The Hunger Trace

The sudden death of David Bryant, the charismatic owner of a rambling Derbyshire wildlife park, leaves an indelible mark on three very different people. David's young widow, Maggie, struggles to preserve the park and to forge friendships untainted by the suspicions of others. His old friend Louisa, a falconer who lives on the grounds, just wants to be left alone with her hawks and the dark secret she has shared with David since their youth. Meanwhile, Christopher, David's eccentric teenage son from an earlier marriage, strives for a life beyond the park and trawls the internet for a woman who shares his family values. With the arrival of a stranger, and unforeseen disaster amid the worst rains for a hundred years, the loyalties of Maggie, Louisa and Christopher will be stretched to breaking point, and each must face the decisions which will define them...

About the Author :
Edward Hogan was born in Derby in 1980 and now lives in Brighton. He is a graduate of the MA creative writing course at UEA and a recipient of the David Higham Award. His first novel, Blackmoor, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize and won the Desmond Elliot Prize.

Review :
'All [the characters] are essentially lost souls faced with wounds that will never heal -- yet Hogan does a fine job of making us not just root for them, but genuinely enjoy their company... the unaffected quirkiness and sheer good-heartedness... definitely confirms him as a writer to watch' Daily Mail 'Powerful and original... men and women confront each other and are revealed to be both pathetic and admirable, strange but strangely human... Hogan's deft, laconic style moves us swiftly from scene to scene, visiting past and present, alternating comic and dramatic exchanges with fine descriptions of landscape, detailed accounts of animal husbandry and set pieces of close observation... An impressive work, grimly bawdy, tense and moving' The Sunday Times 'Hogan's considerable powers of description convince the reader... evocations of landscape and wildlife have a particular vividness' TLS 'The Hunger Trace shows Hogan's talent developing further. There's a village in peril here too, but the main focus lies with the characters. Hogan's writing illuminates their inner lives with startling clarity. In the novel's latter sections, it is as if Hogan sets them free to perform as an ensemble, bouncing off each other in order to take the story where it must go. The narrative is supported with acute descriptive prose, with the Derbyshire landscape a constant refrain... Hogan's talent for depicting atmospheric, grainy settings does lend itself to a grand mise-en-scene... The Hunger Trace is an extended trope upon the dynamics of love and affection: of what can happen both when they are offered, and when they are withheld' Independent 'This is a novel of secrets, of things buried deep in the long grass of the landscape, and Hogan manages to keep these both mysterious and intriguing. The writing is beautifully exact, and the evocation of the surroundings mesmerising. It is a book that demands to be read' Booktrust UK http://www.booktrust.org.uk/show/book/Books we like/The-Hunger-Trace 'It's one of Hogan's strengths that he can write with such bleakly beautiful romanticism about an area not exactly over-documented in popular fiction... Seductive, the early sections charged with a sense of emotional claustrophobia within the wilderness... Gripping... impressive' Metro 'The shocking revelation of a childhood secret and the poignant search for human warmth in the midst of strained relationships help make this a rich and moving second novel' Waterstone's Books Quarterly, March issue 'A soaring, unconventional book in which stunted emotional growth and lack of fulfilment are striking themes... Superb passages of nature writing. Louisa's sense of oneness with her falcons recalls Barry Hines's classic A Kestrel for a Knave or TH White's The Goshawk, and, in Louisa herself, the supremely solitary figure of Emily Bronte with her pet hawk' Daily Telegraph 'Hogan is only 30 but has the look of a writer of whom more will be heard. His prose is devoid of flamboyance but he has taken a situation and developed it with real psychological acuity' Mail on Sunday 'Dreamy mix of the banal and the numinous infuses a book in which the real star of the show is the place being written about... It's a persuasive central message in an elegant, compelling story...a gripping book' Sarah Crown, Guardian 23/4 'For all its very English concerns -- rural life, weather, tight lips -- Edward Hogan's taut second novel, The Hunger Trace, stakes out a territory of high emotion... Hogan excels at tracing unspoken dramas between characters... The attention to feeling and language is commensurate with the author's eye for physical detail. In an unshowy way he fills the novel with rich descriptions... wittily revealing the unpleasant as well as the pretty... The pleasure of The Hunger Trace lies in its precision. Even as the pace quickens Hogan doesn't lose sight of accuracy. Like the falcons whose flight he catches so crisply, the prose is lean and strict, with movements of surprising beauty' Literary Review 'Hogan excels at tracing unspoken drama between characters, catching the shifts in temperature... In an unshowy way he fills the novel with rich descriptions... The pleasure of The Hunger Trace lies in its precision. Even as the pace quickens Hogan doesn't lose sight of accuracy. Like the falcons whose flight he catches so crisply, the prose is lean and strict, with movements of surprising beauty' Ed Behrens, Literary Review, May issue