Starve Acre By Andrew Michael Hurley

A tour de force of physiological fantasia . . . Writing of this quality – sensuous, exact, observant – ensures that other scenes, too, pulse with vitality . . . Hurley's gothic storylines send spectres of deathliness through his fictional world. His prose brings it vividly alive
Sunday Times

A tour de force of physiological fantasia . . . Writing of this quality – sensuous, exact, observant – ensures that other scenes, too, pulse with vitality . . . Hurley's gothic storylines send spectres of deathliness through his fictional world. His prose brings it vividly alive
Sunday Times

I will confidently predict that no reader will guess where it's heading, particularly in the novel's startling last sentence . . . Hurley's ability to create a world that's like ours in many ways and really not in many others is again on full display . . . Starve Acre, leaner and perhaps even more unsettling than its predecessors, may well be his best novel so far
The Times

I will confidently predict that no reader will guess where it's heading, particularly in the novel's startling last sentence . . . Hurley's ability to create a world that's like ours in many ways and really not in many others is again on full display . . . Starve Acre, leaner and perhaps even more unsettling than its predecessors, may well be his best novel so far
The Times

Beautifully written and triumphantly creepy
Mail on Sunday

Beautifully written and triumphantly creepy
Mail on Sunday

A perfectly pitched tale of suspense and the dark side of folklore . . . perfect, page-turning reading for a dark night
Herald

A perfectly pitched tale of suspense and the dark side of folklore . . . perfect, page-turning reading for a dark night
Herald

This kind of book, as with ghost stories from M.R. James to Susan Hill, demands a phenomenal control of language and atmosphere to work at all, and Hurley provides it in spades . . . This is a wonderful story of its type that has all the qualities of unease, nastiness, terror, psychological trauma and implied physical revulsion one expects from folk horror. But it's nothing to the denouement it foreshadows
The Spectator

This kind of book, as with ghost stories from M.R. James to Susan Hill, demands a phenomenal control of language and atmosphere to work at all, and Hurley provides it in spades . . . This is a wonderful story of its type that has all the qualities of unease, nastiness, terror, psychological trauma and implied physical revulsion one expects from folk horror. But it's nothing to the denouement it foreshadows
The Spectator

Brilliantly written . . . Evoking Ted Hughes's style of writing, Hurley is adept at seamlessly intertwining the malignant savagery of nature with abstract use of imagery for horror effect. He has this uncanny ability of bringing the palpable supernatural to life with a neat, serene turn of phrase. All these hallmarks of superlative writing are in full display in this impeccable work of folk horror. Starve Acre is a haunting portrait of what happens in the liminal space between grief and sanity
Irish Times

Brilliantly written . . . Evoking Ted Hughes's style of writing, Hurley is adept at seamlessly intertwining the malignant savagery of nature with abstract use of imagery for horror effect. He has this uncanny ability of bringing the palpable supernatural to life with a neat, serene turn of phrase. All these hallmarks of superlative writing are in full display in this impeccable work of folk horror. Starve Acre is a haunting portrait of what happens in the liminal space between grief and sanity
Irish Times

The new novel from the award winning author of The Loney is a further entry in a genre that Hurley is fast making his own . . . Hurley adeptly creates an unsettling atmosphere and keeps us guessing about the extent to which his characters are haunted by grief, by more primordial supernatural forces, or both. This chilling story will set spines tingling and teeth on edge: just the thing for Halloween
Daily Express