The worst thing possible has happened. Richard and Juliette Willoughby's son, Ewan, has died suddenly at the age of five. Starve Acre, their house by the moors, was to be full of life, but is now a haunted place.
Juliette, convinced Ewan still lives there in some form, seeks the help of the Beacons, a seemingly benevolent group of occultists. Richard, to try and keep the boy out of his mind, has turned his attention to the field opposite the house, where he patiently digs the barren dirt in search of a legendary oak tree.
Starve Acre is a devastating new novel by the author of the prize-winning bestseller The Loney. It is a novel about the way in which grief splits the world in two and how, in searching for hope, we can so easily unearth horror.
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[Overnight, snow had fallen thickly again in Croftendale and now in the morning the fells on the other side of the valley were pure white against the sky]***
(John Murray, 31 October 2019, 304 pages, paperback, ARC from @AmazonUK via Amazon Vine)
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I've read most of Hurley's books and this was by far my favourite. This is a haunting book. I loved the way this short novel is structured, focusing on present events with Richard and Juliette grieving their son in very different ways intercepted with flashbacks showing how their son, dead only a few months started to change and become more violent when they moved to the moors. There are hints that he may have fallen prey to some malevolent force on the moors, like a form of possession but this is never fully explored. There is enough information for you to reach your own conclusions. Juliette's obsession with believing her son is still on the moors somehow is heart-breaking and chilling. Her sister knows this way of thinking is unstable and she needs psychiatric help. Richard is a bit irritating at times as he seems unable to see the truth about his wife's mental state. There is sense of hopelessness to the book. The end of the novel when Juliette seems to believe a giant hare is her reincarnated son leads to some very disturbing events.
