The Loney in Around the World in 80 Books

Apr 07, 2021 Damian rated it really liked it

This was originally self-published before being picked up and becoming a big bestseller. It's blurbed by Stephen King. It's TERRIFYING!

I used to read a lot of horror and then life got pretty horrific so I took a break from it. In recent years I've dared to scare myself again. This book was a my return to reading horror.

I won't rehash the plot but I wil say this...the final few pages are so dark I did immediately regret scaring myself so much. Certainly memorable! ...more

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Jan 23, 2021 Claire Fun rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Not my usual read, but I was drawn to the cover and the description, although I ended up being a little disappointed by it. Mostly the story of a boy, his mute older brother, his religious mother and their church friends, going on a religious retreat in the hope of curing the brother. There's flashbacks to the boys earlier days as an altar boy for the previous priest who, according to the boys mother, did everything right unlike the new modern priest with his new fangled ways, and there's a coup Not my usual read, but I was drawn to the cover and the description, although I ended up being a little disappointed by it. Mostly the story of a boy, his mute older brother, his religious mother and their church friends, going on a religious retreat in the hope of curing the brother. There's flashbacks to the boys earlier days as an altar boy for the previous priest who, according to the boys mother, did everything right unlike the new modern priest with his new fangled ways, and there's a couple of flash forwards to the current day where the boy and his brother are adults and life is different for them. It took a *really* long time to get to the 'point' where these stories converge. If you like an awful lot of religion, belief, masses, etc being described then you'll like this - I'm not a fan. I never found it scary - although the 'scary' characters were fine, but I've seen those sorts of things done so much better - I briefly thought longingly of Margaret Mahy's The Tricksters, where the weird ominous characters infiltrating a family are actually creepy and interesting. Admittedly I didn't really like most of the characters in this, although that's possibly how it's meant to be, the 'new' priest was possibly the most likable of the lot.
Most of the book is about building the characters, I guess, but there's just soooo much where nothing really happens (except religion!) that when you don't like most of the characters, it drags. The ending was the only bit really where anything happened, and it was...fine. A bit of a letdown but fine. WHat I liked most about the book at all was the scene setting, the scenery, the description, - I could picture the area and the atmosphereand the general damp grey miserableness of their temporary home and the run down landscapes surrounding it. I'm not sure I've been to the exact part of the UK it took place, but I know the type, and I've been to plenty, and it was brilliantly evocative. I know others call it gothic and creepy and so on, but it just made me think of some slightly rubbish holidays I've been on when you can't afford to go anywhere half decent, but there's a cheap place to rent in a quiet place in the countryside when you just make the best of it because sometimes it just rains all week and the fog never lifts and that's just what you get...admittedly there was a lot less religious overtones to my rubbish holidays so they were just gloomy english weather!
So overall - great cover, good potential, slow and meandering but a bit of a nothingy story with unlikable 'good religious folk'. Not really for me. ...more

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Dec 05, 2019 Nina ( picturetalk321 ) rated it really liked it

Shelves: europe-uk, europe, a-reviewed, z-read-2019, genre-fiction, author-man, genre-horror, 4-star

A slickly plotted novel of suspense, memory and the supernatural. The setting of the Loney, an English Irish Sea coast tidal plain, is superbly evoked. I felt myself there, among the spray and sands ans dangerous tides. And the climax immerses you fully in seascape in a very satisfying way. A handful of ordinary people are on pilgrimage to a disused shrine. I love it when extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, and their ordinariness is very nicely constructed from kettles boiling, broll A slickly plotted novel of suspense, memory and the supernatural. The setting of the Loney, an English Irish Sea coast tidal plain, is superbly evoked. I felt myself there, among the spray and sands ans dangerous tides. And the climax immerses you fully in seascape in a very satisfying way. A handful of ordinary people are on pilgrimage to a disused shrine. I love it when extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, and their ordinariness is very nicely constructed from kettles boiling, brollies opened, niceties exchanged -- all the while with an undertow of envy, jealousy, despair and resentment. The central figure of the priest works very well as a stand-in for us outsider readers and also as a character portrait of a multi-layered man who allows glimpses beyond the "naive" focalisation of the narrator (but himself ultimately remains naive).

The sense of menace is very effectively built up over the slow burn of 4/5 of the novel. We do get a dramatic pay-off though never a full rational solution -- this isn't a detective mystery but an exploration of the inexplicable, of faith, both Catholic and superstitious, with shades of the film Deliverance in the cast of threatening local characters.

At the heart of the story is the love story between the narrator (looking back on his 14-year-old self 30 years ago) and his older brother who is mute and mentally disabled. I liked reading a love story that is about a deep bond and is not a romantic story.

Words I learned: esurient; gilly; bunting; skirl; pace eggers; tabard; col; marram; purulent; cam; simnel; aumbry; carrageen; chaplet; rosemaling; flexuous; pyx; theodolite; hornwrack; scrimshaw; saltire; scrat; sural; guillemot; cilice; bullaun; chunner. Still don't know what two-and-eight is (Cockney rhyme?).

I will generously overlook the grammatical abuse of the dative in the pronomial dual (it's become so common that I now notice when it's done correctly...)

Format: Kindle. Fine; no issues.

Flavours:
"Perhaps being a priest was like being a fish. Immersion for life."

"The churchyard ... was small but well stocked with the village dead ... all of them lying east-west as though the wind had combed them that way over the centuries."

"Through a burst of blind splashing, the sky, Coldbarrow and the churning horizon were turned vertical first one way and then the other..." ...more

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Feb 16, 2017 Windy rated it liked it

This is quite a complex book. The unnamed narrator flits back and forth with different threads and it's only right at the end that mysteries are revealed. There's a bleakness too, emphasised by the setting on the north west coast. ...more

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