“Two brothers, one mute, the other his life long protector. Year after year their family visits the same sacred shrine on a desolate strip of coastline known as the Loney in a desperate hope for a cure.”
Brothers Tonto and Hanny visit the Loney yearly with their family. The novel follows the boys on their final visit to the barren coast line, this time with the hope to cure Hanny of his disability over the holy holiday of Easter. The boys are inseparable, and Hurley portrays this amazing bond through the boy’s adventures while at the Loney, but this time, now they are older and wiser, they start to see the cracks in what was their dream holiday location.
The Loney is truly relatable to most people, as a place where your family dragged you on a trip where you had to create your own entertainment, all in the name of family bonding. The house is eerie and sends goosebumps down your spine as you anticipate a truly haunting event to happen, but I was left waiting and waiting for this.
Disappointing and confusing
However, I often found myself lost and slightly confused as to where the story had gone with the excessive amounts of religious jargon and passages from the bible. Hurley also attempted to use flashback chapters, but these left the story feeling patchy rather than complete.
The novel certainly made me curious, but it wasn’t until I noticed that I was already on page 200 of 360 that I felt disappointed, at this point I found myself re-reading the book to remind myself what exactly the book is about. The ending comes as a cliff-hanger; as a usual lover of cliff-hangers, I was left disappointed again. Hurley’s ending simply felt unfinished, as if he was fed up of Tonto, Hanny and the Loney and decided to just put a full stop and wash his hands of the story.
Having been described as an ‘amazing piece of fiction‘ by Stephen King, I am truly gutted that The Loney didn’t live up to expectations.
Have you read The Loney? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!
