Old Soul
Published on 6. February 2025
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-241-68238-8 (ISBN)
Description
The most mesmerising, unsettling novel of 2025, perfect for fans of David Mitchell, Julia Armfield, and Margaret Atwood.
'Sinister, mysterious and gorgeously realised' KALIANE BRADLEY, author of The Ministry of Time
'Old Soul will sneak into your dreams and haunt you' CLAIRE FULLER, author of Unsettled Ground
---
The woman never goes by the same name.
She never stays in the same place too long.
She never ages. She never dies.
But those around her do.
When two grieving strangers meet by chance in Osaka airport they uncover a disturbing connection. Jake's best friend and Mariko's twin brother each died, 6,000 miles apart, in brutal and unfathomable circumstances.
Each encountered a mesmerising, dark-haired woman in the days before their deaths. A woman who came looking for Mariko - and then disappeared.
Jake, who has carried his loss and guilt for a decade, finds himself compelled to follow the trail set by Mariko's revelations. It's a trail that weaves across continents and centuries, leading back to the many who have died - in strange and terrifying and eerily similar ways - and those they left behind: bewildered, disbelieved, yet resolutely sure of what they saw.
And, at the centre of it all, there is the same beguiling woman. Her name may have changed, but her purpose has never wavered, and as Jake races to discover who, or what she is, she has already made her next choice.
But will knowing her secret be enough to stop her?
---
'Snags the reader in its claw and mesmerizes from page one' Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch
'Like nothing else I've ever read ... The kind of story you tell around a campfire as the lights of civilization begin to flicker out around you' Kristen Roupenian, author of 'Cat Person'
'Beguiles, terrifies and utterly seduces you ... At once a thriller, a postmodern mystery and an existential horror tale' Megan Abbott, author of El Dorado Drive
'Brilliant, horrifying ... So much fun, fantastically tense and wonderful' Evie Wyld, author of The Echoes
'Clever, spooky ... Kept me guessing to the end' Chloe Benjamin, author of The Immortalists
'A mesmerizing story, brilliantly told' Ian McGuire, author of The North Water
'Smart, taut and twisty ... Deftly delivers the chills' Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
'Sinister, mysterious and gorgeously realised' KALIANE BRADLEY, author of The Ministry of Time
'Old Soul will sneak into your dreams and haunt you' CLAIRE FULLER, author of Unsettled Ground
---
The woman never goes by the same name.
She never stays in the same place too long.
She never ages. She never dies.
But those around her do.
When two grieving strangers meet by chance in Osaka airport they uncover a disturbing connection. Jake's best friend and Mariko's twin brother each died, 6,000 miles apart, in brutal and unfathomable circumstances.
Each encountered a mesmerising, dark-haired woman in the days before their deaths. A woman who came looking for Mariko - and then disappeared.
Jake, who has carried his loss and guilt for a decade, finds himself compelled to follow the trail set by Mariko's revelations. It's a trail that weaves across continents and centuries, leading back to the many who have died - in strange and terrifying and eerily similar ways - and those they left behind: bewildered, disbelieved, yet resolutely sure of what they saw.
And, at the centre of it all, there is the same beguiling woman. Her name may have changed, but her purpose has never wavered, and as Jake races to discover who, or what she is, she has already made her next choice.
But will knowing her secret be enough to stop her?
---
'Snags the reader in its claw and mesmerizes from page one' Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch
'Like nothing else I've ever read ... The kind of story you tell around a campfire as the lights of civilization begin to flicker out around you' Kristen Roupenian, author of 'Cat Person'
'Beguiles, terrifies and utterly seduces you ... At once a thriller, a postmodern mystery and an existential horror tale' Megan Abbott, author of El Dorado Drive
'Brilliant, horrifying ... So much fun, fantastically tense and wonderful' Evie Wyld, author of The Echoes
'Clever, spooky ... Kept me guessing to the end' Chloe Benjamin, author of The Immortalists
'A mesmerizing story, brilliantly told' Ian McGuire, author of The North Water
'Smart, taut and twisty ... Deftly delivers the chills' Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Reviews / Votes
Barker's finely written novel is super-sophisticated horror, as indebted to literary fiction... as it is to gothic gore. If the Booker prize judges are open to genre titles, it wouldn't be too surprising to see it on their longlist -- JD * The Times * 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 * 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 * Old Soul is like nothing else I've ever read ...More than anything, though, 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 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 Cat Person * Sinister, unnerving and nightmarish. Old Soul will sneak into your dreams and haunt you * CLAIRE FULLER, author of Unsettled Ground * 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 * 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 enticed me in with a chance meeting between mysterious strangers with one thing in common: a nameless horror that haunts them. The novel that follows is expansive, twisty, gripping and intelligent; I loved it * JENN ASHWORTH, author of Ghosted * 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 * 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 *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
Height: 237 mm
Width: 154 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
504 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-68238-8 (9780241682388)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
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 shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. An excerpt from her fourth novel, Old Soul, won a Northern Writers' Award for Fiction in 2020. Susan currently lives in Manchester, where she is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.