt to process the death of their five-year-old son, Ewan. On their remote estate, Starve Acre, on the British moors, Richard takes to digging endlessly in the fields for animal bones and mysterious tree roots, while Juliette consults a group of local mystics called the Beacons. After the Beacons perform a spiritual ritual (which they insist is “not a fucking séance”) at Starve Acre, questions surrounding the last days of Ewan’s life arise and mix with the specter of a local folkloric boogeyman—an eldritch presence buried beneath the soil of Starve Acre itself—making it ever more difficult for Juliette and Richard to hold onto the truth. Hurley has a slow and steady hand in establishing a gloomy, nearly gothic atmosphere, allowing his characters’ grief room to breathe even as he tightens the noose in ways readers won’t see coming until the chilling and memorable conclusion. This is folk horror that knows how to take its time. Fans of T. Kingfisher and Francine Toon will find a lot to love.
Starred review from June 1, 2023
A couple's son is dead. But something is lingering. Richard and Juliette Willoughby are grieving the recent loss of their young son, Ewan. While Richard is on leave from the university where he teaches history, he has little to do on his inherited rural English homestead except explore the nearby fields. There, he excavates a hare skeleton and the roots of an oak once used as a gallows and tries to fend off neighbors who claim they can help him and Juliette communicate with Ewan from the grave. Richard is skeptical of such talk when he isn't infuriated by it, but an inconsolable Juliette is willing to try. Cannily revealed details explain why: Regional lore is suffused with tales of possession and murder, and Ewan experienced stunning spasms of violence (deliberately slamming a classmate's hand in a door, then worse) that made Richard and Juliette pariahs. Meanwhile, Richard is blinding himself to the evidence of eerie malevolence that's emerging right before his eyes. Hurley originally published this book in the U.K. in 2019 under a pseudonym as part of a series of novels purporting to be neglected classics of 1970s horror; he's ably captured the vibe of the era's demon-spawn novels like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. Hurley smartly tells the story mainly from the perspective of Richard, who (like the reader) is shut out from the darkest depths that killed his son and threaten his wife. The explanations are deliciously, terrifyingly vague ("I didn't like the dark....It was talking to me," a 5-year-old Ewan says) until the novel's chilling, well-turned ending puts matters into clearer focus and Richard's vision of the countryside as a bucolic retreat is undone forever. Top-shelf gothic-folk horror.
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