The Book of Guilt
Play sample
  • Published: 6 May 2025
  • ISBN: 9781761349393
  • Imprint: Penguin Random House Australia Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 13 hr 53 min
  • Narrators: George Naylor, Alison Campbell

The Book of Guilt

Buy from…
Apple Books Audible Google Play Kobo Libro.fm

A creepy, compelling novel that takes place in a version of our world where some lives are valued less than others. It will shock you with each new revelation.

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.
  • Published: 6 May 2025
  • ISBN: 9781761349393
  • Imprint: Penguin Random House Australia Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 13 hr 53 min
  • Narrators: George Naylor, Alison Campbell
Categories:

About the author

Catherine Chidgey

Catherine Chidgey is a multiple award-winner whose novels have achieved international acclaim. The Axeman’s Carnival was a number one bestseller in her native New Zealand, as was her previous novel Pet. Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her debut, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at both the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (South-East Asia and South Pacific region). It also won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Golden Deeds, was a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times Book Review and a Best Book in the LA Times. The Axeman’s Carnival and The Wish Child both won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction – New Zealand’s most prestigious literary award. Other honours include the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship, the Janet Frame Fiction Prize, and the Nielsen Independent New Zealand Bestseller award. Catherine Chidgey lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.

portrait photo of Catherine Chidgey

Also by Catherine Chidgey

The Wish Child
See all

Praise for The Book of Guilt

An extended meditation on what makes us human. It is creepy and very, very readable.

Gavin Williams, Matilda Bookshop

Chidgey masterfully blends speculative fiction with philosophical insight, crafting a narrative that questions the very fabric of humanity. Mary Shelley would be proud.

Stefen Brazulaitis, Books+Publishing

Riveting reading and, disturbing as its shadowy undertone of evil is, entirely credible.

Anne Green, Good Reading Magazine

No words. A perfect book. A real masterclass in writing, plot deliverance and character development. Moving and magnificent, this was something I'll remember for a very long time.

pagesofachilles

If you take one book recommendation from me, let it be this one. Another 5-star read. Thank you and congratulations on such a fantastic book.

Just One More Book NZ

This is a compelling and terrifying novel whose alternative history engages chillingly with current possibilities. No one writes children better that Chidgey. She exactly gets their experimental cruelty and related innocence as they attempt to piece their world together.

Elizabeth Cook, author of LUX

A chilling and beautifully written novel set in an alternative 1979 England, following identical triplets raised in a state-run care home who begin to uncover disturbing truths about the world around them. Unsettling, compelling and easily one of my top reads this year.

Dasha, Gleebooks Dulwich Hill

A haunting and thought-provoking tale that takes you on an eerie journey full of unexpected twists and turns. Chidgey weaves a mesmerising, unsettling story of control, identity and ethics that will keep you captivated till the very end!

Simone, Dymocks

A future classic from one of the most intriguing, inventive and compelling writers of our time. What a book. It is just jaw-droppingly breathtaking...She is such an attentive, exacting and careful writer and I think one of the best in the world today.

Radio NZ

It's early, but we're calling it: this is the book of the year.

The Spinoff

We are lucky to have a writer like Chidgey who can throw open history, reshape it, and spin a compelling, sparkling narrative that not only entertains but acts as a warning.’ ‘Chidgey’s masterful hand is sure and deliberate, the foreboding story unfolds without a false note.

Stephanie Johnson, Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books