Dark and atmospheric, a beautifully-written novel in the British folk horror tradition. Perfect reading for cold winter nights.

"If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest.

It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is.

I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn't stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to. No matter how hard I tried to forget...."

Wow. What an incredibly atmospheric and eerie read about two brothers – one is mute and the other looks out for him. Their family visits The Loney every year in the hopes of finding a cure for Hanny but when left alone, the boys can’t resist the old house they glimpse as the tide goes out. We then flash forward to when a child’s body is found…

I had no idea this book would be as religious as it was, normally I am ok with religious books (I don't go out of my way to pick them up but it doesn't really impact me if there are religious characters in the book) however this was like way over the top religious so much so that it quickly got boring for me

I really couldn't get into this story, it didn't seem to flow properly, what seemed like it was building up to something then would just plateau and nothing would come of it. The only minorly exiting part was towards the end when we find the reveal out about the baby etc. however I was still left with more questions than answers

I don't think this book is for everyone, if you don't like religious books then definitely give this one a miss. I really couldn't click with the story and found it dull the entire way through where nothing really got answered. With such high reviews everywhere I expected so much more but ultimately was left disappointed

My thanks to John Murray Press for a digital edition of Andrew Michael Hurley’s ‘The Loney’. My apologies for such a late review. This was due to vision issues, since resolved. I did recently purchase its audiobook edition narrated by Richard Burnip.

Since its publication in August 2015 ‘The Loney’ has gone on to win various accolades including the 2016 Costa First Novel Award.

The Loney is a wild length of English coastline where the unnamed narrator’s family, accompanied by friends and their parish priest, travel at Easter for a week of penitence and prayer. The main focus of the pilgrimage is to seek a miraculous cure for the narrator’s brother, Andrew (Hanny), who is mute and attends a special needs school.

In its opening chapter we learn of the recent discovery of the body of a baby in a collapsed house near the Loney. Our narrator decides to write his account of the events of the Easter of 1976 thirty years previously.

This was an extremely atmospheric novel in which rather than ‘jump scares’ or visceral horror a sense of unease and uncanniness is slowly built up. It is also a coming-of-age story that includes reflections upon loyalty, family, and faith.

‘The Loney’ was selected as the July book for our local library reading group and was very well received. It generated a great deal of group discussion about its themes, plot and characters. The contrasts between older traditions of healing and those sanctioned by the Church was of special interest.

Also, how certain aspects of the novel were mirrored such as the narrator calling his devout mother Mummer and the unexpected intrusion of the Pace Eggers, a Mummers troupe, into the holiday house. (I likely wasn’t the only reader thinking of ‘The Wicker Man’).

It’s a rather unusual novel though that is a plus for me. I felt that it was an astonishingly strong debut and I look forward to reading his new novel due in October.

When Stephen King says you're good then you're good. Enjoyed it - lots of atmosphere, meant that I was able to leave the contemporary world behind and delve into the heart of the novel.

It took me a long time to get round to reading this, but wow! Once I was in it, I was so immersed I would have happily spent a week in bed devouring it. Beautifully - and simply - written, confident, assured, haunting. If I'm honest, I felt a little disappointed by the ending - but still. A wonderful book.