"In the wink of an eye, as quick as a flea,
the Devil he jumped from me to thee.
And only when the Devil had gone,
Did I know that he and I'd been one"
Halloween approaches, the clocks have fallen back an hour, there's a chill in the air and the smell of burning brush. Having spent a week in the deep forest in Yorkshire, my thoughts have definitely turned autumnal and dark. The dogs brought an unwelcome guest home in the form of a deer tick, battening quietly on warm blood and bloating in warm folds of fur. With the evenings drawn in and the fire blazing, there's never a better time for ghost tales and the supernatural.
A great place to start, especially as I am resident in the North West of England, is with Andrew Michael Hurley, award winning writer of three novels and several short stories. I was first introduced to Hurley at university with 'The Loney', his debut novel which was set in the wild coastal area near Morcambe and dealt with themes of devout religious fervour and paganism. With more than a touch of 'The Wicker Man' and folk horror about it, it was an excellent read which led me to buy his second novel on release: 'Devils Day'.
'Devils Day' centres on a schoolteacher returning home to his family after the passing of his grandfather at his farm in rural Yorkshire. In a remote community bound together with tradition, malice and hardships, his home coming is soured byt bad memories and unpleasant discoveries. Like Nigel Kneales 'Beasts' series, Hurley manages to make the worst horrors the ones imagined by the reader and without being overtly creepy, the story has some genuinely scary moments.
Having found his pace and flavour with the first two novels, his recent third book; 'Starve Acre' raises the bar again, becoming almost Clive Barkerish in its imagery.
In similar style to Devils Day, the story centres around a young couple as they struggle to adapt after the untimely death of their five year old son. The central character becomes obsessed with discovering the remains of an old oak tree on his land, legendary for being the scene of mythic sacrifices and executions, while his wife is disturbed by recurrent visions of her lost son.
Hurley ramps up the suspense and gruesome imagery in Starve Acre, with a disturbing and very real manifestation of evil besetting the household.
If you enjoy M.R James ghost stories or the work of Nigel Kneale, i'd recommend any or all of these books, with perhaps Devils Day being the best starting point, as the sense of terror and isolation is especially poignant here.
