Review of the Loney by Andrew Micheal Hurley

I was looking forward to reading this book after seeing the number of awards it had been awarded. I was sure I was in for a treat but I was left feeling a little flat and disappointed.

The description of the setting is truly unsettling and you really get the shivers as you imagine yourself on the shore of the Loney.  It really feels that the end of the world as we know it.  Moorgates is a house out of a horror film and to spend the night there would give you nightmares for the rest of your life. With the background tales of the children dying from TB and the old taxidermist that inherited the house but then left overnight leaving his hoard of stiffed animals. It's creepy.  The characters that still live at Loney are just as unsettling and chilling and you really wouldn't want to meet any of them on a dark night.  However, the story just didn't go anywhere and I must admit to finding chapter after chapter of just plodding on and the story not really developing.

There is a strong religious theme running through this as the family go on a visit to the shrine at Loney to seek out a cure for their mute son.  Here is where the confusion began for me.  I wasn't sure what was wrong with him apart from the fact that he didn't speak.  The two brothers were very close but I always got the impression that Andrew (or Hanny, another confusion) as he is often referred to is the younger of the two but as the story ends It would appear that he is actually the older, I think,  To be honest, I'm still unsure.

The other characters were a little on the cliche side for me.  The seriously religious mother, the over-powering vicar that loses his faith and the mousey Ms Blunt,  The sinister characters that live at Loney are very much in the background and although you get the sense that they are sinister there is no clearing up as to what their story really is and who they really are apart from a group of strange men.

The story just seems to end.  The narrator is a little erratic and although at the start you get the feeling that he is the normal character he appears to be as insane as the rest of them.  The story wraps up quickly in the final few pages and I was left feeling very disappointed.

I can see how the book as won the awards with the atmospheric setting and the beautiful descriptive writing but for me the characters and the story fell a little short of the mark.