Cy Forrest lives in the south west of England with a very patient @grumblecat. He doesn’t know much about books but he knows what he likes. He’s a regular visitor to Dorset, England, where his 5 Star Readers’ Favorite book is set.

His first novel in twelve years, The Punished (Crooked Cat Books, Sept 2017) is available now at Amazon.

England, 1943. Commanding Officer Hulford-Prandy forces rebel Jack to handle BLISS, a deadly chemical weapon. Jack falls in love with radar operator Gin, but so does Hulford-Prandy who inveigles her into the Special Operations Executive, sending her to destroy a munitions factory in France. She’s captured and disappears.

Forty years later. City high-flyer Alexis meets three veiled women at her mother’s funeral who want to know what happened to her mother, Gin, during the war. Alexis knows nothing, but when she’s scattering Gin’s ashes in the ghost village of Tyneham, as requested by Gin, she meets a loner, Aidan, who claims BLISS is still there.

As Alexis and Aidan get closer to the truth, they find their lives in danger. When he enters the live firing range where BLISS is located, his preoccupation becomes deadly.

The Punished is a journey in four parts. Jack’s conversion from rebellious eighteen-year-old to peace campaigner; his son Aidan’s search for the truth; Gin’s journey from naive but plucky eighteen-year-old to secret war hero, risking her life many times over with a grenade in her pocket; and her daughter Alexis’s transformation from downtrodden to triumphant and courageous woman.

Stories at: Mondays Are Murder (Akashic), Big Pulp, Transmission, The Front View and others.

Poems in The North, Iota, Seam and Blade amongst others. Prizes in the Yorkshire, Dulwich, Exeter and Berkshire competitions: What You Will See (Gatto, 2006)

Favourite writers: Magnus Mills, Franzen, Eugenides, Munro, Carver, Kelman and Self.

Novel #2: Stop the World, I Want to Get On (Formerly The Marquis and Tiger Hugs: Authonomy closed Sept 2015).

Novel #1: Tony Blair: The Wilderness Years (Createspace, 2005).