Member Reviews
A short novel but an impressive one.
Richard and Juliette are grieving for their dead son Ewan in Richard's parent old home in a village. The story is told in the third person from Richard's perspective. While Juliette is convinced that Ewan is still around despite being dead, Richard throws himself into first work and then a project started by his father to uncover the remains of a mythical oak that once stood in the family's land.
While Juliette invites a group called the beacons to help her with her mourning, Richard remains the pragmatist and refuses to believe they can help despite facing inexplicable himself.
The story flashes back to Richard's time with Ewan, the joy they shared together and the difficulties as he seemed to change from a happy boy into someone morose and unpredictable.
Local superstition and mystery play heavily throughout the book leading to a deliciously chilling conclusion..
This is certainly a weird book; it reads as a contemporary tale focused on grief but with a distinctly gothic horror tone running through it. From the moment you are introduced to the Willoughby family, you are made aware that they have relatively recently lost their young son, Ewan. So you are entering a home still in the throes of a deep grief. Hurley's writing depicts this beautifully, even when he is depicting the landscape of Starve Acre - it all seems to tie back into that sense of loss and bereft helplessness. His writing is vivid and focuses far more on descriptive passages than I usually find interesting in a novel but it certainly serves to paint a picture of this bleak and unforgiving landscape that they are residing in.
Told through a series of juxtaposing trips through the past and the present, Hurley manages to bring the young Ewan, with all his troubled and disturbing manners, to life. This is important, as it could easily have revolved around a child you never know and have lost the emotional impact. The style also allows for a build up of tension throughout both aspects of the book; for whilst you are aware that Ewan has died, you are not told how, why or when. When combined with the undeniably creepy tone of the present, and the trips back into the history of Starve Acre and the legendary Stythwaite Oak that Richard is so obsessed with mapping the roots of, you get a tense and fraught novel.
Whilst it's quite a short read, it also packs quite an emotional punch and I found each of the varying tales threaded throughout were fascinating in their own way. The long gone past with the wood cuts Richard unearths in his father's library depicting the Stythwaite Oak in its hey day but also the scene of three boys hanging is tentative and fascinating by how oblique it is. The vagaries of the past are unearthed but never fully understood all these years later. The present day with the supernatural twists around the corner and the depiction of how grief can dig it's claws deeply has a faster pace, but still lingers on unexplainable moments. The relationships are impressively sculpted, the degrees of love, exasperation and concern unravelling around the characters, balanced perfectly with the conflict between the sceptic and the believer, each believing the other to be wrong or even actively ill. The flashbacks to Ewan's childhood get very dark, very quickly and everything intricately ties back to the mystery of Starve Acre.
This is a clever exploration of folk lore, of parenting, of relationships and of loss. It's unnerving and yet whilst it certainly hovers on the edge of horror, it never takes the full plunge. The places throughout are made exceptionally real, and you can envision the small village atmosphere and politics. It's well written, and leaves you with a number of questions hanging over your head as you finish the last page. I flew through it quickly and whilst it didn't hook me, it certainly had me intrigued until the last page. If you enjoy slow burning, realistic gothic horror then this is certainly one to look out for.
After reading The Loney and Devils Day I was thrilled to be given a chance to read Starve Acre. I wasn't disappointed. Andre Michael Hurleys books are so atmospheric they give me the chills! He uses folklore and superstitions to build tension until the unthinkable happens.
Thank you NetGalley for my copy.
This is a book to devour. The writing is exquisite, the characters are indepth, the bleak end of Winter scenery on the quiet moor heartbreakingly beautiful.
Richard and Juliette have recently lost their young child and are each grieving in their own way. Richard hides on the moor, Juliette in her deceased son's bedroom. They grow further apart each day.
An occult healing session turns their world upside down.
Starve Acre is a story with few characters, traveling at a slow but very pleasant pace, giving the reader space to fully engage in this couple's emotional landscape.
Thank you Netgalley and John Murray Press for the ARC.
Andrew Michael Hurley has been the main author behind the resurgence in the folk horror genre and has been perfecting his style from The Loney to Devil's Day. This story has the reminiscent feel of a 70's Hammer House of Horror TV episode or M.R. James Christmas Tale and I raced through it.
The unsettling narrative builds with flashbacks to Richard and Juliette's son, Ewan, being prompted to violence by an unseen voice and the present, where a dig within a sinister field reveals bones and remains of an ancient tree used for hanging.
Anyone who has seen the 2018 film "The Witch" set in puritan America will know how evil hare's can look and in connection there is a similar scene which comes at a sudden unexpected ending.
An incredibly creepy, slow-burning folk horror that I would recommend to fans of We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Sinner. The reader is left to decide whether the events that take place in the book are the result of nature, nurture, or supernatural influence. Hurley is renowned for creating isolated rural communities and his best characters are the 'sceptics' who slowl.y begin to doubt their own senses. This book follows in the folk horror footsteps of writers like Shirley Jackson and Susan Hill; there are nods to books like King of the Castle as well as Hurley's sophomore novel Devil's Day. A brilliant book for a cold night by the fire.
Review to go live on Don Jimmy Reviews on October 29th
I had seen Starve Acre appear on a couple of twitter feeds, but it was a tweet from Bookish Chat that really sparked my interest. Then of course I saw it on NetGalley. I wasn't exactly expecting an approval but was delighted when it happened.
From the start of this book, I wasn't too sure what to make of it. I'm not sure I was enjoying it to be honest but there was something about it that kept me going - it's also short - almost a novella - so there’s the possibility that I thought to myself that it wouldn't take too long whether I liked it or not. Then something surprising happened. It sucked me in.
What we have here is a story that is dark and atmospheric. At times the story is frightening, and I had that "walking over my grave" feeling that all books of this type should have. The gulf in the relationship between man and wife, mirrored by the dead land outside, is portrayed brilliantly. As is Richard's scepticism of the Beacons.
By the time the Beacons had been introduced I was swallowing this one up and could not wait to see what else lay in store. The story told partly in flashback is perfectly paced, and I'm sure it's finale will live long in the memory.
In the end I loved it - highly recommend to fans of the macabre - especially at this time of year, or as a friend said to me (that's you Tom) "Perfect for when the dark nights arrive".
Get on it - released October 31st.
I have read both this author’s previous books and been impressed by his skills at conjuring atmosphere. He gives us more of the same here with a setting on the Yorkshire moors in an isolated farmhouse and its adjacent field, the focus of local superstition and a grisly history. The tension is heightened by the family’s own recent history and the tragic loss of their 5-year-old son. The circumstances of his death are unclear for most of the book. The events leading up to it, though, and the child’s abrupt change in personality create such an atmosphere of foreboding I feared to find out what happened.
Central to the story are the different ways the parents handle their grief, looking in such different directions that their health and their marriage are threatened. Richard focuses on practical things, researching the history and folklore of the property, Starve Acre, while Juliette seeks comfort and answers in the spiritual. This was reminiscent of AMH’s previous novel, ‘Devil’s Day’, and was just as effective.
A psychological and supernatural story in one - recommended.
Hurley's third novel was initially snuck out pseudonymously, posing as a lost classic of the 1970s and folk horror's first boom. I'd be interested to know how many readers of that edition saw through the ruse, because it's certainly not a million miles from his last novel, Devil's Day. Once again, a man returns to the old family home in the wilds of Yorkshire, a more metropolitan bride in tow; once again, the memory of his father looms over the house, and a death in the family casts its shadow. And once again the locale at first seems merely unwelcoming, hard and cold, before gradually revealing itself as something far more sinister. Yes, it avoids any howling Downton anachronisms, at least so far as I noticed, but I never had any real feeling of it as specifically a seventies pastiche. But then, it might have been tricky to tell when there are already so many periods of the past bleeding into the present; the more recent time when Richard and Juliette's son Ewan was still alive, but also the period centuries earlier, before the field opposite became the barren Starve Acre of the title, back when it was home to the mighty but ill-omened Stythwaite Oak. Of course, this being folk horror, the past isn't dead – it isn't even past, and given Richard's an archaeologist, that which was buried won't be staying safely interred. Given we now know the novel is in fact a product of the 2010s, several of Starve Acre's key motifs can be seen as remixing a particular horror classic which came out between its purported and actual publication dates, and as has often been said of that book's author, the ending here doesn't necessarily satisfy what the novel has stirred up. Still, Hurley doesn't half know how to conjure unease along the way.
(Netgalley ARC)
Second book by Hurely that's under my belt now, and I simply can't help but continue to be thoroughly impressed by the sense of unease he creates within his works. Starve Acre is the story of Richard and Juliette trying to rebuild their shattered lives after the sudden death of their troubled young son. Told from Richard's point of view, the story weaves into the past and present seamlessly, never stopping to take a breath.
I have to say the ambiguity of the story is probably the novella's strongest selling point. it's difficult to decide if the characters have been thrown head first into a classic horror tale, being stalked by the mysterious Jack Grey - or having a psychological break. I suspect that will definitely be a topic of discussion once the book hits the shelves.
I did feel there could have been a couple of more pages devoted to developing the characters a little, but it's a tiny complaint given how fast paced and packed Starve Acre is.
Highly recommended.
With thanks to Netgalley and John Murray Press for the ARC.
Narrated with natural menace, "Starve Acre" is laced with darkness and desperation which condemns the family in residence to a grave and tragic existence.
The shadowy strangeness emanating from this tale makes it’s easy to become entangled in the unsettling, ethereal events that occur.
Piece by disturbing piece the story of Juliette and Richard grows increasingly dense. It’s clear that something has happened to their boy but it’s not revealed precisely what, leaving you to imagine the worst, at least until imaginings metamorphose into reality.
Make no mistake this story is a curious one. Perhaps it won’t appeal to everyone, but it would capture the attention of any reader who prefers to be kept guessing and does not expect answers to be handed to them on a plate.
Andrew Michael Hurley has a real gift for the gothic style, horror tinged, atmospheric storytelling that immerses the reader here in a chillingly dark and disturbing world. He draws on his trademark themes of history, superstitions and folklore in a ominous narrative that goes back and forth in time. The Willoughbys have relocated to the rural Yorkshire Dales to an inherited home, Starve Acre, a name that certainly doesn't inspire comforting heartwarming pictures. For Richard and Juliette as parents, the very worst that could have happened is swamping their lives, the unbounded intense grief at the loss of their little 5 year old boy, Ewan. Ewan had been a sweet and happy boy, but had changed drastically recently, becoming more temperamental and worryingly cruel, with locals afraid of him and leaving his parents concerned. They deal with their grief in different ways, with Richard focusing on the history of Starve Acre, and the field with the legendary Stythwaite Oak, discovering wood block prints depicting hangings, the scary figure of Jack Grey and unearths hares bones.
Juliette remains convinced that Ewan is still there, but worried that his presence is weakening. To address this, she invites into their home an occultist group, The Beacons. The unnerving events that follow are not what was planned as it all culminates in one hell of a freaking shocker of an ending. Hurley gives us vivid rich descriptions of the location, and leaves the reader unsure as to what is real, whether the fantastical elements can be believed, and the tortuous grim nature of the hell that is grief. This novella held me in its chilling and tightly gripping arms, right from the start until I finished it all in one sitting, upon which I was left stunned and dazed as I returned back to reality.
This book should be on everyone's list as the dark nights of the approaching Autumn inch closer, it is perfect reading fare for Halloween. Highly recommended. Many thanks to John Murray Press for an ARC.
Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
Richard and Juliette are grieving the loss of their five year old son, Ewan, at Starve Acre, their inherited home in a rural English village. Richard has thrown himself into his work, researching a legendary oak tree thought to have historically stood in the house’s grounds. Juliette, meanwhile, thinks Ewan is still present in the house, chronicling the encounters she has with him, and inviting The Beacons, a group of occultists, to the house to help her reconnect with her son.
Is there anything to Juliette’s insistence that Ewan is still around? Could the folklore of the tree and the village have anything to do with the odd, violent behaviour Ewan was exhibiting before his death?
As with The Loney, there’s a great ambiguity here - there could, however far fetched, be a rational explanation for pretty much everything - but it’s also easy to believe something more mystical and chilling. Are there dark forces at play, or is the cleverly constructed framework of folklore, grief and history creating a mood where it’s so easy to believe something unreal? It’s a great grey area and one which Hurley thrives in.
The plot whips past at a very quick pace, particularly in comparison to Hurley’s previous books. On the one hand, this is fantastic as I was hooked throughout and constantly struggled to find a point to stop reading. On the other hand, it perhaps felt like an extra 50 pages or so could’ve further developed some of the characters, helped to enhance the gothic mood of the novel and created more intrigue. These parts were all highlights of the novel anyway but I do think the mood in particular could’ve been heightened even further (maybe that’s just my incredibly dark reading taste)!
I really enjoyed this (I love gothic and a hint of fantasy), even more than The Loney, and think it’ll be a cracking gothic read for Halloween. With a confident, beautifully writing style that doesn’t ever interfere with a darker, unnerving mood and plot, it’s a brilliantly crafted look at grief and folklore and has me excited for even more from Hurley in the future.
Having really enjoyed The Loney and Devils Day I was really pleased to receive this ARC and I was not disappointed. From the opening sentences with the beautiful winter descriptions of Croftendale in the Dales right through to the mind blowing end I was hooked. This is the story of Richard, Juliette and Ewan Willoughby and their home Starve Acre. It is a story of grief, guilt and sorrow following the death of young Ewan, it encompasses local legends, superstitions, magic and beliefs. The story weaves effortlessly from before Ewan died to afterwards and we learn how Ewan changed and became a cause of consternation and fear to the villagers as well as to his mother.
Starve Acre is very well depicted and I enjoyed the sections where Richard reorganises his fathers books and finds the wood block prints which show the legendary Stythwaite Oak (which is on their land and Richard is excavating for) later he finds one that shows Jack Grey the local bogeyman and later ones which depict hangings from centuries ago. Jack Grey and the Tree have a major effect on Ewan one minute he is ’morose’ then ‘hyperactive’ and certainly he became vindictive. For instance, he joyfully builds a snowman with his parents, the next day he viscously destroys it. I found Richards and Juliette’s reaction to Ewan and his subsequent death very thought provoking. They didn’t know what Ewan’s life meant - he took all their love and filled them with sorrow. Juliette is initially inert and wracked with guilt but later this changes. Richard tries to keep busy with the excavation and find some acceptance and peace.
The is a lot of magic and superstition in the story. Mrs Forde and the Beacons was interesting and Mrs Forde sensed something fetid in the house which turned out to be true. The hares bones that Richard finds during the excavation of the tree and what happened later is certainly magical and strange. Richard feels the discovery brings a ‘sense of imminence of things brimming on the cusp’. I don’t want to give away any spoilers but the hare caused a few jaw dropping moments. Gordon, one of Richard and Juliette's friends tries to warn them of impending doom.
What a read! The ending socks you right between the eyes. It was fantastic in every sense of the word. It was an eye popping, jaw dropping, heart stopping, mind boggling, dumbfounding and amazing. It is extremely well written with some beautiful descriptions. It is a dark tale so when Ewan welcomes New Years Eve guests with some gorgeous malapropisms that is a welcome laugh out loud moment! It is very different and you have to suspend disbelief but it is well worth reading.
A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, John Murray Press, for allowing me the chance to read this book ahead of its publication in exchange for an honest review!
A quick read, I sat down and raced through it. Within a few hours I was done. I’ll say right now – prepare yourselves for this book. It’s awesome and terrifyingly chilling!
Situated in the remote fens, on an acre of land starved of life, the setting could not be more perfect for this novel. Juliette and Richard are struggling through their grief after the death of their son, Ewan, whilst living on their isolated piece of land called Starve Acre.
Told from Richard’s perspective, and at first I wasn’t sure I would like him as a character – he isn’t as compassionate or as empathetic towards his wife as I felt he should be, but then I realised that everybody handles their grief differently. He isn’t the perfect husband, nor is she the perfect wife, and the most awful thing in the world has happened to them. In this way, one of the primary themes of Starve Acre is loss and grief, and the way families deal with it, as well as the ways in which relationships of the people left behind are affected by a loss so huge.
It is also layered in local superstitions and folklore. Starve Acre gradually releases from its depths the local story of an oak tree, long since gone and called The Hanging Tree, with an awful history, and a figure nicknamed Jack Grey hiding in the woods of Starve Acre, a story told to frighten wandering children. Or is it?
The story gently pulls us from the present into Ewan’s final months, and we see how his character changed from a sweet, fun, loving boy into a child capable of doing awful things. His parents worry, until eventually Juliette admits that Ewan frightens her at times. Through Richard’s eyes we see links forming between Ewan and the field that he plays in, the field in which, in the present day, Richard digs and digs, trying to find the roots of The Hanging Tree, trying to confirm it’s history.
It’s extremely cleverly done, and it took me on a chilling journey. Are the stories of Jack Grey and the oak tree to be believed? Did it really have something to do with Ewan’s changing behaviour? And what of the mysterious Beacons?
You see, there’s another element to this book. Juliette believes that Ewan is still with them, that he exists in some form in the house, but lately his presence is weakening. In an effort to regain it, she calls upon the Beacons, a strange occult-like group who come to their house and perform some kind of ritual which doesn’t go to plan. After which, Juliette changes in demeanour in strange and concerning ways.
As we watch the story unfolding, in the past and the present, the horror begins to emerge. Starve Acre kept me reading on the edge of my seat, and it is intensely chilling! That ending… That ending kept me awake. It is so far from anything I could have imagined happening! It’s just…. it’s horrible and morbidly fascinating and just shocking! Such a twist I could never have predicted.
Paired with the fantastically atmospheric writing style, I think this book will easily find its way onto my favourites list for 2019.
Starve Acre was originally issued by Dead Ink Books as part of their Eden Book Society series, as the purported work of 1970's author Jonathan Buckley. The elusive "Buckley" is none other than Andrew Michael Hurley - and Starve Acre is now being published by John Murray under Hurley’s name and with new cover art. Hurley himself describes this work as being “very much in the folk horror tradition”, describing “how grief strips the world into two”.
Starve Acre’s protagonists are Richard and Juliette, a couple who have lost their only son, Ewan, and are trying to get to grips with this tragic, life-changing event. Whilst Juliette believes that Ewan lives on in their house in rural Yorkshire, Richard, an archaeologist by profession, becomes obsessed with the sterile field contiguous to this house, and what lies buried beneath its dark soil.
The Eden Book Society series is based on the fictional premise that its books were written back in the 1970s. True to that brief, the story as originally published contained some period-specific references which suggest that decade (such as Richard working on a typewriter and the conspicuous lack of mention of more recent technologies such as mobile phones). This ‘historical’ backdrop has been retained in this edition. However, in true folk horror tradition, the evil which lurks within the pages of the novel is ancient and timeless – an age-old shadow which is at one with the landscape and soil, an arcane folk figure which has terrified the villagers for centuries and which returns to curse the ‘city outsiders’ who naively try to live a dream of a simple country life.
This evil is nudged back to existence after Hurley’s protagonists, Richard and Juliette relocate from Leeds to the rural house which used to belong to Richard’s parents. Richard is not too keen on this move, particularly since it evokes memories of his father’s final mental breakdown. Juliette, however, fantasizes about their little son Ewan playing with the village children, and about raising a family of rascally young Willoughbys far from the hustle and bustle of the city. These dreams are shattered when Ewan dies in circumstances which remain vague and unexplained. Juliette falls into a debilitating depression, whereas Richard, like his father before him, spends days digging in the soil of the neighbouring “Starve Acre”, unearthing what look like the roots of an ancient “hanging tree” and the bones of a large hare. A well-meaning neighbour introduces the couple to a local mystic who conducts a séance-like ceremony in the house. It all goes horribly wrong, leading to the novella’s chilling denouement.
The story’s narrative is deftly handled, shifting seamlessly between the grief-soaked present of the Willoughbys, flashbacks to Ewan’s disturbed final months and half-remembered legends of bogeymen of English folklore. What is particularly effective, however is the sense of ambiguity which the novella shares with some classic ghost and horror stories including, to name just one famous example, Oliver Onions’ The Beckoning Fair One. Thus, Starve Acre can be read literally as a supernatural tale or, at another level, as a study of a descent into madness and obsession, its otherworldly elements merely the morbid imaginings of sick minds. Either way, Hurley continues to confirm his status as the current master of folk horror.
* spoiler alert ** There was a sense of dread from me throughout this book,as the death of Ewan was mentioned frequently,but never what he died of.
And in flashbacks,he seemed to be getting more and more unsettled,and violent,and obsessed with the old tale of Jack Grey.
Was the land possessed or was Ewan just a bad kid?
Some great atmospheric scenes and an ending that left me wondering "what the .....?" in a good way.
What a wonderfully weird and delightful little (short) novel!
This novel deals with the loss of a child but also the folklore and superstitions which exist within small towns. Just what happened to Juliette and Richards son, Ewan? Who is the forbidding presence of Jack Grey? And how is he linked to the paranormal things happening at Starve Acre?
Andrew Michael Hurley manages to weave a chilling atmosphere and a chilling, creeping sense of dread and I did not see the twist coming at the end at all! This novel will be a nice little read for Halloween.
Many thanks to Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc of this in exchange for an honest review.