Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley

This story is haunting in subtle ways. There is the big old house in the  Yorkshire Dales, an ancient 'Old Justice' gallows tree, the sudden death of a disturbed child, voices from the past - all set in the cold and desolate moorlands. The perfect recipe.

A couple turn to unusual folklore rituals and strange recipes as a way to deal with the loss of their child. They are desperate and grieving. The husband is an archaeologist and he attempts to dig out the roots of an old gallows tree believing that it has some strange powers that somehow caused the death of his child. The wife joins a spiritualist group in the hope that the bridge between life and death can be crossed

​Hurley has the right narrative: understated, not dwelling on the obvious horror that belies the story and shapes the events, no cliched banging doors. This is about grief and how it affects people differently, and ultimately how they overcome it by whatever means. Elegant and profound, disturbing and supernatural. Spooky, gothic and atmospheric.

Published at Halloween. A timely ghost story, not too long, just right. Brilliant.

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Published by John Murray Press on 31 October 2019.
​Advance review copy supplied by the publishers.

​See other books by Andrew Michael Hurley The Loney and Devil's Day.

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Pastoral Ideal: Villages and Estates