Suzy Aspley’s Five Books: Gothic Crime, Folk Horror and Highland Mysteries

Suzy Aspley’s fiction draws its unease from the meeting point of remote places, local stories and ordinary details that begin to feel uncanny. The Scotland-based author writes gothic thrillers about journalist Martha Strangeways, a series that began with Crow Moon and continues with The Bone Mother. In this Five Books conversation, Aspley names the writers and novels that have stayed with her, and explains why a first book can remain a particular source of pride.

From South Shields to the Scottish Highlands

Originally from South Shields, Aspley has lived in Scotland for more than 30 years. The places around her feed her stories: rural communities, remote settings and the unsettling possibilities of life in small places. She’s happy with the description “folk horror inflected crime fiction,” a phrase that captures the blend of investigation and eerie atmosphere in her work.

Her route to publication began with an idea for Crow Moon, which won Bloody Scotland’s Pitch Perfect competition in 2019. Published in 2024, the debut was shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland and Theakstons’s McDermid Debut prizes. The interviewer adds that the novel also won the Puzzly for August 2026, against what they describe as strong competition.

The books behind Aspley’s writing

Aspley traces her interest in dark fiction to Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s Thora series. In particular, she points to Last Rituals, in which a young man is found murdered with his eyes removed. His interest in folklore leads his family to hire lawyer Thora to investigate, drawing her into a story involving torture, witchcraft and a killer’s dangerous fixation.

What Aspley admires is the way Sigurdardottir builds a feeling of the uncanny from details that have a more ordinary explanation. That balance offers a useful clue to Aspley’s own interests: folklore and the supernatural can lend a story its atmosphere, while the investigation keeps it grounded in human motives and consequences.

Asked which of her own books makes her proudest, Aspley chooses Crow Moon. She began it at a Highlands writing retreat in 2017, starting with a single idea. It was the first book she had written, and she describes the long journey to publication as a roller coaster. Seeing readers continue to find the novel two years after its release has been a particular pleasure.

A crime novel that lingers

Aspley’s choice for a crime novel everyone should read is Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. The novel centres on Agnes Magnusdottir, described by Aspley as the last witch to be executed in Iceland, and draws on a true story. Its emotional force, she says, comes from prose that stays with the reader and from the painful knowledge of what is to come.

Aspley notes that Burial Rites isn’t a conventional crime novel. She values it as a story that makes its reader confront the harm inflicted on women and the way social power can shape whose lives are protected. Her recommendation points to a broader appeal: readers needn’t look only to traditional mysteries for a story with moral weight and an enduring sense of injustice.

Fairy tales with a folk-horror edge

For non-crime fiction, Aspley turns to AG Slatter. She enjoys Slatter’s modern fairy tales set in the Sourdough World, as well as her folk-horror novellas. All The Murmuring Bones was Aspley’s starting point; after reading it, she went on to seek out the author’s other work.

That reading choice sits comfortably beside Aspley’s interest in stories where inherited tales and unsettling places shape the present. Slatter’s fairy-tale settings and folk-horror work offer a different route into those concerns, beyond the investigative framework of the Martha Strangeways mysteries.

Returning to Martha Strangeways

The Bone Mother, the second Martha Strangeways mystery, brings journalist Martha to a remote West Highland railway line, where a human ear has been found. The investigation unfolds in the run-up to Halloween and draws Martha into a clash between ancient and modern traditions. Young women are going missing, and each has a connection to a pilgrimage to an ancient shrine dedicated to the Celtic Cailliach, a deity worshipped for more than a thousand years.

As Martha follows the connections, the case reaches close to home. Aspley’s description promises a mystery built around landscape, tradition and rising personal stakes, with babies, backpackers, bones and bodies among its unsettling ingredients. The interviewer says a review is planned for Halloween and recommends Crow Moon, noting that it was 99p on Kindle at the time of writing.

Aspley’s bibliography currently lists two Martha Strangeways books:

• Crow Moon (2024)
• The Bone Mother (2026)

For readers drawn to mysteries where a rural setting carries its own unease, Aspley’s recommendations offer a trail from Scandinavian dark fiction and historical storytelling to modern fairy tales. Her own series brings those interests together through Martha’s investigations, with The Bone Mother extending the story into the traditions and secrets of the West Highlands.