Two strangers in Osaka miss a flight, and while over dinner, they learn they’ve both lost loved ones. These two strangers, Jake and Mariko, realize the ones they’ve lost crossed paths with the same enticing woman, and no one has seen her since.
Piecing together the traces this woman has left behind, Jake bounces from country to country, finding others who have encountered the woman and gathering their testimonies. Decades of shattered souls which eventually lead him to Theo, a sculptor in New Mexico. Theo knows this woman better than anyone—and might just hold the key to who, or what, she is.
Why we’re excited about this book:
Susan Barker’s new novel is one of the most anticipated horror novels of the year. Barker is the author of Sayonara Bar, The Orientalist and the Ghost, and The Incarnations, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and Notable Book and winner of a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize and a Waterstones Bookclub pick. With her latest, Barker presents the search for an enigmatic woman who may be responsible for brutal, unfathomable deaths through the decades. Megan Abbott (El Dorado Drive, Dare Me) says Old Soul “Beguiles, terrifies, and utterly seduces you as swiftly and slyly as the mysterious woman at its centre. 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”, and Alma Katsu (The Hunger, Red Widow) says: “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.”
Releasing from G.P. Putnam’s Sons 28 January 2025, Old Soul by Susan Barker is available for pre-order now.
BOB PASTORELLA