Description

‘Starve Acre may well be his best novel so far’ The Times

‘A tour de force of physiological fantasia’ Sunday Times

‘Hurley’s horror is beautifully written and triumphantly creepy’ Mail on Sunday

‘Expertly paced . . . creepy and marvellous’ Daily Mail

The worst thing possible has happened. Richard and Juliette Willoughby’s son, Ewan, has died suddenly at the age of five. Starve Acre, their house by the moors, was to be full of life, but is now a haunted place.

Juliette, convinced Ewan still lives there in some form, seeks the help of the Beacons, a seemingly benevolent group of occultists. Richard, to try and keep the boy out of his mind, has turned his attention to the field opposite the house, where he patiently digs the barren dirt in search of a legendary oak tree.

Starve Acre is a devastating new novel by the author of the prize-winning bestseller The Loney. It is a novel about the way in which grief splits the world in two and how, in searching for hope, we can so easily unearth horror.

Publisher Review

Hurley is fantastically adept at conveying something beyond the natural or the normal * Observer * A fine writer, with concerns that place him a little to the left of the literary mainstream, a remove that makes him extremely interesting * John Boyne, Irish Times * Hurley's work is like a reincarnation of novels such as John Buchan's Witch Wood or the stories of M.R. James. His prose is precise and his eye gimlet * The Spectator * A superb storyteller * The Times * There is such pleasure in seeing Hurley go about his craft * Sarah Perry, Guardian * Startlingly and daringly original, a story that shivers itself deeply into the consciousness * David Park, author of the 2018 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Travelling in a Strange Land *