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Book: “Old Soul” by Susan Barker
Publishing Info: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, January 2025
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC24.
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: 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?
Review: Thank you to G.P. Putnam’s Sons for providing me with an ARC at ALAAC24!
I don’t really read too much literary horror, but I always try to be open minded about the titles that I pick up even if they are not in my usual wheelhouse. When Serena and I went to ALAAC24 last summer I found myself with the book “Old Soul” by Susan Barker, and if I’m being honest it initially ended up in my ‘I could probably give this book away’ bag that I always find myself with at the end of the conference. After I had sorted things out and figured out what books I was going to read and which ones I was going to give to other librarians et al, “Old Soul” sat in a bag that was books that were just left over at the end of it. But then I kept seeing it on various horror lists, and my interest grew and grew. And I thought to myself ‘you know what, it’s not your usual go to sub-genre, but go for it!’ So I grabbed it from the bag it had been sitting within, and I dove on in. And in general I’m glad that I did!
“Old Soul” is a multi perspective tale about a mysterious woman who has existed through the decades, never aging but always preying on various people she encounters, who become unhinged and die horrible deaths shortly after meeting her. A chance meeting between a man named Jake and a woman named Mariko makes them realize his best friend and her brother were both victims of this woman, and we go backwards seeing the Woman pull people in and destroy them, sometimes through her perspectives, sometimes through the perspectives of loved ones of her victims. It’s such an interesting story structure that made the reading experience unnerving and dreamlike, with the strange outcomes and horrors building and twisting up super tense until it all snaps. The Woman is such a mysterious antagonist, and as we follow her both from her perspective at times but also through the eyes of others we get an eerie and almost Lynchian (rest in peace, sir) feeling that is both uncanny and cosmic, horror wise. It’s incredibly unique and I really appreciated that, and I do love seeing the bounds that literary horror will push and the ways that it will interpret the genre.
On the flip side, however, this book does move a little slower than I would have liked at times. I wholly understand why Barker wanted to give us all of the context of the mysterious Woman, and to show the ways that she has manipulated and preyed upon multiple people over the decades as she goes forward with her cosmic horror-y purpose, but it was getting to the point where I was feeling like it was a bit repetitive. I didn’t need to follow basically all of her victims for the point to come across, so by the time we were delving into one of the later ones I found myself skimming because it felt like more of the same to me. This could also be because in general cosmic horror hasn’t been SUPER on my radar until very recently, and perhaps as a sub-genre its one that doesn’t connect as well and it would work REALLY well for those who do like it AND literary sensibilities.
“Old Soul” is certainly compelling and a fascinating literary horror novel. People who like something kind of weird and unsettling who like a bit more experimental writing styles should definitely pick it up.
Rating 7: Eerie and strange, “Old Soul” is unique and compelling, but is a little slow at times.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Old Soul” is included on the Goodreads list “Horror Books of 2025”.
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