Sophie

In a dark room of a dilapidated house, as a storm rages outside, Matthew lights a candle and places it in the center of the floor. Its light spreads across the wall and illuminates Sophie, tied up in a chair facing him. She is frightened, fearful of what he might do next. But for now, it seems, all Matthew wants to do is talk. Talk about the events of nearly twenty years ago, about their strange childhood, and about the summer when Sophie grew up and everything changed . . . forever.

Young Mattie and Sophie lived in a world seemingly without constraints. Their cold mother barely paid attention to her children. Their father, a mere shadow in their lives, was never home. So Mattie and Sophie had the run of the gardens and the woods beyond. They played youthful games, but Sophie was extraordinarily intelligent, a fact she took great pains to hide from her teachers, so as not to stand out. Sophie was everything to Mattie, and he worshiped her. He wanted to know her secrets, the things that went on inside her brilliant mind. But Sophie was changing. And the summer before she went away to boarding school, the things she had worked so hard to conceal would come spilling out—and Mattie would have to live with the shocking consequences.

Now he’s all grown up, too, and Matthew wants answers to the questions that still darken his mind—no matter what the cost. . . .

[Sophie] combines the creepy narrative power of a young William Golding with the disturbingly accurate memory of what it is like to be a child. . . . So good that one can only wonder what [Burt] will do next.

Publishers Weekly

Haunting, enigmatic and suspenseful, Burt's second novel (after The Hole) is a tightly woven tale of psychological horror, in which two children shape and destroy their small world. Sophie and Matthew live in a large house in rural England with a distant, mentally ill mother and a father who comes and goes. The remoteness of both of their caretakers allows the children complete freedom to fill their days as they wish, usually with long rambling walks in the woods, digging in the nearby abandoned quarry and exploring abandoned farms. Sophie's extraordinary brilliance means she can easily manipulate the adults in her life-at school, on tests and at home. Over the course of six years-from the time Sophie is seven and Mattie five-Burt tantalizes the reader with unsettling glimpses of Sophie's cunning, disturbing plans and shows how Mattie follows Sophie's lead with the love and admiration of a younger sibling. Narrated in part by an adult Sophie and Mattie 20 years later, the novel cleverly shifts perspective more than once, leading up to an explosive series of final twists. Mattie is forced to see Sophie for who she was as a child and himself for the adult he has become. At the dark denouement, the reader will be tempted to start the book over again to see just how Burt wrought this ingenious tale. (July) Forecast: Prolific as well as precocious, Burt wrote The Hole at 18 and Sophie at 19. Fans of William Golding and J.G. Ballard might profitably be steered to his novels. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.