We’re delighted to welcome award-winning, Lancashire-based author Andrew Michael Hurley to Illuminate, where he’ll be interviewed by fellow author Rachel Canwell. The author is famous for his atmospheric, gothic and folk-horror novels set in isolated landscapes of Northern England.
Andrew Michael Hurley’s first novel, The Loney, was originally published as a 300-copy limited edition, but went on to sell in twenty languages, win the Costa Best First Novel Award and the Book of the Year at the British Book Awards. Devil’s Day, his second novel, was picked as a Book of the Year in five newspapers and won the Encore Award. TV rights in The Loney have just been sold to New Regency with Jonathan van Tulleken (Shogun) on board to direct. His fourth book, Barrowbeck, was released to critical acclaim in October 2024.
In 2024 the film of Starve Acre (screening at this festival) starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark and directed by Daniel Kokotajlo was released and was chosen to represent Britain at the London Film Festival in 2023.
His latest novel (released Oct 2026) tells a story of a dilapidated seaside town that seems to draw in desperate people. In Saltwash, protagonist Tom Shift and his new friend Oliver Keele meet for dinner at the Castle Hotel, where the owners, the Paleys, try their best to cling on to the glory days.
Both terminally ill, Tom and Oliver have been bound by the saddest of circumstances, though they have found some solace in writing to one another via a pen-pal scheme set up by their respective cancer clinics. Much to Tom’s surprise, dozens more guests appear, dressed in their finest to take part in a prize draw that offers one person the chance of deliverance from their remorse. But does everyone deserve the opportunity?
‘Impeccably written . . . tightens like a clammy hand around your throat‘ Daily Mailon The Loney
‘A work of goose-flesh eeriness’Spectatoron Devil’s Day
‘A tale of suspense that sucks you in and pulls you under‘ New Statesman on Starve Acre
‘Curiously seductive . . . there is a deep sense of darkness’ Guardian on Barrowbeck
‘Thrilling, unsettling, ominous . . . like a knock at the door on a dark evening’ Irish Times on Barrowbeck
‘Barrowbeck casts a real spell – or is it a curse?’ Mail on Sunday on Barrowbeck
‘Impeccable and beautifully drawn . . . Hurley has been rightly lauded in British folk-horror circles’ Big Issueon Barrowbeck
Pop-up café. Book signing