Burntcoat

An electrifying story of passion, connection and transformation from 'a writer of show-stopping genius' (Guardian).

'Dark and brilliant.' SARAH MOSS
'A masterpience.' DAISY JOHNSON
'Extraordinary.' SARAH PERRY

'Hall has set a bar . . . Finely wrought, intellecutally brave and emotionally honest.' THE SCOTSMAN

In the bedroom above her immense studio at Burntcoat, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness is making her final preparations. The symptoms are well known: her life will draw to an end in the coming days.

Downstairs, the studio is a crucible glowing with memories and desire. It was here, when the first lockdown came, that she brought Halit. The lover she barely knew. A presence from another culture. A doorway into a new and feverish world.

'Sarah Hall makes language shimmer and burn . . . One of the finest writers at work today.' DAMON GALGUT

'Wonderful . . . The writing goes down smoking hot onto the page.' ANDREW MILLER

'I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers . . . With Burntcoat she has solidified her status as the literary shining light we lesser souls aspire to.' BENJAMIN MYERS



Burntcoat is a dark and brilliant novel about love, art and fragility in a time of crisis. -- Sarah Moss

Hall's writing is alchemical, magnificent, divine, bodily. Here are new ways to understand what it feels like to be human. Here are books to cherish. Burntcoat is a masterpiece. I lay myself at the altar of everything Hall writes. -- Daisy Johnson

Sarah Hall makes language shimmer and burn. She's not afraid of big themes and has the talent to back up her ambition, but she's just as good at the intimate and domestic... One of the finest writers at work today. -- Damon Galgut

I loved and needed this full-throated yell of a novel about female desire, resilience, strangeness and artistic power, about the amplification of that power through suffering, and about the terror and beauty of bodies in extremis. Nobody writes like Sarah Hall, and here her lucid, vital, extraordinary style is matched perfectly to its subject - it's an extraordinary work that will stand as a blazing witness to the age that bore it. -- Sarah Perry

Wonderful. Sarah Hall manages to infuse a whole novel with the intensity of one of her stories. The writing goes down smoking hot onto the page. Above all, it is the feeling of all this coming out of the writer's depths that makes it so compelling. This will be among the very best of pandemic books. -- Andrew Miller

I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers. Sarah Hall's work has everything: drama, poetry, tension, sensuality, dark magic and that undefinable otherness that is unique to her. She is the best there is. "Writer's writer" can often be seen as a backhanded compliment, but Sarah Hall is this - and so much more. With Burntcoat she has solidified her status as the literary shining light we lesser souls aspire to. -- Benjamin Myers

Hall's tender, scorching novel will make your heart weep. ― Independent

A perfectly-formed gem of a book, an extraordinarily visceral take on sex, grief, creativity, disease, death and the strange mania of lockdown. -- Kirstin Innes ― The List

Serious literary talent . . . Finely wrought, intellectually brave and emotionally honest. -- Stuart Kelly ― Scotland on Sunday

Astonishing -- Francis Spufford

A beautiful novel, full of heart and darkness. -- Avni Doshi

Staggering . . . an exquisite account of sexual intimacy, of maternal love, of our terrifying capacity for survival and our commitment to creating beauty out of darkness. -- Ruth Gilligan ― Irish Independent