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A review by thebibliophilegirl
Barrowbeck by Andrew Michael Hurley
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
This review will contain spoilers as I’ve just finished reading this and want to get my thoughts down as soon as possible about each story.
I didn’t enjoy this. When I was requesting this from the publisher, I didn’t realise that this book was a collection of short stories. I thought it was a novel set in the town of Barrowbeck and we would concentrate on a set of characters as the town becomes undone by dark and unknown entities.
I didn’t enjoy this because it’s promoted as a spooky season book. I didn’t get spooked out once. Sure there were a couple of times where I was like “that’s weird”, but then didn’t give it much thought thereafter. None of this stories (bar maybe a couple), resonated with me.
Yes, the book is set in the fictional town of Barrowbeck. But the book is split into 14 different short stories. We start when a group of people set out on a pilgrimage (around Viking era, maybe?) and end up laying their foundations down in this particular area of land. Now known as Barrowbeck.
From then on, each chapter follows different characters in different periods of time as they live their life in this town. I’m going to state each chapter and my thoughts on each one so I hope you’re ready for a long review 😮💨
- The First Footing: interesting to see how the town was “found” and how one of the people in the group basically said that the Gods said they could stay there.
- To Think of Sicily (1445): some strange bloke comes to Barrowbeck. A mom and her daughter have the exact same dream, and the Sicilian leaves them some oil that we have no idea what it does.
- The Strangest Case (1792): probably one of the most interesting stories. A father thinks his daughter is possessed and hires a hitman on her. Hitman kills bed and she spews black blood.
- After the Fair (1899): A circus comes to Barrowbeck and a ‘magacian’ gifts the children tiny versions of animals. A couple of the townsfolk think the magician is a fake and don’t believe the children when they say they have tiny animals. So they basically torture the kids at the end of the story to not believe any of it is real. Weird story. Felt indifferent to it until the end, and I was like “wtf are these townsfolk doing to the kids?!”
- Hymns for Easter (1922): a group of guys are singing in the church. Basically a story about WW1
- Natural Remedies (1938): another interesting and bizarre story. A woman grows babies in plants. She helps a couple who can’t have a baby by growing one in her greenhouse. We find out that the babies only live to be about 9, and then they start to decay. Story has a hint of witchcraft/folklore which I enjoyed.
- An Afternoon of Cake and Lemonade (1970): story about the town taking in people who are poor and helping them, only so God can see that by helping the poor, they are good people. We focus on a boy who is being told by his family to look after a poor boy. I think he actually poisons him and kills him at the end? He said he found his calling. I think it was to rid the world of poor people by killing them but 🤷🏼♀️ would have loved this one to be a little longer so we got answers.
- The Haven (1984): I didn’t get this one? It felt very different to the other stories. But from what I can gather, someone from Barrowbeck was showing an outsider around. And told the outsider to pick some fruit. Outside did. Townsperson showed the outsider the people in the village who were basically acting like mimes. Pretending to eat. We find out that eating the fruit is a sin, and the townsperson says to the outsider “you picked some fruit, now you die” and I think leads him off to be killed. Strange story.
- Autumn Pastoral (1995): This one was quite interesting. An art dealer has to go to a widows home to price up all of the late husbands art. He doesn’t really find anything of value. But learns interesting tidbits about the widow and her marriage to her husband. They didn’t get along and the widow hated the house in Barrowbeck and wanted nothing to do with it. However, the husband had himself buried in the back garden so that she could never sell the house and it would constantly in her life. Petty as shit. I loved it.
- Sisters (2022 but I don’t know whether this should actually be 2002, as the next story is set 2010. These are supposed to be in chronological order so maybe it’s an mis print. I guess we’ll see in final version): interesting story about a woman who becomes obsessed with people and basically stalks them to find evidence of “true emotion”. Her latest obsession is two sisters who I think run a B&B in Barrowbeck. We notice something is slightly off about the sisters but we don’t know what.
- A Celestial Event (2010): a man’s wife commits suicide. 2 days after her funeral, he invites his friends round his house to look at the sky and the stars through his telescope. He tells them to note the very bright thing in the sky and tells them it’s an angel. This was an interesting story. I had more questions though about why the wife killed herself. Would have loved this to be longer.
- Covenant (2029): A doctor finds a man in a ditch and helps him back to his home. Along the way he’s blabbering about how she woke him too soon. So he was basically having a vision. Reminded me of the man from the first story who went into the river to receive a Vision from the Gods about what he should do. Only link I’ve seen yet to other stories. Along the way, we learn that the doctors husband is having an affair (bastard). And then at the end, we find out the the man in the ditch was having a vision about the future of that very day where something cataclysmic was going to happen. We end the story on a storm happening in Barrowbeck with lots of rain and people running to safety.
- A Valediction (2041): I guess this one is sort of a story of global warming? We learn that the storm from the last story basically ended Barrowbeck and it flooded to the point of no return. We also learn that countries are becoming too hot. Airports have shut down and technology scans for anomalies. Observation Duty-esque. We follow a couple of women who have been told of an anomaly by the computer system in Barrowbeck and go to check it out. They find nothing. On the way back, it starts raining again, and the boat hits a dead body. One of the women puts forward the idea of souls. The end. Would have liked this to be longer as well.
Overall, obviously some stories were better than others but I WANTED A SPOOKY SCARY NOVEL. If Hurley had just taken one of the better stories and built upon it, he could have built the tension so well and definitely created something better. If anything, I don’t get spooky, demonic vibes from this, I get alien extra terrestrial vibes. Which isn’t scary at all.
Hurley is a good writer and I can see from other reviews that people loved this. I just couldn’t get my head round it and I the overall experience wasn’t enjoyable. I didn’t find myself rushing to finish this book because I wanted to find out what happened next. Maybe I’m missing something critical? I don’t know.
Thanks to John Murray Publishers for sending me a copy to review.
I didn’t enjoy this. When I was requesting this from the publisher, I didn’t realise that this book was a collection of short stories. I thought it was a novel set in the town of Barrowbeck and we would concentrate on a set of characters as the town becomes undone by dark and unknown entities.
I didn’t enjoy this because it’s promoted as a spooky season book. I didn’t get spooked out once. Sure there were a couple of times where I was like “that’s weird”, but then didn’t give it much thought thereafter. None of this stories (bar maybe a couple), resonated with me.
Yes, the book is set in the fictional town of Barrowbeck. But the book is split into 14 different short stories. We start when a group of people set out on a pilgrimage (around Viking era, maybe?) and end up laying their foundations down in this particular area of land. Now known as Barrowbeck.
From then on, each chapter follows different characters in different periods of time as they live their life in this town. I’m going to state each chapter and my thoughts on each one so I hope you’re ready for a long review 😮💨
- The First Footing: interesting to see how the town was “found” and how one of the people in the group basically said that the Gods said they could stay there.
- To Think of Sicily (1445): some strange bloke comes to Barrowbeck. A mom and her daughter have the exact same dream, and the Sicilian leaves them some oil that we have no idea what it does.
- The Strangest Case (1792): probably one of the most interesting stories. A father thinks his daughter is possessed and hires a hitman on her. Hitman kills bed and she spews black blood.
- After the Fair (1899): A circus comes to Barrowbeck and a ‘magacian’ gifts the children tiny versions of animals. A couple of the townsfolk think the magician is a fake and don’t believe the children when they say they have tiny animals. So they basically torture the kids at the end of the story to not believe any of it is real. Weird story. Felt indifferent to it until the end, and I was like “wtf are these townsfolk doing to the kids?!”
- Hymns for Easter (1922): a group of guys are singing in the church. Basically a story about WW1
- Natural Remedies (1938): another interesting and bizarre story. A woman grows babies in plants. She helps a couple who can’t have a baby by growing one in her greenhouse. We find out that the babies only live to be about 9, and then they start to decay. Story has a hint of witchcraft/folklore which I enjoyed.
- An Afternoon of Cake and Lemonade (1970): story about the town taking in people who are poor and helping them, only so God can see that by helping the poor, they are good people. We focus on a boy who is being told by his family to look after a poor boy. I think he actually poisons him and kills him at the end? He said he found his calling. I think it was to rid the world of poor people by killing them but 🤷🏼♀️ would have loved this one to be a little longer so we got answers.
- The Haven (1984): I didn’t get this one? It felt very different to the other stories. But from what I can gather, someone from Barrowbeck was showing an outsider around. And told the outsider to pick some fruit. Outside did. Townsperson showed the outsider the people in the village who were basically acting like mimes. Pretending to eat. We find out that eating the fruit is a sin, and the townsperson says to the outsider “you picked some fruit, now you die” and I think leads him off to be killed. Strange story.
- Autumn Pastoral (1995): This one was quite interesting. An art dealer has to go to a widows home to price up all of the late husbands art. He doesn’t really find anything of value. But learns interesting tidbits about the widow and her marriage to her husband. They didn’t get along and the widow hated the house in Barrowbeck and wanted nothing to do with it. However, the husband had himself buried in the back garden so that she could never sell the house and it would constantly in her life. Petty as shit. I loved it.
- Sisters (2022 but I don’t know whether this should actually be 2002, as the next story is set 2010. These are supposed to be in chronological order so maybe it’s an mis print. I guess we’ll see in final version): interesting story about a woman who becomes obsessed with people and basically stalks them to find evidence of “true emotion”. Her latest obsession is two sisters who I think run a B&B in Barrowbeck. We notice something is slightly off about the sisters but we don’t know what.
- A Celestial Event (2010): a man’s wife commits suicide. 2 days after her funeral, he invites his friends round his house to look at the sky and the stars through his telescope. He tells them to note the very bright thing in the sky and tells them it’s an angel. This was an interesting story. I had more questions though about why the wife killed herself. Would have loved this to be longer.
- Covenant (2029): A doctor finds a man in a ditch and helps him back to his home. Along the way he’s blabbering about how she woke him too soon. So he was basically having a vision. Reminded me of the man from the first story who went into the river to receive a Vision from the Gods about what he should do. Only link I’ve seen yet to other stories. Along the way, we learn that the doctors husband is having an affair (bastard). And then at the end, we find out the the man in the ditch was having a vision about the future of that very day where something cataclysmic was going to happen. We end the story on a storm happening in Barrowbeck with lots of rain and people running to safety.
- A Valediction (2041): I guess this one is sort of a story of global warming? We learn that the storm from the last story basically ended Barrowbeck and it flooded to the point of no return. We also learn that countries are becoming too hot. Airports have shut down and technology scans for anomalies. Observation Duty-esque. We follow a couple of women who have been told of an anomaly by the computer system in Barrowbeck and go to check it out. They find nothing. On the way back, it starts raining again, and the boat hits a dead body. One of the women puts forward the idea of souls. The end. Would have liked this to be longer as well.
Overall, obviously some stories were better than others but I WANTED A SPOOKY SCARY NOVEL. If Hurley had just taken one of the better stories and built upon it, he could have built the tension so well and definitely created something better. If anything, I don’t get spooky, demonic vibes from this, I get alien extra terrestrial vibes. Which isn’t scary at all.
Hurley is a good writer and I can see from other reviews that people loved this. I just couldn’t get my head round it and I the overall experience wasn’t enjoyable. I didn’t find myself rushing to finish this book because I wanted to find out what happened next. Maybe I’m missing something critical? I don’t know.
Thanks to John Murray Publishers for sending me a copy to review.