Old Soul

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 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

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

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's diabolically haunting novel begs to be read over and over, its intertwined stories a feat of literary prestidigitation. Darkly magical and irresistible, Old Soul feels like it reveals a truth that's been long buried in our collective unconscious

ALMA KATSU, author of The Hunger

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

A perfect novel, one that is so compelling and criminally well-written that you can’t put it down ... I can’t stop thinking about it

BOOKRIOT

Brilliantly thought-provoking, disturbing and highly complex, with the pace of a thriller and the heart of a tragic love story

CAROLINE LEA, author of Prize Women

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

Susan Barker’s Old Soul beguiles, terrifies, and utterly seduces you as swiftly and slyly as the mysterious woman at its center. It’s at once a thriller, a postmodern mystery, and an existential horror tale, but perhaps most deeply it speaks to our current moment: the drift and terrors of loneliness, the risks of intimacy and a piercing nostalgia that never lets us go

MEGAN ABBOTT, author of El Dorado Drive

Smart, taut, and twisty, Susan Barker's Old Soul deftly delivers the chills

KAREN JOY FOWLER, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

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 perfect read for the chilly depths of winter: a clever, spooky metaphysical mystery that spans continents—and even planets. Susan Barker’s novel kept me guessing until the end. You’ll never look at Venus quite the same way again

CHLOE BENJAMIN

Elegant and eerie, mesmerising and compelling, Old Soul is like a glorious and terrible nightmare that you never want to wake up from

SAM MILLS, author of The Watermark

A sweeping work of literary horror ... Eerie and suspenseful ... The slow-burning tension and lush, atmospheric prose build a creeping sense of dread that lingers long after the final page. Fans of both the deeply personal speculative horror of Carmen Maria Machado and the subtle, character-driven mystery of Haruki Murakami will be enthralled

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review

Old Soul is the kind of brilliant, horrifying, stinking book I’m desperate for other people to read, so I can talk about it with them and get it out of my head. So much fun, fantastically tense, revolting and wonderful.

EVIE WYLD

The Ministry of Time meets The Leviathan in this deeply imaginative, beautifully written hunt across centuries and continents

BOOKSELLER, Editor's Choice

A twisting, expansive epic of menacing wonder. This is a novel of expertly restrained power: a wild cat in a bejewelled cage

KIRSTY LOGAN, author of Now She Is Witch

A brilliant, engrossing read. Both beguiling and compulsive in all the right ways

IRENOSEN OKOJIE, author of Butterfly Fish

This book IS THE MOOD, and the mood is dark. Old Soul feels like Thomas Pynchon’s V was a Georgia O ‘Keefe painting.

Crime Reads

Impeccably, stoutly assembled .. Extraordinary … Clear-sighted and conscientious ... This is a novel that extends its reach some distance beyond its chosen genre and takes pleasure in challenging not just its own moral imperative, but the motives of its monstrous protagonist, too

The London Magazine

A haunting story of grief and ghosts and the ways the past stays with us

LitHub, Most Anticipated Books of 2025

I need everyone to read this ASAP, so more people can be irreparably haunted by it, please and thank you

BookRiot, Most Anticipated Books of 2025

The details are best left for the reader to discover and relish, as they are wonderfully unsettling yet somehow delicious as well ... Barker ups the tension one bit at a time, unspooling the horrors slowly while maintaining a firm grasp on the emotional stakes within each victim’s narrative ... Refreshingly specific, strange and original. Old Soul is a thoroughly pleasurable read.

LA Times

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

The Times

An immersive, stunningly weird tale that closes like a trap round the reader

The Guardian

As unnerving as it is beautifully written... A mesmerising, genre-bending read

i Paper

Old Soul is expertly written, with just the right amount of foreshadowing to create tension at various points, but not enough clues to spoil the ending

TripFiction

Strangely beguiling... a page turner that is quite mesmerising... this is no ordinary thriller

Irish Examiner

Mesmerizing... Barker’s razor-sharp writing immerses readers in haunting settings that shift from Osaka, Japan, to New Mexico’s eerie Badlands. At the same time, the alternating narrative structure, weaving past accounts with present events, builds relentless anticipation, culminating in an unforgettable finale. Old Soul is dark, thought-provoking and wholly original — a must-read for gothic horror fans

Seattle TImes

Barker’s edge-of-your-seat literary horror is a page-turningly gripping read

Marie Claire

An intelligent, nuanced, globe- and era-spanning horror epic

Buzz Mag

Every subplot is a beautifully complete, historically accurate little world of its own. . . While the vignettes might slow down the pace of the overarching narrative, they are so delightful it’s almost regrettable when each comes to an end—a little like David Mitchell’s ‘Cloud Atlas,’ but with interesting storylines and more carefully differentiated characters. . . Rendered so bleakly that H.P. Lovecraft would be envious. . . Do not miss ‘Old Soul,’ the most satisfyingly grim supernatural novel in years

Wall Street Journal

Susan Barker’s enigmatic twist on vampire fiction, Old Soul, imagines a beguiling and dangerous creature – a charismatic mystery woman... Barker writes with intensity and imagination, investing the narrative with a full measure of sympathy for the devil. Old Soul is classic literary horror. Engrossing, fable-like, fringed with eerie profundity, it reminded me most strongly of Michel Faber’s Under the Skin

Sydney Morning Herald