Andrew Michael Hurley (born 1975) is a British writer whose debut novel, The Loney, was published in a limited edition of 350 copies on 1 October 2014 by Tartarus Press [1] [2] and was published under Hodder and Stoughton's John Murray imprint in 2015. [3] He was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Open Book programme "British Gothic" in October 2015. [4]
Hurley was born in 1975 [5] in Preston, Lancashire and grew up there, spending holidays in Cumbria and Yorkshire "in the sort of rural, rugged landscapes dotted with smallholdings that he now writes about". [6] He has said that at the aged of ten he was obsessed with Tolkien, [7] and that on family holidays he would look out for books of local ghost stories. [6] He has worked as a teacher and a librarian. [6]
Hurley had two volumes of short stories published by Lime Tree Press: Cages and Other Stories (2006) and The Unusual Death of Julie Christie and Other Stories (2008). [2]
His debut novel, The Loney, was reviewed in The Guardian and The Telegraph . [8] [9] It is set in the area of Morecambe Bay in north west England, described in the text as "that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune". [3] Hurley has said that the novel's two starting points were "to write a kind of dark version of the Nativity [...] and exploring ideas of faith and belief" and "various wild, lonely places on the north west coast of Lancashire [...] a sense of imminent menace or dormant power lying just under the sand and the water". [10] He has also described how the landscapes and placenames around Silverdale, further north on Morecambe Bay, influenced his writing. [7] It is the winner of the 2015 Costa Book Award for First Novel [11] as well as the British Book Industry Award for best debut fiction and book of the year. [12]
His second novel, Devil's Day, was published on 19 October 2017 by John Murray [13] and Tartarus Press [14] Its setting, "The Endlands", is based on Langden valley in Lancashire's Forest of Bowland. [15] The book "deploys myth, landscape and the tropes of horror to chilling effect". [16] [17] Hurley was joint winner of the Royal Society of Literature's 2018 Encore Award for best second novel. [18]
Hurley's third novel Starve Acre was published 31 October 2019 by John Murray. The "Starve Acre" of the title is the home of a couple whose child has died, and it is "a novel which grapples with the irrationality and complexity of grief, the power and potency of folklore, and a moving examination of the effect a child's loss can have on its parents". [19] The Guardian 's critic described it as "an atmospheric tale in the same tradition of English folk-horror" as his previous two books. [20] The film Starve Acre based on the book, was directed by Daniel Kokotajlo, starred Morfydd Clark and Matt Smith, and premiered at the BFI London Film Festival 2023. [21]
His fourth novel, Barrowbeck was published on 24 October 2024 and comprises a collection of tales about the fictional village of Barrowbeck, on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, across 1,000 years. [22] [23] [24] A series of stories based in Barrowbeck were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2022 under the title Voices in the Valley; readers included Maxine Peake, Reece Shearsmith, Toby Jones, Tamsin Greig and Jessica Raine. [25]
Hurley's story "At the Rising of the Sun" was read by Stephen Campbell Moore in the BBC Radio 4 series Short Works in June 2025. [26]
Hurley has been a lecturer in "creative writing (fiction)" at Manchester Metropolitan University since 2016. [27] He lives in the Preston area, having previously lived in London and Manchester. [6]
| Year | Title | Award | Category | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | The Loney | Costa Book Awards | First Novel | Won | [28] |
| Waverton Good Read Award | — | Longlisted | |||
| 2016 | Authors' Club First Novel Award | — | Longlisted | ||
| British Book Industry Awards | Book of the Year | Selected | [29] | ||
| Debut Fiction | Selected | ||||
| 2018 | Devil's Day | Encore Award | — | Won | [30] |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
