Old Soul

"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

In Osaka, two strangers, Jake and Mariko, miss a flight, and over dinner, discover they've both brutally lost loved ones whose paths crossed with the same beguiling woman no one has seen since.

Following traces this mysterious person left behind, Jake travels from country to country gathering chilling testimonies from others who encountered her across the decades--a trail of shattered souls that eventually leads him to Theo, a dying sculptor in rural New Mexico, who knows the woman better than anyone--and might just hold the key to who, or what, she is.

Part horror, part western, part thriller, Old Soul is a fearlessly bold and propulsive tale about predation, morality and free will, and one man's quest to bring a centuries-long chain of human devastation to an end.

Author: Susan Barker
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 01/27/2026
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 7.93h x 5.31w x 0.87d
ISBN13: 9780593718308
ISBN10: 0593718305
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Horror | General
- Fiction | Thrillers | Supernatural
- Fiction | Historical | 20th Century | General

About the Author
Susan Barker is the author of four books. Her third novel, The Incarnations, was a New York Times Editors' Choice and Notable Book, a Kirkus Reviews' Top Ten Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. An excerpt from Old Soul won a Northern Writers' Award for Fiction in 2020, as well as funding from Arts Council England and The Society of Authors. Susan currently lives in Manchester, where she is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.