Latest news with #OldSoul
The Guardian
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The best science fiction, fantasy and horror
Old Soul by Susan Barker (Fig Tree, £16.99)A chance encounter between two travellers who've missed their flight reveals a strange connection: each is haunted by an unexplained death. Although Jake's best friend Lena died in London a decade ago, while Mariko's twin brother died more recently in Japan, the circumstances were similar. In both, a rare physical condition that should have been known since birth was only found postmortem. Both had been recently involved with a female photographer, a European in her 30s or 40s, who disappeared soon after the death. Jake suspects it was the same woman and is determined to track her down. Through the testimony of others, the mystery deepens, as the story moves back and forth in time, from Japan to Germany, from rural Wales to the artistic circles of 80s New York, and Jake assembles a picture of a seemingly ageless woman behind a series of inexplicable deaths. An immersive, stunningly weird tale that closes like a trap round the reader. Model Home by Rivers Solomon (Merky, £18.99)Can a house that's never been lived in before be haunted? Gender-fluid Ezri and their sisters carry scars from terrible experiences as the only Black family in a gated community in Dallas. The parents remain after their children are grown. When phone calls go unanswered, Ezri, now settled in London, fears the house has killed them, and must go back to Texas to confront the truth about the past. A disturbing, brilliantly twisty psychological horror exploring family dynamics, memory, gender identity and sexuality. Mother of Serpents by John R Gordon (Team Angelica, £13.99)The latest from the award-winning author has something of the feel of classic Stephen King. The set-up is traditional: married couple with a small child leave their familiar urban environment to relocate to a spooky old house on the edge of a strangely silent forest in rural Maine, where the little boy speaks of nocturnal visits from an 'owl lady' who warns of danger. But this is a same-sex marriage and the stay-at-home spouse is a Black poet who fears his husband will attribute his increasingly weird experiences to the return of an earlier psychotic break. The fully realised, believable main characters exist in the real world, and the strong writing and specificity of detail make for a gripping read, with a genuinely original monster. Symbiote by Michael Nayak (Angry Robot, £9.99)The author of this debut novel has worked at an Antarctic research station, and excels in capturing the wonder as well as the fear it inspires. The first volume of the Ice Plague Wars series opens with the arrival of Chinese scientists – one dead – at the American station. They are seeking refuge, but the US and China are at war, so they must be confined until a military authority is informed. And the Chinese have brought something incredibly dangerous with them: an infection spread by touch, triggered by extreme cold to ignite a murderous rage in the host. A grim, violent tale, as hard to resist as the rapidly evolving symbiote. Waterblack by Alex Pheby (Galley Beggar. £20)The conclusion to the Cities of the Weft trilogy begins some years before the events of the first book, introducing new characters and a fresh angle on the power struggle between the Master of Mordew and the Mistress of Malarkoi. The right of those magical god-like rulers to exist is contested by an Assembly with a different view of reality, gearing up for the Eighth Atheistic Crusade. Their chief target is Nathan Treeves, returned to a life-in-death as the Master of Waterblack, the underwater city of the dead. There is much to enjoy, but it doesn't work as well as the first two volumes, marred by occasions when the omniscient narrative voice becomes a hectoring bore, and the apocalyptic finish dribbles away into appendices.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Book Review: Susan Barker returns with ‘Old Soul,' a thrilling horror story that defies description
If you read enough, you sometimes come across a book that defies description. That's a decent enough way to start a review of 'Old Soul,' the new novel by Susan Barker. Described in marketing materials as 'literary horror,' it's a supernatural mystery that culminates in an old-fashioned chase scene in the Badlands of New Mexico that almost leaves readers with a sense of justice. Almost. It's slow at first, as you adjust to the unique style. Seven of the 15 chapters are prefaced with the word 'Testimony,' and you soon piece together that the first-person narrator, Jake, is talking to people who died in a similar fashion as his childhood friend, Lena. He's recording their stories, trying to find connections, in his hunt for the killer. How he got to this point and the things he learned along the way are revealed in subsequent chapters, with each testimony — from friends or family of victims in Japan, Germany, Wales, and Hungary — standing on their own as short stories about how a shape shifting woman entered someone's life and left a trail of death in her wake. Interspersed with the testimonies are chapters set in New Mexico, in 2022, as the killer — she calls herself Therese in this encounter — pursues her latest victim. Barker drips out details, heightening your expectations and forcing you to turn the page for answers. We learn early on that the woman in each of the testimonies is something more than human. 'She was unnatural… she could manipulate her face to any affect… her entire being was a perfidious mask of surging life, behind which lurked something not-living and predatory.' But we're also told stories in each of the testimonies about how the woman treated her victims with such kindness that it's hard not to work up a little sympathy for her. The penultimate chapter, 'Testimony 7 — Theo,' soars with excerpts from the journal of a sculptor who embarks on a torrid love affair with the woman after leaving New York City in her mid-20 to pursue her artistic career in New Mexico. She finds much more than that, of course, and so do we, as readers. Some may not like the exposition near the end, and many will probably Google the term 'Luciferian,' but Barker tells an immersive story that despite its supernatural grounding feels real. ___ AP book reviews: Rob Merrill, The Associated Press
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Book Review: Susan Barker returns with ‘Old Soul,' a thrilling horror story that defies description
If you read enough, you sometimes come across a book that defies description. That's a decent enough way to start a review of 'Old Soul,' the new novel by Susan Barker. Described in marketing materials as 'literary horror,' it's a supernatural mystery that culminates in an old-fashioned chase scene in the Badlands of New Mexico that almost leaves readers with a sense of justice. Almost. It's slow at first, as you adjust to the unique style. Seven of the 15 chapters are prefaced with the word 'Testimony,' and you soon piece together that the first-person narrator, Jake, is talking to people who died in a similar fashion as his childhood friend, Lena. He's recording their stories, trying to find connections, in his hunt for the killer. How he got to this point and the things he learned along the way are revealed in subsequent chapters, with each testimony — from friends or family of victims in Japan, Germany, Wales, and Hungary — standing on their own as short stories about how a shape shifting woman entered someone's life and left a trail of death in her wake. Interspersed with the testimonies are chapters set in New Mexico, in 2022, as the killer — she calls herself Therese in this encounter — pursues her latest victim. Barker drips out details, heightening your expectations and forcing you to turn the page for answers. We learn early on that the woman in each of the testimonies is something more than human. 'She was unnatural… she could manipulate her face to any affect… her entire being was a perfidious mask of surging life, behind which lurked something not-living and predatory.' But we're also told stories in each of the testimonies about how the woman treated her victims with such kindness that it's hard not to work up a little sympathy for her. The penultimate chapter, 'Testimony 7 — Theo,' soars with excerpts from the journal of a sculptor who embarks on a torrid love affair with the woman after leaving New York City in her mid-20 to pursue her artistic career in New Mexico. She finds much more than that, of course, and so do we, as readers. Some may not like the exposition near the end, and many will probably Google the term 'Luciferian,' but Barker tells an immersive story that despite its supernatural grounding feels real. ___ AP book reviews:
Associated Press
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Book Review: Susan Barker returns with ‘Old Soul,' a thrilling horror story that defies description
If you read enough, you sometimes come across a book that defies description. That's a decent enough way to start a review of 'Old Soul,' the new novel by Susan Barker. Described in marketing materials as 'literary horror,' it's a supernatural mystery that culminates in an old-fashioned chase scene in the Badlands of New Mexico that almost leaves readers with a sense of justice. Almost. It's slow at first, as you adjust to the unique style. Seven of the 15 chapters are prefaced with the word 'Testimony,' and you soon piece together that the first-person narrator, Jake, is talking to people who died in a similar fashion as his childhood friend, Lena. He's recording their stories, trying to find connections, in his hunt for the killer. How he got to this point and the things he learned along the way are revealed in subsequent chapters, with each testimony — from friends or family of victims in Japan, Germany, Wales, and Hungary — standing on their own as short stories about how a shape shifting woman entered someone's life and left a trail of death in her wake. Interspersed with the testimonies are chapters set in New Mexico, in 2022, as the killer — she calls herself Therese in this encounter — pursues her latest victim. Barker drips out details, heightening your expectations and forcing you to turn the page for answers. We learn early on that the woman in each of the testimonies is something more than human. 'She was unnatural… she could manipulate her face to any affect… her entire being was a perfidious mask of surging life, behind which lurked something not-living and predatory.' But we're also told stories in each of the testimonies about how the woman treated her victims with such kindness that it's hard not to work up a little sympathy for her. The penultimate chapter, 'Testimony 7 — Theo,' soars with excerpts from the journal of a sculptor who embarks on a torrid love affair with the woman after leaving New York City in her mid-20 to pursue her artistic career in New Mexico. She finds much more than that, of course, and so do we, as readers. Some may not like the exposition near the end, and many will probably Google the term 'Luciferian,' but Barker tells an immersive story that despite its supernatural grounding feels real. ___
