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.
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 * 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 * An enthralling, gritty fever dream of a novel and a fable for the modern age * LUCY ROSE, author of The Lamb * Sinister, unnerving and nightmarish. Old Soul will sneak into your dreams and haunt you. * Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground *