SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD

'Modern classics in this genre are rare, and instant ones even rarer; The Loney, however, looks as though it may be both' Sunday Telegraph

The Loney is not just good, it's great. It's an amazing piece of fiction (Stephen King)

Modern classics in this genre are rare, and instant ones even rarer; The Loney, however, looks as though it may be both (Sunday Telegraph)

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 . . .

The Loney is a stunning novel - about faith, the uncanny, strange rituals, and the oddity of human experience. Beautifully written, it's immensely entertaining, but also deep and wide. A moving evocation of desolate wilderness and a marvel of complex characterization, The Loney is one of my favorite reads of the past couple of years (Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times-bestselling author of the Southern Reach trilogy)

A modern classic: superbly eerie, beautifully human and immensely readable (Adam Roberts)

I can't remember a more confident debut: a mingling of horror, domestic strife and metaphysical ambiguities set against an arrestingly vivid landscape. Brilliant(Adam Thorpe)

The Loney transcends its generic roots by virtue of its depth and subtlety, imbuing horror with an intimacy, flavour and scent, meanwhile suggesting that horror's true face is meaningless, indifferent - and brilliantly blank (Grace McCleen)