Cy Forrest is a genetically modified northerner living in the south-west of England, loving cider and supporting Manchester United. The last two aren’t going to happen. He is, however, a regular visitor to Dorset where his forthcoming novel, The Punished, is set.

He signed up for a one year MA at Goldsmith’s, University of London. On the MA, Booker prize winner James Kelman (How Late It Was, How Late, Dirt Road) inspired him with ideas about narrative and the vernacular.

His first novel in twelve years, The Punished (Crooked Cat Books, Sept 13th, 2017) is available to pre-order 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.

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

Poems published: 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).