Old Soul - by Susan Barker (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A darkly romantic literary horror/thriller novel about the epic battle between love and one woman's will to stay alive, around the world and through the centuries."--

Book Synopsis

The Historian meets Under the Skin in this searingly provocative literary horror novel about one woman's determination to stay alive at any terrifying cost.

In Osaka, two strangers, Jake and Mariko, miss a flight, and over dinner, discover they've both brutally lost loved ones whose paths crossed with the same beguiling woman no one has seen since.

Following traces this mysterious person left behind, Jake travels from country to country gathering chilling testimonies from others who encountered her across the decades--a trail of shattered souls that eventually leads him to Theo, a dying sculptor in rural New Mexico, who knows the woman better than anyone--and might just hold the key to who, or what, she is.

Part horror, part western, part thriller, Old Soul is a fearlessly bold and genre-defying tale about predation, morality and free will, and one man's quest to bring a centuries-long chain of human devastation to an end.

Review Quotes

"[A] sweeping work of literary horror. . . The slow-burning tension and lush, atmospheric prose build a creeping sense of dread that lingers long after the final page. Fans of both the deeply personal speculative horror of Carmen Maria Machado and the subtle, character-driven mystery of Haruki Murakami will be enthralled." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This horror novel about a mysterious woman who leaves death in her wake had me flipping the pages until I knew all the answers. . . Creepy as hell." --Book Riot

"Susan Barker's Old Soul beguiles, terrifies, and utterly seduces you as swiftly and slyly as the mysterious woman at its center. It's at once a thriller, a postmodern mystery, and an existential horror tale, but perhaps most deeply it speaks to our current moment: the drift and terrors of loneliness, the risks of intimacy and a piercing nostalgia that never lets us go." -Megan Abbott, author of El Dorado Drive

"Old Soul is perfect read for the chilly depths of winter: a clever, spooky metaphysical mystery that spans continents--and even planets. Susan Barker's novel kept me guessing until the end. You'll never look at Venus quite the same way again." --Chloe Benjamin, author of The Immortalists

"Old Soul is like nothing else I've ever read...I loved how it made me feel: like I'd woken up after a long sleep to see for the first time how terrifying and strange the contemporary world has become. This is 21st century horror: the kind of story you tell around a campfire as the lights of civilization begin flicker out around you; a global, intelligent, and ambitious archetypal nightmare." --Kristen Roupenian, author of You Know You Want This

"Smart, taut, and twisty, Susan Barker's Old Soul deftly delivers the chills." -- Karen Joy Fowler, author of Booth

"Beautifully written and at times terrifying...I was completely swept up in the atmosphere of the book and the plot continues to haunt and unsettle me, in the very best of ways." -- Emily Midorikawa, author of Out of the Shadows

"Old Soul is a mesmerising story brilliantly told. The way the novel slowly reveals its dark secrets as it moves with ease and elegance across continents and eras is hugely impressive." -- Ian McGuire, author of The North Water

"Delicious, disturbing WTF-ery. . . [A] singular reading experience you need to have for yourself. . . Incendiary literary horror. . . My idea of a perfect novel, one that is so compelling and criminally well-written that you can't put it down, and also weird and fucked up in a way that feels like it's ruining your life, but in the best way. I can't stop thinking about it, especially the ending. I think I'll go read it again right now." -- Book Riot

"Old Soul is an utterly addictive and completely immersive novel. Beautifully written and filled with engrossing characters and unforgettable landscapes, it is the most propulsive thing I have read all year."--Lara Williams, author of Supper Club

"Sinister, unnerving and nightmarish. Old Soul will sneak into your dreams and haunt you." --Claire Fuller, author of The Memory of Animals

"Susan Barker's diabolically haunting novel begs to be read over and over, its intertwined stories a feat of literary prestidigitation. Darkly magical and irresistible, Old Soul feels like it reveals a truth that's been long buried in our collective unconscious." --Alma Katsu, author of Red London

"Susan Barker is a tremendous writer and Old Soul snags the reader in its claw and mesmerises from page one. I often wondered if I was devouring the story or vice versa, I was so engrossed. It is not an option to put this book down." -- Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch

"Sinister, mysterious and gorgeously realised, Old Soul is as good on the horror and subliminity of love (and its shadow, loneliness) as it is on nerve-flaying visions of the vicious supernatural." Kaliane Bradley, author of The Ministry of Time

"Susan Barker's Old Soul is as brilliant as it is terrifying, a master class in character development and the art of slow dread. Immortality is an addiction in this literary horrorscape, and Barker's genius is in creating stories within stories until we are so engrossed in the spiral of characters that the novel becomes impossible to put down." - Rachel Eve Moulton, author of The Insatiable Volt Sisters

"Old Soul is an extraordinary achievement. A brutal interrogation of art, connection, the meaning of and impulse toward life itself. I couldn't put it down." -- Beth Underdown, author of The Witchfinder's Sister

"Old Soul is the kind of brilliant, horrifying book I'm desperate for other people to read, so I can talk about it with them and get it out of my head." --Evie Wyld, author of The Echoes

About the Author

Susan Barker is the author of four books. Her third novel, The Incarnations, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and Notable Book, a Kirkus Reviews' Top Ten Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. An excerpt from Old Soul won a Northern Writers' Award for Fiction in 2020, as well as funding from Arts Council England and The Society of Authors. Susan currently lives in Manchester, where she is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.