The Loney

The Loney follows two brothers who accompany their devoutly Catholic family on a pilgrimage to a shrine near an isolated stretch of the Lancashire coast, intended to cure the older brother (nicknamed Hanny) of his developmental disabilities. The story moves between two timelines—the events of their childhood visit in the 1970s and the adult narrator's return years later after a death. The novel blends folk horror with a meditation on faith, family, and the English landscape.

The Loney was first published in 2014 by Tartarus Press, a small independent UK publisher specializing in horror and supernatural fiction, in a limited print run of around 350 copies. It was then acquired by John Murray for wider commercial release in 2015, after which it won the Costa First Novel Award and received widespread critical acclaim. The novel's trajectory from small press to mainstream success was a notable publishing story.

The Loney established Andrew Michael Hurley as a significant voice in British literary horror, and he followed it with novels including Devil's Day (2016) and Starve Acre (2019), which share similar rural settings and folk horror sensibilities. Starve Acre was adapted into a 2023 film starring Matt Smith. Hurley's body of work is often compared to the tradition of British folk horror associated with films like The Wicker Man (1973) and the ghost stories of M.R. James.

The Loney won the Costa First Novel Award in 2015, which brought it to wide public attention after its initial limited release by Tartarus Press. Stephen King publicly praised the novel, and it was also shortlisted for the James Herbert Award for Horror Writing. The book was subsequently adapted into a 2023 film directed by Iain Hollands, further extending its reach.