My thoughts —From the very first page to the final sentence, I couldn’t put this book down. It captivated, enthralled, and shocked me right through to the end.

“Come to Margate, you will have the best time.” That line hit home. As someone who knows Margate well and has recently visited, and who also knows the New Forest intimately, the setting felt vivid and immersive—an unforgettable sensory experience that added so much to the story.

But let’s talk about the book itself—wow. You’ll carry these three boys in your heart long after the final page. Raised in a strange, secluded institution, they are cared for by three women: Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon, and Mother Night. Each day, they read from the Book of Knowledge, confess their dreams upon waking, and when they misbehave, their sins are recorded in the Book of Guilt.

Prescribed meditations and treatments by the mysterious Dr. Roach are meant to “keep the bugs away”—but do the boys even have bugs? That’s just one of the many unsettling questions that slowly surface.

Everything begins to shift when they meet three girls during a socialisation event. For the first time, they begin to question their lives, their caretakers, and the truths they’ve been told. As the government moves to shut down homes like theirs, the cracks widen and the lies unravel.

This is an astonishing read—one that I won’t spoil further because I want you to experience it yourself. This author is fast becoming a favourite of mine; this is the third novel I’ve read, and once again, I’m completely wowed.

From the outset, there is a disquiet to this story; everything is not as it seems. Your curiosity compels you to read on. You begin to suspect that the truth may be a bit more chilling than you first thought, you read on to satisfy yourself this couldn’t possibly be the case. When the full realisation hits you, it’s too late, you can’t look away.

Catherine Chidgey is a masterful story teller, her ability to create unease from the ‘unsaid’ is superb. What appears an ordinary and monotonous existence is broken away to reveal a dark and disturbing dystopia.

But The Book of Guilt is so much more than a compelling dystopian tale. It forces you to keep looking, to be complicit. It shows you what happens when people refuse to acknowledge what is occurring around them and when the worst happens - how they try and justify their inertia. It looks at the impact of trauma, it asks how important our origins are and the consequences of not knowing your true origins. It is a book that will keep you questioning long after you’ve finished it.

I can’t seem to find the right adjectives to do this book justice. It blew me away. It is most definitely one of the stand out books of this year.

The Book of Guilt is a dystopian novel set in 1970's England. It centres around 13 year old triplet boys, Vincent, William and Lawrence who are the last children living in a children’s home which is run by 3 mothers, Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon, and Mother Night who record their dreams and wrongdoings in books and teach them from the book of knowledge.

This is the first book I have read from this author and I will be seeking out more novels as I found this book to be intriguing, It is well written with richly developed characters and an imaginative well paced plot.

Acclaimed writer Catherine Chidgey returns with a chilling novel about reworking the past to understand the present. She describes a reimagined 1970s England, and how three triplets and a young girl are eking out an existence. The backdrop is the Captain Scott Home for Boys, where the male triplets live, and the novel highlights what happens when they start to question their identities. The novel is frightening and sadly relevant in today's world. Chidgey is a phenomenal writer of mood and uneasiness. She captures the unsettling nature of identities shaped by outside influences (trying to be vague so as not to spoil anything). I can see this being a contender for the Booker Prize in 2025. This is another winner from John Murray Press.

✶ PRE-READING ✶
I was instantly drawn to the unsettling premise: triplets raised in an institutional experiment, shadowed by surveillance and control. I expected something eerie and allegorical, maybe with notes of Never Let Me Go or Lord of the Flies, and was intrigued by how a story so regimented would unravel. I was also curious to see how the narrative voice would handle the triple perspective.

✶ POST-READING ✶
What a slow, creeping dread this book evokes. It’s a carefully built world of rules, rewards, and illusions, and watching it fall apart is deeply compelling. Each of the boys is shaped by fear and ritual, yet they’re more distinct than you'd think - their colours, their quirks, their patterns of thought all start to feel familiar, then foreign, then dangerous. The slow unravelling of their world, and our understanding of what's been happening, is terrifying. There's one plot point where we'll all have known something wasn't right, but the reveal of exactly what's happening there is really upsetting.

The gradual convergence of three threads is very well done - it’s not just a twisty plot, it’s a carefully controlled unravelling. The boys don’t just question what they’ve been told; they begin to question why they believed it. The most haunting parts are not the punishments or the surveillance, but the way loyalty is weaponised, and love is trained like a reflex.

✦ RECOMMENDATIONS ✦
Book: Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill - for another take on institutionalised upbringing and indoctrination, especially with its performative ‘purity’ and slow psychological breakdown.
TV/Film: The Prisoner (1967) - for its atmosphere of surreal control, enforced roles, and the haunting question of escape versus compliance.

This is Catherine Chidgey at her creepy, shocking best. I loved it. More stars required for this one.

Vincent, William and Lawrence live at Captain Scott, a Sycamore Home named for the heroic explorer, in the New Forest where they are cared for by Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night. They read every day from the Book of Knowledge, they tell their dreams when they wake to Mother Morning and if they behave badly their sins are recorded in the Book of Guilt.

The boys are the only ones left now, all the others having gone to Margate to live at The Big House and play all day at Dreamland. If Vincent could only work out what they need to do to get there ... but they are often ill, having to take medication every day to keep The Bug at bay. But they will never get to Margate if the dream they share will not stop coming because the dream is of a girl and there is blood in the dream. Vincent is afraid it means they will stay at Captain Scott forever.

Set in an alternate Britain, the plight of the triplets is interspersed with that of Nancy, who lives with her parents but has never gone out and must hide in the wardrobe when visitors come. But as Nancy gets older the question of why she is not allowed out becomes more insistent in her mind and when a party doesn't have the effect she had been promised, Nancy has had enough.

I can't possibly pile enough praise on The Book of Guilt. Catherine Chidgey does creepy and horrifying with the lightest of touches. The tension builds and builds throughout this book to reach an explosive culmination and just when you think the strangeness is over she tags on another surprise at the end.

I loved Axeman's Carnival; I loved Pet more; and this blows both of them out of the water. Superb writing, fantastic plot, great characters. Creepy to the max and jaw droppingly horrifying when you realise exactly what's going on. It gave me shivers.

Very highly recommended for fans of Chidgey or just someone who, like me, finds a book where they are desperate to know what happens but does not want it to end. I had to ration myself because I knew how bereft I'd feel once I'd finished. Definitely one to read again.

Thankyou very much to Netgalley and John Murray Press for the advance review copy. Very much appreciated.

It is 1979. Vincent and his fellow triplets Lawrence and William live in the New Forest in a Sycamore Home, one of a network of government-funded children’s homes. They have a comfortingly monotonous routine, cared for by three ‘mothers’, one for the morning, one for the afternoon, and one for the night. A doctor visits and treats their varied medical symptoms, all attributed to the mysterious Bug.

Their days are framed by the Book of Dreams, where their memories of dreams on waking are recorded, the Book of Knowledge, an encyclopedia which forms the basis of their education, and the dreaded Book of Guilt, where their misdeeds are detailed.

However, change appears to be in the air. There used to be many other boys in residence, but now the triplets are the only ones left. The other boys have ‘gone to Margate’ which is the ultimate aspiration of all of them, exemplified by a holiday brochure in glorious colour left under the pillow of the chosen.

Vincent and his brothers are now allowed to go out for occasional errands with the mothers – where they encounter the beguiling but frightening New Forest ponies, and are viewed by the local people much as they view the ponies.

In another town, a young girl, Nancy, lives with her parents. She has an apparently normal life at home. She watches TV and plays with her father’s lovingly constructed model railway, but she is never allowed to leave the house or be seen by strangers. Nancy is just becoming aware that something is not right and is beginning to ask questions.

A third strand of the story follows the Minister of Loneliness, a politician who oversees the Sycamore Homes. For her, children like Vincent are a problem and a threat to her ambitions.

I’m about the same age as Vincent and Nancy, so the 1970s childhood portrayed in The Book of Guilt included much that I remember, as well as a few things I’d forgotten (Stickle Bricks!). But there are disconcerting hints that this is a darkly different world from the one we remember. And yet –

The distinctive characters of the triplets and the three mothers are beautifully drawn. This is not the usual story of care home abuse. Their daily lives are punctuated by small treats and apparent kindness. But, much like our rose-tinted memories, and low-budget talking-heads nostalgia TV, this vision of the 1970s is incomplete and conceals much (it can’t be coincidence that Jim’ll Fix It looms large in Nancy’s world).

The prose is pitch-perfect. When the boys make their first tentative attempts at socialising outside the home, their dialogue is just what you’d expect from children of the 1970s, educated in isolation on the literature of the 1950s, sort of Janet and John meets Ask the Family.

It is Vincent’s first-person account that drives the story. Through his naive perceptions the truth about the boys and the Sycamore Homes is gradually revealed until it upends all their lives.

The Book of Guilt is inventive, funny, and devastating. Is it too soon to pick my book of the year?

Dark, dystopian, and deeply unsettling. This powerful novel is both a slow burn and an irresistible page-turner. It raises profound ethical and moral questions about humanity, exposing the grim truths of a society that devalues certain lives. It also explores how crime is never truly buried—how its memory lingers, sending ripples through time and space. The consequences of past wrongs bleed into the present, haunting both individuals and institutions

Richly layered, thought-provoking, and razor-sharp, it’s a timely reflection of the world we live in.

The Book of Guilt was such a good read. It initially felt mysterious as we were introduced to the triplets in the big house where other children used to live alongside them. Who are they? Why are they there? Who are the mothers? The answers to these questions are slowly revealed to us throughout the story, and bring equal amounts of horror and sadness at the tragic story of the boys.
The story raises interesting thoughts and questions about environment and upbringing vs genes, and raises ethical questions, asking how far science would go in the quest for health and longevity.

Catherine Chidgey is an absolute master of building tension. I read Pet last year, which is incredibly different in terms of plot, but similarly draws you in and has you questioning everything. There’s not much I can say without spoilers, but this was such a mysterious, dark and intense novel which unravels into something very sinister.

An alternative 1979 was brought to life with details that made this feel claustrophobically close to reality, recreating that time with an ominous twist. It comments on what lives are worth and how they can be exploited, showing a collective selfishness, fear and detachment working in unison to excuse horrific acts. Absolutely loved this and I’m sure it’ll be getting a lot of mentions from me.

*ad-pr: Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy!*

3.5* The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey will leave you entertained but entirely discombobulated.

Vincent, Lawrence and William are triplets and the last remaining residents living in a secluded home, looked after by their 3 mothers in rotating shifts. Each morning their dreams are written down and each day they follow a set routine; learning from the Book of Knowledge and any transgressions are recorded in the Book of Guilt.

As the shackles around their lives are loosened, they are allowed to venture to the local village and to have visits from other children. Yet they could not imagine how this will change their lives as their interactions with others unravel a decades all government scheme, put in place following a second world war which no side won.

Utterly chilling, this dystopian world has been explored by other authors (sets of 'children' in learning environments and a different reality if the allies had not won the war) but bringing the two together makes for a fascinating story. Beautifully told and hard to second guess, this is a moral maze of a book getting under the skin of many issues. In places a little repetitive (it took me quite a while to get into it) but much of the prose dazzles and it is difficult not to brim with empathy for the main characters.

Thanks to John Murray Press and Netgalley for an ARC

I’ve been so looking forward to reading The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey and it absolutely didn’t disappoint - it’s a really haunting and thought-provoking book with lots going on that will keep you reading late into the night.

It’s hard to review without giving too much away and I’d definitely say it’s best to read it without knowing too much! It centres around triplets who are cared for by ‘mothers’ - we know immediately that there’s something sinister going on but we only discover the truth as they do so it is a slow unravelling of what is going on. There’s also the mysterious ‘Nancy’ who has her own very short chapters as glimpses into her life and there seems to be something strange about the behaviour of her parents too.

It unfolds slowly and you very gradually find out the truth. It’s cleverly written with a really ominous atmosphere throughout. There were times where I felt the plot slowed a little or it got a bit repetitive but I think that this was reflective of the triplets being the central viewpoints so we had to work at their pace.

A very good book that I enjoyed immensely!

This book was phenomenal. It's also one of those books where it is better if you go in as blind as you can. Which makes it hard for me to say much about it. I will try and talk round it though.
It's one of those books where it appears to be slow initially but when things start to become clear you really how far you have come and how much you have actually learned during the initial stages of the book. It's deceptive like that!
We start in 1979 and follow the last three residents of a boys home - triplets Vincent, Lawrence, and William - who are carefully cared for in the Captain Scott Sycamore Home by three female caregivers - Mothers Morning, Afternoon, and Night - who record their lives in three books - The Books of Dreams, Knowledge, and Guilt.
They are the last boys there as the scheme has long ended meaning that no new boys arrive and those who have left have managed to attain the desired outcome - going to live in Margate.
But, as you will eventually discover for yourself, things are not as they seem, as the boys start to find out as their lives start to open up to more people than just their caregivers...
Oh My Days - I really had no idea where we would end up with this book. And it was everything emotional along the way as I started to find out and then descended into something rather shocking. And also rather food for thought as you will understand when you too get there.
As well as following the boys, told by Vincent, we also hear from the Minister of Loneliness who is tasked with the fallout from the scheme ending. And then there's Nancy who you also have to meet cold.
Oh My Days this book ripped at me. Totally had me in all the feels and questioning morals and ethics and all that stuff. It's also rather chilling and scary in parts. I'd love to bang on forever about this book but time and spoilers prevent me. Suffice to say that this would make a brilliant book club book as there is a LOT to discuss and unpack.
I understand that there is quite a lot of hype and build up surrounding this book. Now I am not usually a fan of hyped books, but, and you'll have to trust me on this. The hype is real, believe it!
Finally, this is a new author to me but I am definitely going to be checking out her back catalogue to add to my already stuffed TBR. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Wow what a book! From the very first there is a real sense of unease and of something being not quite right as we meet the dear triplets, living their lives in a home for boys in the New Forest. There is an inevitability and a creeping unease as you gradually realise that all is not what it seems. You are completely swept away by discovery after discovery and the contrast between the telling and the tale is wonderfully done and the author has you in her complete control. Genius storytelling, no spoilers here, trust me you will love this book.

Easily one of my top reads of 2025. The story was captivating from start to finish and I could not put it down.

Set in an alternate 1979 that doesn’t feel so far from our own reality, a set of triplets, Vincent, William and Lawrence live in one of the last few Sycamore Homes in the country. As the new government seeks to close the homes to save money and appease the British taxpayer, an ethical dilemma of good vs evil and nature vs nurture as the boys’ lives change forever.

It is so hard to write a spoiler-free review of this one, it simply needs to be read. There are so many good twists and revelations throughout. The most difficult part of finishing the book is the realisation that it could easily happen with the direction the world is heading in, I definitely needed a moment to take a breath. Pick up The Book of Guilt for your next dystopian fix!

Thank you to John Murray and Netgalley for my arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and John Murray Press for this eCopy to review

Reading The Book of Guilt felt like stepping into a time capsule of 1979 England, where the lives of three triplets and a secluded girl named Nancy intertwine in the most unexpected ways. The novel is set against the eerie backdrop of the Captain Scott Home for Boys, where Vincent, Lawrence, and William are the last remaining residents. Their existence is bleak, and their future uncertain, until Nancy, a 13-year-old girl living a sheltered life in Exeter, enters their world.

Nancy's parents are overprotective, never allowing her to leave the house, which adds to the sense of isolation and mystery. As the story unfolds, the children uncover dark secrets about their origins and the sinister plans that might be in store for them. The references to Jim'll Fix It add a chilling layer, contrasting the show's innocent facade with the dark truths it later revealed.

Chidgey's writing is atmospheric and haunting, capturing the essence of the era while delving deep into themes of innocence, manipulation, and survival. The characters are well-developed, and their interactions are both heart warming and heart breaking whilst exploring the themes of belonging and the value of life.

The Book of Guilt has one of those premises that hooks you in straight away. Three brothers, who live in a home, isolated from everyone other than their ‘mothers’’ — mother mornings, mother afternoon and mother night. But why are they ostracised from everyone else and what is this ‘bug’ they apparently have…?

In this novel, you’re thrown into the lives of these boys living in very strange circumstances, but the why is a mystery — and that mystery keeps you turning the pages fast. We also get chapters from other people: the ‘Minister for Loneliness’ and Nancy, a young girl with a very strange home life. How are they connected to these three boys and the three ‘mothers’?

Chidgey gives just enough away bit by bit, building the tension and pulling you deeper into the story. I flew through it because the writing is incredibly engaging. You really feel like you’re inside the boys’ heads, which is equal parts fascinating and unsettling. It makes you see the world through their eyes, even when one of them clearly has a darker side — which leaves you with all sorts of mixed feelings.

What I found especially powerful was how the book explores the nature vs. nurture debate. It touches on some heavy issues, but does it in a way that feels real and grounded… scarily so, actually. Some of the situations felt just close enough to reality to be a bit haunting.

None of the characters in this story are black and white ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (well, perhaps one notable other character!), and that’s what makes it so thought-provoking. You’re constantly questioning what you’d do if you were in that world, faced with those choices. It’s not an easy read emotionally, but it’s a brilliant one.

If you like books that mess with your head a bit and make you think long after you’ve finished, I’d definitely recommend The Book of Guilt.

A slow burn that is incredibly captivating. This is my first novel by this author and I’m sure it won’t be my last.

The writing sparks emotions that are both shocking and conflicting.

Unlike anything I’ve read before.

This book had such a creepy feel to it for me as it deals with control and the how the isolation of memory and experiences can lead to be manipulated / brainwashed. A very intense and atmospheric read overall.

The narrative does a good job of gradually introducing different threads to the overall story. I began to wonder how the author was going to keep the reader interested as it felt initially quite narrow in scope but the chapters on the Ministry of Loneliness and Nancy intrigued and built to a tense finale, where it got pretty dark.
Themes of nature or nurture, scientific ethics, sins of the father and revenge or forgiveness were explored.
The coda set in Margate at the end was a nice touch and provided a bit of emotional closure.