I’ve been a fan of Andrew Michael Hurley since first reading The Loney in around 2014.
I love the folk horror genre that he writes in, it’s not a common style so it’s all the more exciting when I see he’s releasing a new book.
This one is certainly an excellent addition to his catalogue of novels.
It’s a book of short stories, that when read together make a stunning full length book. The stories are all set in the same place, Barrowbeck. The difference here, is that each chapter takes place in different time periods of the same village.
The author has successfully achieved an eerie and atmospheric novel, which definitely gives it the creep factor that I’ve come to expect from the author.
I’d definitely recommend this to everyone! Old and new readers alike, you won’t be disappointed.
Thank you to the author and publisher for allowing me to read this ARC.

This might be Hurley’s most accessible book yet, while at the same time also being perhaps his most ambitious. It’s a set of linked stories all set in Barrowbeck, a valley on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, progressing through time from the founding of its first settlement to its fate in the near future. As we learn more about Barrowbeck, the mood shifts from contemplative to ominous and back again. Barrowbeck contains some of the folk horror that’s become synonymous with the author’s name – but there’s also reflective historical fiction, hints of magic, a couple of excellent character studies, even a bit of sci-fi (the final story takes place in 2041).

The first five stories all have elements of scene-setting, though this doesn’t mean they’re uninteresting. ‘After the Fair’, which sees a girl attending a magical travelling fair where children can win tiny circus animals, has one of the most memorable premises in the book. ‘The Strangest Case’ is haunting; by contrast, ‘Hymns for Easter’ is one of the least chilling and most thoughtful, a story that effectively captures the shifting sands of history. It’s a theme that runs through the book: one version of the world is lost; all moves on.

‘Autumn Pastoral’ (my favourite) is such a wonderful story that it feels like a novel in itself. An art valuer visits a house in Barrowbeck that’s filled with paintings of the valley – part of a strange inheritance the house’s occupant left to an ex-lover as an act of spite. This is easily the creepiest and most atmospheric of the stories; I also felt it gave me a much stronger mental image of the valley than any of the others. In ‘Sisters’, it’s the rich character development that stands out. Its obsessive protagonist is captured so well, it hardly needs a macabre twist. ‘Covenant’ is vaguely Aickmanesque, loaded with portent: a house of mismatched believers, a curious New Year’s Eve tradition.

The strength of ‘An Afternoon of Cake and Lemonade’ lies in how it leaves the reader wondering. What exactly is the nature of Jason’s sinister ‘calling’? Where does it take him, after 1970? I liked many of the details in ‘A Celestial Event’, though the ending let it down; it needed to go a bit further, I think. ‘The Haven’ is good but maybe a bit too obviously aiming to tick all the boxes on a folk horror checklist.

Then there’s ‘A Valediction’, which is most effective as a way of tying everything together. As two environmental inspectors traverse the now-flooded valley by boat, they see remnants of its history, places and names the reader will recognise from the earlier stories. It’s an elegy for both Barrowbeck and the world in which it – in which we – existed. It’s common for folk horror stories to emphasise that ‘the land remembers’; in Barrowbeck, the river keeps flowing.

I am a huge Andrew Michael Hurley fan. I’ve read all of his novels and enjoyed listening to Voices In The Valley, a series of 10 short stories set in fictional Barrowbeck, on BBC Sounds. When I was offered an ARC of Barrowbeck by the publisher – thank you John Murray – I jumped at the chance to read and review the author’s new novel.
Rather than a novel in the traditional sense, Barrowbeck is a series of 13 short stories and vignettes set in the titular village on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border. Each story takes place in a particular year stretching from when the village was first settled sometime in the distant past up until 2049.
We start with First Footing where a band of people, who have been attacked in their old village, seek a new place to live. They have a shamanistic connection to the land which encourages them to choose the valley beside the Arfon. This sets the tone of folklore and folk horror with which Hurley is so strongly associated and which can be found throughout each story. This is not to say that the stories are like each other. Each tale has its own tone, its own cast of characters. The village is a huge character in itself and informs each story in the collection.
Hurley’s talent is immense. Each character is so well described and for all we don’t spend a great deal of time on each chapter, I found myself empathising and able to ‘see’ each person.
My favourite two chapters were An Afternoon of Cake and Lemonade and Sisters. The former left me with a true sense of the longing of unwanted childlessness and I found the latter to be unsettling and dark.
While there is some overlap between the BBC Sounds series and the stories in this book, I found so much that was new. And, as usual, the book is better.
Hurley is literary folk horror at its best and I thoroughly recommend Barrowbeck to fans and new readers alike. It’s perhaps his most accessible book and, in my humble opinion, his best. So far.

Barrowbeck is a little hard to describe - made up of a series of short stories, it tells the story of the valley over two thousand years, through snapshots of those who live there or are passing through. Hurley’s trademark ‘folk horror’ vibe permeates the novel, sometimes subtly, sometimes unsettling and sometimes in full blown passages of uncanny horror. In some cases what’s unsaid is even more awful than what’s on the page - some may find the ambiguity frustrating but I loved developing the threads that Hurley sets out.
My only slight disappointment was that I was familar with some of these stories already from the radio 4 ‘Voices in the Valley’, but there are new stories and expansions of familar ones (I think!).

The overall effect is rather melancholy, and takes us past the present day to a climate change influenced denouement. Barrowbeck immerses you in the valley and it has stayed with me since reading.

In the UK Andrew Michael Hurley is a major force in the revival of folk horror, with his outstanding debut The Loney (2015) being both a commercial and critical hit (winning the Costa First Novel) after initially being released on a tiny print-run of 300 copies. Hurley’s second novel Devil’s Day (2017) was equally startling, but his third book, Starve Acre (2019), is my favourite and I looking forward to catching the film version later this year. This startling short novel was initially released as a very limited edition under the pseudonym Jonathan Buckley and is a pitch perfect exercise in mounting terror when a young family realise there is either something psychologically wrong with his son, or he is being haunted by a dark presence. Bleak does not begin to describe this terrifying novel.

Having been a huge fan of Hurley’s earlier work I found Barrowbeck to be a massive disappointment. It retains his usual folk horror hallmarks, including remote north of England landscapes, threatening surroundings, local superstitions, village life and the occasional whiff of a cult. However, the manner in which the plodding story is framed failed to ignite and just when some of them were getting interesting it jumps forward into the next time period. As it jumps from ancient times into, eventually, the near future there was just no time for character development and I already struggling to remember the characters who featured in the earlier sections. They were far from memorable.

For a horror novel it was completely devoid of any kind of scares and even though there was a certain level of foreboding atmosphere connected to the Barrowbeck location it was just not enough to carry the book. If anything, the opening sections which outline the sinister history of the local area was an atmosphere killer and failed to hold the attention. One needs more than a ‘cursed land’ scenario to glue a novel together and even though this was not a long read, it quickly became monotonous as there was not enough tangibly to thread the stories together.

The sections (or stories) take place in 1445, 1792, 1899, 1922, 1938, 1970, 1984, 1995, 2010, 2022, 2029 and 2041. I found them more engaging as they become more modern, moving away from the drudgery of farming the land and superstitions. Some sections were more connected to the ‘cursed land’ story arc and the themes covered included local superstitions, prophecies, the effects of the First World War, prophecies, strange customs and small glimpses (not enough) of the supernatural.

Some of the parts felt like short stories, or with slight rewrites could be presented as such. There is nothing wrong with this and An Afternoon of Cake and Lemonade (1970) was one of the strongest parts, about a family who help a disabled boy, but just when the story gets interesting, it ends. Covenant (2029) was also impressive, a doctor new to the village, tries to embrace its strange customs, whilst knowing her husband is having an affair. Again, it ends just when it looks to be getting spicy.

I did enjoy the final section, A Valediction (2041) which is a very un-Hurley style ending, which worked well and circled back to the beginning. Even though Barrowbeck had its moments, I found this to be a frustrating read and not up to the high standard of his earlier three novels.

Thank you so much for the invitation to review this ARC. It was superb, tension and unease rising and falling as the reader goes through the individual stories centred around the valley of Barrowbeck. An interesting and accomplished foray into the future with the last two stories and terrifyingly believable.
I can’t wait to recommend it to family and friends when published.