The descriptions of the valley are beautiful, and so good that you really have a living image of the place. Surprisingly, I found descriptions of the characters to lack depth. The book is long on descriptions and atmosphere, short on plot and pace. The book is based around a local custom, Devils Day, and the families that live in the valley. We soon know that something bad has happened in the past. There are a few inexplicable happenings, but these aren't fully developed and didn't spook me. I found my mind wandering while I was reading it. I think I personally prefer a faster paced read. And what a miserable bunch of people! I can't understand how or why we are meant to empathise with people who martyrishly spend their lives on the family farm, just because their ancestors did. I won't be looking out for the next book by A M Hurley.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a Kindle copy for review. Cutting to the chase, this book repays the investment of the time spent reading it - always a meaningful criterion for me. Mr Hurley’s obvious skill in evoking mood, location and the different personalities of his characters is well demonstrated; his description of a disorienting walk on the high moors in a blizzard, for example, will chill you to the bone and create a sense of foreboding over the fate that might befall those caught out in such conditions. My less positive reflections are, perhaps, more personal. The semi-supernatural theme running through the book lacked credibility for me. In part, this reflected my own upbringing in Clitheroe, the town mentioned frequently in the book, and my vacation work as a student on farms in the general area in which the story is set. The characters from Devil’s Day would have seemed more at home in a late nineteenth century hillbilly community in a remote area of Tennessee, rather than a broadly present day Lancashire farming community. There is a lesson for the author here - better to be less specific about location if the plot requires out-of-the-ordinary behaviours of key characters and unusual geography. Other reviewers have noted the author’s emerging tendency to leave questions unanswered - the character of Grace in this novel is a particular case in point, as is the rather bizarre acceptance of serious criminal acts that would surely have had consequences. Notwithstanding these minor grumbles there is much to like about Mr Hurley’s writing and I would recommend this book.

I was sent a copy of Devil’s Day by Andrew Michael Hurley to read and review by NetGalley.
Devil’s Day is the second novel by Andrew Michael Hurley and it has a very similar feel about it to his first, The Loney. It has a real sense of place; this book is as much about the landscape as the people who inhabit it. It is about tradition and family, duty and guilt, all intertwined with ‘The Owd Man’ the Devil.
The novel is written in the first person with the voice of protagonist John Pentecost who with his new wife Katherine returns to his family home for his grandfather’s funeral and stays for the annual ‘gathering’ of the sheep at the onset of winter. The story moves quite seamlessly between the present and the past with memories of John’s childhood along with tales of the history of the Endlands. Full of atmosphere and superstition with a diverse cast of characters Devil’s Day will pull you into an all but forgotten world traditionally handed down from father to son. Enjoy!

In Devil’s Day, Andrew Michael Hurley has produced a gothic tale of the Lancashire Moors.
John Pentecost, narrator, has eschewed the isolated farming life of his forbears, and returns to the family farm to help during busy seasons. Eventually, he begins to feel a pull back towards his roots. He tells his tale interspersed with stories of his father and grandfather.
This is a beautifully written but slow- moving book. It appears to be without any plot until about two thirds of the way through, when an unexpected spell of severe weather on Gathering Day might end in tragedy. This novel is atmospheric. oppressive, gloomy and bleak, but any feeling of implied horror is largely missing. It is difficult to associate with any of the characters, none of whom is developed in great depth, and the relationships between them are confusing.
The lyrical prose carries the day, but it was touch and go.
With thanks to Netgalley and John Murray Press

This is the second book I have read by Andrew Michael Hurley. I absolutely loved ‘The Loney’ so I was really excited to see another book by him.

Like ‘The Loney’, ‘Devil’s Day’ cannot be described as a light, cheerful read! If anything it is a darker and even more atmospheric story- but that is what makes it such a haunting read.

John Pentecost goes back every year to help with the sheep gathering at the farm where generations of his family have lived. This year he is also returning with his newly pregnant wife and for the funeral of the Gaffer, his grandfather. This remote part of England caught between Yorkshire and Lancashire hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. Old tales and old traditions as well as old fears linger here like the damp.

The story switches from past to present and carries with it an air of menace- could there be a happy ending to it?

This is not a book for everyone. It doesn’t have a straightforward story, nor does it come to a satisfactory end. It does have atmosphere and a scary magic all its own & I loved it. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read it- can’t wait for the next one!

This is a book which succeeds in being lyrical, in its language and description, bleak in terms of its depiction of rural life in Lancashire, and menacing - in every sense, both the humans and the landscape.
I didn't find it an easy read, but it is worthwhile, whilst also being challenging. My main reservation is about the structure, which is (no doubt deliberately with a writer of this calibre) disconnected and slightly rambling. I would have found it easier to engage with a tighter structure.

Atmospheric and wonderfully intriguing. Love love love

Better than his first.. the horror creeps in brilliantly as events overtake ..

Raw, absorbing, and heartfelt. This is a book about the advantages and disadvantages of living in a small community deeply steeped in local tradition.

After the unexpected success of The Loney, high expectations surround Andrew Michael Hurley's second novel. Can it possibly live up to his award-winning debut? In my opinion, it certainly does (and then some), but it is a very different animal. Readers hopeful that Hurley would continue to mine the seam of folk horror and weird fiction he so effectively employed in The Loney might be a little disappointed. Owing much to its rural setting, Devil's Day is a story about family and nature, imbued with unrest and tragedy; a bucolic tale that may owe a greater debt to Hardy than Aickman.

John Pentecost belongs to a Lancashire sheep farming family. Though he's moved away to Suffolk and married Kat, he feels a deep connection to his home community, the Endlands (the small cluster of farms, kept by the same families since time immemorial, can hardly be called a town). Yet the place also holds difficult memories: of being bullied as a boy, his mother's death, the strained relationship he has with his taciturn father. When his grandfather – a colourful local character known to all the Endlands as 'the Gaffer' – passes away, John is compelled to return home.

Local legend has it that a hundred years ago, the Devil disguised himself among the farmers' flocks and brought a terrible snowstorm to the valley. Thirteen people died – a catastrophic loss for such a small community. In the aftermath, a number of odd customs sprang up, and the Endlanders still observe them. Devil's Day comes after the Gathering (when the sheep are rounded up and brought down from the moors), falling around the same date as Halloween. The prize ram is crowned with a handmade wreath; there's a bonfire, and a stew made with the first lamb of spring; everyone is expected to dance and sing along to traditional rhymes. The Endlanders regard Kat with suspicion; for her part, she finds the apparent sincerity of their superstitious beliefs bemusing. John is more cautious. He doesn't necessarily believe in Devil's Day, but seems to find it wise to participate... just in case.

Needless to say, the Endlands is remote and old-fashioned. It seems almost to exist outside time. My craving for the macabre dissolved as I found instead a more subtle evocation of dread in which attention to detail, the authenticity of the context, is key. Every moment of Devil's Day feels genuine; Hurley's restraint and ability to pace his story are awe-inspiring. There are quirks of language that recall The Loney. John's parents are always 'Mam and Dadda'; the Endlanders often refer to the Devil as 'the Owd Feller'. The place names are redolent of history and folklore – Fiendsdale Clough, Archangel Back, Reaper's Walk. The setting, its otherness, emerges as inherently uncanny. (For John, literally: this place is his home, yet he is forced to see it through the eyes of an outsider, his wife.)

At its heart, this is a novel about the relationship between man and nature. One might conclude that there is no God here, only the fruits of the land; no Devil, only the whims of the weather. 'Nothing was ever settled,' says John: 'Everyone here died in the midst of repairing something.' The 'corrosive urges of nature' are always trying to reclaim the farms. When we glimpse anything unnerving, unnatural, those moments are all the more powerful and strange for being contained within this pastoral diorama. Even the closing scene, ostensibly hopeful, is not without an underlying note of horror.

I enjoyed The Loney, but Hurley's sophomore novel is better in every way. I wanted to turn back to page one and start all over again the moment I finished it. For me, Devil's Day is one of the finest books of the year.

Beautiful writing but I really struggled with this to be honest. I felt as if I was struggling with the timeframe and who was connected to who in the characters. Not for me I'm afraid.

Beautifully written, the reader is transported to a wild, remote and poor community where life can be extreme. Atmospheric and dark, this is no romantic tale of a life in the countryside but a realistic account of tough lives lived in similar ways throughout the ages. Superstition and old wives tales feed the imaginations of all who dwell here and the Devil is blamed for all that is not understood. The story, never really ends and could continue as life continues but the descriptive writing sets the scene so vividly it is well worth indulging in this book. Personally, I would like a little more completeness to the back story to elevate this to a truly classic novel.

I really loved Andrew's previous book The Loney, so I was very much looking forward to reading this new one. I'm not really sure how I feel about it. Slightly disappointed, in that it doesn't have the same impact of being unnerved as with the first one. That's not to say that the writing is badly written - he writes impeccably well. It's just that for the first half of the book, I skimmed many pages and really, when I got to the end, the pages I'd skimmed could really have been cut out altogether. I wasn't drawn into the story as much as with The Loney, and only really enjoyed about the last half or even quarter. That's probably because that's where most of the action was - the rest was a large amount of descriptive text of surrounding landscapes, nature and historical characters, which I wasn't really interested in. There was also a lot of jumping around timewise, and sometimes I found myself reading a paragraph and not knowing if we were still in the past or back in the present.

John and his new wife Kat travel from Suffolk to John's dad's farm near Lancashire, where every year they go through a ritual of rounding up the sheep from the moors and bringing them down to the farm out of the harshness of the winter weather. They then put on a sumptuous feast and call the Devil in to fill his stomach with food and wine so that he'll go away, sleep and forget to take sheep or cattle. This is called Devil's Day. However, this particular year, things have happened within the village which have caused fear and tension amongst the neighbours, and John and Kat's first Devil's Day together will be one they will never forget.

I was very impressed by, “The Loney,” and so I was interested to read Andrew Michael Hurley’s latest offering, “Devil’s Day.” Again, we have a bleak and isolated community; in this case, The Endlands, where John Pentecost grew up as a boy. Now he is returning, with his pregnant wife, Kat, for the funeral of his grandfather, ‘the Gaffer.’

One hundred years ago, the locals believe that the devil got into a sheep in the Endlands. Those in the local village of Underclough blamed the farmers for the bad luck that befell them. Shortly after the Gaffer’s funeral, it is the Gathering, when the Gaffer would reset the boundaries of the land and locals would celebrate ‘Devil’s Day,’ with their own songs, superstitions and celebrations. For Kat, feeling out of her depth and unused to the locals, this is a time she is looking forward to just passing, so she can get back to normal life. However, for John, the land, the place and the memories of the Endlands are calling him home…

This is a dark and disturbing tale of secrets, both past and present. As the novel progresses and you begin to get insights into the locals lives, their feuds, past and present, their motivations, their self sufficient lifestyle, their history and their protective secrecy, you have a sense of unease which only grows as the book progresses. This is beautifully written, well realised and I am full of admiration for Hurley as an author. Without doubt, this would be an excellent choice for a reading group, with lots to discuss. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

This would be a good book for a winter's night by the fire watching the darkness outside. I liked the sense of dread and inevitability that something awful would happen in the story and the bleak landscape certainly became one of the main characters in the book. I was disappointed by the ending though which I thought felt quite rushed and I'm still not really sure why Kat decided to stay on at the farm. I would have given 3 1/2 stars if that were an option.

This book is incredibly atmospheric and at times unsettling. It is not a thriller but more a slow burning, creeping tale about the superstitions and secrets of a small community of families who have lived in a valley by the Lancashire moors for many generations. Life is a constant challenge and struggle against the bleak, unforgiving land and the unrelenting elements. And maybe something even darker.

I enjoyed this story more than the author's first book, The Loney, and with an almost surreal or fairy tale quality, Devil's Day is the perfect read for lengthening Autumn evenings.

This is a story of farming generations and how the tales and traditions become interwoven into their lives. The devil and all his antics and disguises is the main character and how all that happens in the farming year can be blamed on him.
This is also the story of John who tries to leave that world behind and his wife Kat. On their return for the funeral of his Grandfather he finds out things have been happening on the farm - things that leave him and Kat in turmoil but John wants to come back and live on the farm and raise his unborn child.
This is a beautifully written book with descriptions that make you feel you are in the countryside.

I wanted to enjoy this book. Especially as it's coming up to Halloween and I wanted to enjoy a freaky story, but this just wasn't to my taste!

I felt that the narration jumped about a lot and could be a tad confusing at times. I' don't have a problem with books told in multiple timelines but this wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

The fact that a grown man called his father Dadda sort of made my skin crawl a bit and it distracted me from the story.

If you are in to bleak tales with a lot of superstition then this may be the book for you, but I just didn't enjoy it! Thanks to Netgalley for my ARC.

I loved The Loney by this author and I wasn't disappointed with Devil's Day. Andrew Michael Hurley's writing is so descriptive he paints a picture with words. I could see the farm and the sheep. I enjoyed reading about the traditions and superstitions of Lancashire. Though the story can be bleak there's also something very magical about it.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. It just wasn’t for me I couldn’t get into it.