This would be a good book for a winter's night by the fire watching the darkness outside. I liked the sense of dread and inevitability that something awful would happen in the story and the bleak landscape certainly became one of the main characters in the book. I was disappointed by the ending though which I thought felt quite rushed and I'm still not really sure why Kat decided to stay on at the farm. I would have given 3 1/2 stars if that were an option.

This book is incredibly atmospheric and at times unsettling. It is not a thriller but more a slow burning, creeping tale about the superstitions and secrets of a small community of families who have lived in a valley by the Lancashire moors for many generations. Life is a constant challenge and struggle against the bleak, unforgiving land and the unrelenting elements. And maybe something even darker.

I enjoyed this story more than the author's first book, The Loney, and with an almost surreal or fairy tale quality, Devil's Day is the perfect read for lengthening Autumn evenings.

This is a story of farming generations and how the tales and traditions become interwoven into their lives. The devil and all his antics and disguises is the main character and how all that happens in the farming year can be blamed on him.
This is also the story of John who tries to leave that world behind and his wife Kat. On their return for the funeral of his Grandfather he finds out things have been happening on the farm - things that leave him and Kat in turmoil but John wants to come back and live on the farm and raise his unborn child.
This is a beautifully written book with descriptions that make you feel you are in the countryside.

I wanted to enjoy this book. Especially as it's coming up to Halloween and I wanted to enjoy a freaky story, but this just wasn't to my taste!

I felt that the narration jumped about a lot and could be a tad confusing at times. I' don't have a problem with books told in multiple timelines but this wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

The fact that a grown man called his father Dadda sort of made my skin crawl a bit and it distracted me from the story.

If you are in to bleak tales with a lot of superstition then this may be the book for you, but I just didn't enjoy it! Thanks to Netgalley for my ARC.

Brilliant read, highly recommend. My library will be purchasing this.

I loved The Loney by this author and I wasn't disappointed with Devil's Day. Andrew Michael Hurley's writing is so descriptive he paints a picture with words. I could see the farm and the sheep. I enjoyed reading about the traditions and superstitions of Lancashire. Though the story can be bleak there's also something very magical about it.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. It just wasn’t for me I couldn’t get into it.

The main protagonist of Devil's Day is not John, the grammar school,educated upwardly mobile son of the farming community. Or Kat his bemused wife. Or even The Gaffer, family patriarch steeped in tradition and folklore.

It is the harsh quixotic landscape in which this bleak tale is set. There are no manicured handkerchief Cotswolds fields here. No pretty sheep. Just the unremitting cycle of life and death conjured unsentimentally.

I loved this book , ultimately it reads as an uplifting tribute to the uncompromising British land and those who care for it.

Devil’s day is a wonderfully eerie tale set on the lancs / Yorkshire border, bringing the traditions and superstitions of a small farming community to vivid and compelling life. Like the Loney before it, Hurley combines an isolated community, an outsider and folklore to create a realistic world with an otherworldly underpinning- a glimpse behind the veil as it were. Thoroughly recommended,

Every year there a number of books published which go on to win rave reviews and literary prizes- but which I find essentially unreadable and not enjoyable. I always wonder with these books what it is that I am not getting that other people are. For me, this is one of those books.

There is no denying the writing is beautiful- the author paints a descriptive and evocative picture of a wild and moody landscape. Like his previous book, the Loney, Hurley does a fine job of creating a creepy sense of unease right from the start. As another reviewer pointed out, there is no doubt Hurley can turn a phrase. The problem I had was that all the phrases put together still came across as a rambling, jumbled tale- jumping between the protagonist’s present day and back, without necessarily providing any guideposts as to which time frame we were now in or how it all hung together. I found it hard to keep track of who was who in the cast of characters or what their connection was to each other. The aforesaid evoking of landscape went on sometimes for pages and pages, without anything actually happening.

I plodded gamely on, because I reckoned at some point all the sinister hints might amount to something. But I’m not quite sure where it ended up or what it was saying along the way. After the tiresome slow burn throughout, the ending felt rushed and to be honest I am still not quite sure what it was all about.

For years, the old man they called the Gaffer would perform rituals and redraw property lines to keep the village and its sheep safe from the devil. Now the Gaffer is dead and his grandson John has returned home, bringing his wife Katherine with him. Many villagers want the old ways, especially the redrawing of the property lines, to stop. After all, the whole story about the devil is just a myth, right? This book has a great premise and some Hurley has a way with words, but I had a hard time caring about the characters, they just didn’t come across as sympathetic or believable