Sophie

A spellbinding novel of an obsessive childhood.

THE NOVEL STREAMS PAST YOU WITH A TERRIBLE AND PURPOSEFUL INTENSITY, UNROLLING LIKE A BAD DREAM...COMBINES THE CREEPY NARRATIVE POWER OF A YOUNG WILLIAM GOLDING WITH A DISTURBINGLY ACCURATE MEMORY OF WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE A CHILD... IN THIS SPOOKY SECOND NOVEL HE HAS PRODUCED SOMETHING SO GOOD THAT ONE CAN ONLY WONDER WHAT HE WILL DO NEXT

Guy Burt wrote his first novel, After the Hole (now filmed as The Hole) when he was still at school, and his second, Sophie, soon afterwards.  They are both published by Black Swan, as is his third novel, The Dandelion Clock.  After gaining a first in English at Oxford, he taught for three years at Eton.  He now lives in London, where he is working both on a new novel and on several drama commissions for cinema and television.  His first play for television, The Visitor, was recently shown on Channel 4.

Matthew and Sophie enjoyed what seemed to be an idyllic childhood existence.Free from parental restrictions, they played together in the old barn and in the woods and fields around, as well as in the disused quarry where they hunted for fossils and where Sophie kept all her secrets.There were just the two of them, for their mother carried on her own, mysterious, life and their baby brother did not live long enough to intrude. 
 
Mattie hero-worshipped his all-knowing elder sister, and believed that their childhood would go on for ever.But Sophie was growing up, and the secret elements in her life would affect Mattie in shocking and unforeseen ways as his childish terrors became an all-too dreadful reality.For Mattie, too, had his secrets...

The Hole

The most startling début since The Wasp Factory.

Guy Burt wrote his first novel, After the Hole (now filmed as The Hole) when he was still at school, and his second, Sophie, soon afterwards. They are both published by Black Swan, as is his third novel, The Dandelion Clock. After gaining a first in English at Oxford, he taught for three years at Eton. He now lives in London, where he is working both on a new novel and on several drama commissions for cinema and television. His first play for television, The Visitor, was recently shown on Channel 4.

It was the end of term at Our Glorious School. Most of the pupils were preparing to return home; some were going away on a geography field trip. But for five members of the sixth form, it sounded more fun to embark upon what their friend and mentor Martyn called 'an experiment with real life' - to spend three days together in The Hole, a windowless cellar room in an unfrequented part of the school buildings. Martyn was to lock them in, and in three days he would come and let them out again. 
 
At first, it all seemed quite a laugh - eating and drinking, jokes and banter. Solid Mike and dependable Liz, Geoff with his secret supplies of booze, irritating Frankie and delicate Alex - what a story they would have to tell when Martyn came to release them! How surprised and admiring their friends would be! 
 
But three days passed, and Martyn did not return... 
 
The Hole is a dark and menacing first novel, written when the author was still at school. Compulsive and claustrophobic in quality, it has been compared to John Fowles's The Collector.

Guy Burt

I used to think that perhaps everything that was happening to me - my whole life - was just a memory. As if one moment I could be eleven, and playing in the sun, and the next I might - wake up, somehow, and find I was old and dying, and the day when I was eleven was just a bright, clear memory... 
 
Alex is an artist, preparing for an exhibition to mark the peak of his career. His life seems ordered and complete, but an impulsive trip back to the Italy of his childhood forces him to explore the unresolved questions of his past. There, in those seemingly innocent days, as he swam and played and explored the wild countryside with Jamie and Anna, Alex must surely find the key to so much of his later life. He has to experience again his first friendship with Jamie, and his first love for Anna; and to put together the pieces of a story which brought the three of them together more closely than they could understand, with a bond which seemed innocent but which resulted in tragedy. 
 
In this disturbing new novel Guy Burt explores the darker side of childhood love and friendship, and the fear and pain of growing up. 
 
Of Guy Burt's first novel, After The Hole, the critics wrote: 
 
'A scintillating début...Burt's will be a name to watch' - Daily Mail 
 
'Compulsively sinister first novel ' - The Times 
 
'Insidiously brilliant' - The Independent

Guy Burt

Books by Guy Burt

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter