4.5/5

This book was amazing. The prose was completely haunting and this story left you chilled to the bone from start to finish. It was brilliant how Hurley made you as the reader always sense this looming/impending doom. You weren't sure what would happen, you weren't sure what exactly happened before the start of this but you watch this creepy tale slowly unravel the past and come together with the future to give you something horrific and breathtaking.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Disclaimer: I am not afraid to admit that I had to reach for the dictionary a couple of times during the progress of this book.


This is a tale, within a tale. A parallel, with several hundred years between them. The constant, Jack and the Hare.


The setting, is God's own country, Yorkshire, England.


The setting, is described and the tale told, in such a way that you are almost there with the characters. I suppose it also helped that I know the area a little.


Intertwined with almost a 50/50 split between the two and the interlinking that takes part, progressing together at a considerable rate.


The only drawback, the ending. Obscure.


Rating: 4.1/5.0


Status: Completed.

Stunning writing (as ever), that growing realisation as I read that there was probably something amiss not only with the tiny boy who had died but also with parents now, left behind with paralysing grief , was brilliantly etched out. .. mother Juliette seeking supernatural/ seance help and husband Richard interesting himself in digging up land under a hanging tree, finding gruesome results. Short and intense.

We are gradually introduced to the sadly distressed characters of this novella as the tension slowly builds the more you read. We learn of the home life of an academic forced to take a sabbatical after the death of his son. Strange happenings precede the death of their son whose demeanour becomes abnormal . The perception of this strange behaviour differs between Richard and his wife Juliette.The history of Starve Acre and it’s dark past is slowly revealed.
Starve Acre is central to all of this as it takes on a sinister life of its own. Obsessed with finding the remains of a tree best left forgotten it looks as if the digging of the field could reveal something best left buried. A well written atmospheric tale with dark undercurrents and the characters are sensitively portrayed.
I do feel it slipped away for me at the end where it ended rather abruptly. Slightly disappointed as I feel the ending could have been expanded upon. A dark and interesting tale nonetheless.

(3.5 stars) I’ve now read all three of Hurley’s books, and I definitely dig his creepy-happenings-based-on-ancient-England-and-the-supernatural vibe. I liked this a bit more than Devil’s Day but less than The Loney. All three are set in the rural North of England and focus on isolated characters who become caught up in strange circumstances they don’t fully understand. Starve Acre is home to Richard and Juliette Willoughby, in mourning for their five-year-old son Ewan, who died suddenly last summer. Juliette sits vigil in Ewan’s room, convinced his spirit is still present, and takes part in a séance-like ceremony led by the Beacons. Richard digs, looking for the roots of an ancient oak tree on which men were hung, and also finds the corpse of a hare. Layers of history and trauma are unearthed, with troubling information coming out about Ewan. In atmosphere this is similar to Max Porter’s two books. It’s short, and gripping enough that I read 90 pages on a car ride, but also somewhat abstract and distancing. You should get on with it well if you like subtle thrillers.

There is no better writer of literary folk horror than Andrew Michael Hurley, and this latest does not disappoint. His horrors are embedded in a rich sense of place that makes the landscape the most vivid character in the novel.

With themes of grief, superstition, and folklore, Starve Acre is about the aftereffect of the sudden death of Richard and Juliette Willoughby’s son, Ewan. This is intertwined with flashbacks to their strained lives leading up to Ewan’s death as well as Richards's current project of the excavation of an infamous oak tree and its relationship, alongside the local legend of Jack Grey, to the hanging of three young men.
Andrew Michael Hurley slowly draws the reader in, subtly revealing elements to the story without any jump scares or shocks but unnerving at the same time. As with his previous two books, this is a fantastic read and cannot be recommended enough.

Hurley has a real knack for delivering ominous gothic tales in the vein of true Folk Horror. Starve Acre is deliciously atmospheric with the setting and landscape playing a heavy presence in the story. The reader is kept guessing until the very end and even then there is still a sense that not everything is resolved or ever can be. Wonderfully creepy. Highly recommend.

I was quite disappointed with this book to be honest, I had read some much about it and thought that it would be a very creepy book to read, I regret to say I was wrong!!! I found this book quite difficult to get into , very slow , but, creepy. I almost gave up on it a few times but, decided to see what would happen in the end.
I had heard about his other books and how great they were, unfortunately this one wasn’t for me.
My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

A really immersive, atmospheric folk horror story that kept me turning the pages.
I really liked the writing style which was very vivid. enjoyed it a lot.
Thanks a lot to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is an amazing folk horror story
It is very atmospheric, and I felt fully immersed in the story

I’m not really sure why I ended up with this book as it’s nothing like I’d usually read. It was very well written but so many things made no sense at all and left me baffled. The situation with the hare was bizarre, I don’t want to give any spoilers so I’ll just say I found it very odd that Richard just accepted what happened to the bones with no question. Because I found it so very odd I can only give three stars. Overall the book seems well liked, it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

I'm not sure you can ever really enjoy Hurley's books. He writes with a kind of quiet malevolence that means you're constantly unsettled and off kilter, and this story is no exception. He deals with the issue of the grief over the death of a child by drawing on myth and folklore to chilling effect. There are some definite parallels to be drawn between this book and Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin, not least in the portrayal of a child who has issues of their own. But the plot is gripping and you never know where it's going.

This book is hard work. It doesn't present well at the beginning, it feels like it is trying too hard to impress with the vocabulary used.

I skipped over a few paragraphs to get to the actual story and once the creepy goings on started it is a cracker. It would make a great TV drama!

Sad family, check. Young son, soon dead, check. Creepy setting, check. Weird tree, check. Odd bones, check. Supernatural, yes!

Loved it so much I've already reread it, without skipping anything. A real treat of a book.

Starve Acre is in many ways a quite traditional supernatural ‘chiller’: it is wonderfully atmospheric and draws on folklore and tradition to provide a disturbing setting for what is in effect a study of how two people deal with grief following the death of their only child.
It is set in a perpetually cold, barren location (hence, most probably, the title) and very soon after a traumatic and tragic event, the background to which is revealed through shocking vignettes throughout the book. It is all told in a believable and descriptive style which, in the best tradition, allows space to wonder if the events described are ‘genuinely’ supernatural or simply natural in origin, and based purely in the mind and imaginings of the characters.

There are some strange and possibly archaic uses of words throughout the book which enhances the Gothic, peculiar setting and feel of the story. Although this generally works I found the use of certain words and phrases to describe the mundane slightly jarring, particularly at the start of the book as I was trying to ‘settle in’ to the story (the author describes his subject’s office as “his oubliette” and a few lines later states that “he’d turned apian”). This got me off to a bad start as it felt a little pretentious and also strangely clumsy. However, I quickly got over this and started to become very involved in the story.

Some parts of the book feel unbelievable but surprisingly they are not the supernatural elements of the story; the interactions between very young children sometimes don’t quite ring true and occasionally the dialogue feels a little ‘stagey’. But the strange, supernatural happenings are detailed in such a way to feel very real and quite shockingly believable.

My minor quibbles don’t take away from the fact that this is a well told, unsettling and ultimately very believable fairy tale. This is added to by the fact that although the story reaches a definite conclusion, not all threads are neatly tied up and the reader is left with possibly more questions than answers.
This novel is effective enough that as the fantastical events unfold the reader is totally caught-up in the story and short enough to make for one very disquieting winter evening’s reading. Now is the time to read it!

This book is eerily reminiscent of the 1970s public information film The Apaches, although the plot is different there is the same sense of menace and evil.

The book begins with a bereaved couple and as the book unfold we find out how they lost their son and then their relationship unravels as they try to cope with the aftermath. There's some archaeology, spiritualism, a zombie hare and a malevolent oak.

A horrible, creepy, fun read.

The name and cover of this short novel, Starve Acre, immediately sent chills up my spine. Having loved the author's earlier book 'The Loney' I was delighted to have the chance to read this latest creation from Andrew Michael Hurley. As with 'The Loney', the setting of 'Starve Acre' is a character in itself. It is vividly and scarily described. If they hadn't made the choice to move there none of the events of the tale would have happened to the main protagonists, Juliette and Richard. At the start of the tale their 5 year old son Ewan has recently died and the two grieving parents are dealing with this in different ways. As a reader I was speculating throughout what had happened to Ewan and this is not revealed until close to the end, an aspect which I found helped the gripping nature of the story. Juliette rarely leaves Ewan's bedroom and is unresponsive to the efforts of Richard, her sister and her parents to move on with her life. She does however respond to a local quasi religious group, The Beacons, who offer her some solace in her grief. Richard, a history academic, meanwhile has become obsessively engaged in researching the area on his land where there used to be an oak tree used for hanging. Juliette and Richard have not had an easy time integrating into village life, having moved to Starve Acre (Richard's parental home) from the city. Cruelty and ostracism play a significant part throughout the tale, particularly when, in flashback, Ewan starts school and has difficulties with the other children. The responses to grief seem to unleash hidden dark forces and the reader is desperate to know how things will turn out. Superb writing by Hurley has created a memorable tale. My thanks to the publisher via Net Galley for the opportunity to read a complimentary ARC of this novel in return for an honest review.

Richard and Juliette live in a remote house in the Yorkshire Dales. Their son Ewan died after a short, troubled life and Juliette is lost in grief. Richard spends his time excavating their blighted field, said to have been the site of a huge oak where three local boys were hanged in the distant past. While looking for the roots of the tree to try to document if it really existed he comes across the bones of a long dead hare. This leads to events which lead to a truly Gothic Noir outcome.

My first real delve into reading into the supernatural and this was a good story to start with. I found the end a little disappointing but in a good way as was left wanting to know what happened next

Richard and Juliette move into Starve Acre after his parents died to enjoy being a family in this rural setting. But soon their son Ewan changes and life starts to go wrong for them up to Ewan’s death. But what else is going on here, why does nothing grow in their field? An interring and gripping book full of folklore and mystery. Great read all the way through,