“MORNING, AFTERNOON, NIGHT. THE MOTHERS ARE ALWAYS WATCHING . . .

England, 1979. Vincent, Lawrence and William are the last remaining residents of a secluded New Forest home, part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme. Every day, the triplets do their chores, play their games and take their medicine, under the watchful eyes of three mothers: Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night.

Their nightmares are recorded in The Book of Dreams.
Their lessons are taken from The Book of Knowledge.
And their sins are reported in The Book of Guilt.

All the boys want is to be sent to the Big House in Margate, where they imagine a life of sun, sea and fairground rides. But, as the government looks to shut down the Sycamore Homes, the triplets begin to question everything they have been told.

Gradually surrendering its dark secrets, The Book of Guilt is a profoundly unnerving exploration of belonging in a world where some lives are valued less than others.”

Hello and welcome to damppebbles. Today I am delighted to share my review of The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey. The Book of Guilt was published by John Murray Press on 15th May 2025 and is available in hardcover, audio and digital formats with the paperback to follow. I chose to read a free eARC of The Book of Guilt but that has in no way influenced my review.

Vincent, Lawrence and William are brothers. Vincent wears yellow. Lawrence wears green. William wears red. The colours enable the Mothers (Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night) to tell the three boys apart. They’re the only ones left now after all of the other children in their home were sent to the Big House in Margate. If my brief outline of the book is starting to make you feel slightly uncomfortable, slightly wary, then boy, get used to it!

The Book of Guilt is a thoroughly unsettling, completely unnerving dystopian tale. It’s 1979 and life as we know it, history as we remember it, is very, very different. The triplets are thirteen-years-old, they live at Captain Scott, a large house in the New Forest. They’re watched over day and night by their three mothers, and they don’t tend to stray outside of the confines of the house, otherwise the locals tend to get upset. Every morning their dreams are written in the Book of Dreams, every day they learn from the Book of Knowledge, and every misstep, every wrongdoing is noted in the Book of Guilt. They’re part of the Sycamore Homes Scheme created by Dr Roach. But the new Government has decided to wind the scheme down and normal family homes must be found for the boys. The boys aren’t worried though. They dream of moving to the Big House in Margate, meeting up with their friends, eating candyfloss until they’re sick and spending their days riding the fairground rides. Only special children get to go to the Big House and any day now, they’re going to find leaflets on their pillows, confirming their place. Then the van will arrive and drive them to their forever home. But the Sycamore Homes façade is starting to crumble. As the boys begin to have more contact with the outside world they start to discover shocking things about their lives. About the medication they’re made to take, about the illnesses they all suffer from, about their deceased parents. About everything they believe to be true…

Oh my goodness, THIS BOOK! Dark, sinister and full of foreboding. It all seems fairly normal (in a roundabout, slightly twisted way) to start with but the feeling that you’re not seeing the whole picture, that something else is at play here is very hard to ignore. The newly elected Government have decided to do away with the Sycamore Homes Scheme. They’ve reduced the number of children left in the homes to a small number. Now, it’s down to the Minister of Loneliness to find new families for the remaining children via a nationwide media campaign. What the Minister doesn’t expect is to become rather fond of one of the triplets, Vincent. And it’s Vincent’s POV the reader experiences through a large proportion of the book.

Would I recommend this book? I would, yes. The Book of Guilt is dark, mysterious and utterly compelling. There’s so much going on here. In amongst the chapters where Vincent shares his POV on life at Captain Scott, there are also chapters voiced by Nancy, a young girl of a similar age. It’s hard to work out what links Nancy’s story to the triplets. But over the course of the book the author reveals unexpected connections, meaning everything makes perfect sense by the end of novel. I believed whole heartedly in the young characters in the book. Their voices felt real to me. They’re children, they’re not aware of the evil that adults can do. And for me, that was one of the most terrifying things about this book. The utter trust they placed in their grown-ups that everything was normal. The belief they were safe. The lure of a child’s ‘dream come true’ over their heads with the possibility of going to the Big House in Margate. Their innocence in the face of pure malevolence. All in all, I found The Book of Guilt to be a highly intriguing, shocking read. Gripping, unsettling and at times, really quite jaw-dropping. The lengths people will go to, the ethical barriers they’re willing to cross….the mind boggles! Gloriously sinister, deeply unnerving and a book that it will be impossible to forget. Recommended.

I chose to read and review a free eARC of The Book of Guilt. The above review is my own unbiased opinion.

The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey was published in the UK by John Murray Press on 15th May 2025 and is available in hardcover, audio and digital formats with the paperback to follow (please note, the following links are affiliate links which means I receive a small percentage of the purchase price at no extra cost to you): | amazon.co.uk | Waterstones | bookshop.org | Goodreads | damppebbles bookshop.org shop | damppebbles amazon.co.uk shop | damppebbles amazon.com shop |

Catherine Chidgey is a novelist and short story writer whose work has been published to international acclaim. In a Fishbone Church won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and at the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in her region. In the UK it won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Golden Deeds was Time Out’s book of the year, a Notable Book of the Year in The New York Times and a Best Book in the LA Times. She has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Janet Frame Fiction Prize, and the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize for The Wish Child. Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The Axeman’s Carnival won the Acorn at the New Zealand Book Awards – the country’s biggest literary prize.

Raised in Wellington, New Zealand, Chidgey was educated at Victoria University and in Berlin, where she held a DAAD scholarship for post-graduate study in German literature. She lives in Cambridge and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.