The Dandelion Clock

Returning to his childhood home, Alex finds himself confronting his past in this aching, poignant vision of lost friendship.

Published in America as A Clock Without Hands.

Description

‘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 that I was old and dying, and the day when I was eleven was just a bright, clear memory…’

Alex is an artist, preparing for a major exhibition. An impulsive trip back to the Italy of his childhood forces him to explore the unresolved questions of his past where, in those seemingly innocent days, he swam and played and explored the wild countryside with Jamie and Anna. Alex has to experience again his first friendship with Jamie, and his first love for Anna: 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 results in tragedy.

Beautifully written and achingly sadWoman’s Own

A menacing, seductive vision of misspent youth – Independent on Sunday

A haunting, compelling tale – Sunday Mirror

Burt keeps the tension simmering in the Italian heat by attaching a sense of impending doom to the children’s most innocuous actions – The Independent

 

 

Brilliantly conjured... this is a novel about first secrets, about childhood's privacy and discovery. Burt's great talent is to recapture their freshness and power

The Guardian


Guy Burt's books on Goodreads

The Hole
The Hole

reviews: 127

ratings: 998 (avg rating 3.37)

 

Sophie
Sophie

reviews: 37

ratings: 320 (avg rating 3.41)

 

A Clock Without Hands
A Clock Without Hands

reviews: 23

ratings: 173 (avg rating 3.81)