Bad Fruit

For fans of My Dark Vanessa and Celeste Ng, this propulsive debut follows a young biracial woman who uncovers shocking family secrets as she attempts to break the devastating cycle of intergenerational trauma

Just graduated from high school and waiting to start college at Oxford, Lily lives under the scrutiny of her paranoid Singaporean mother, May, and is unable to find kinship with her elusive British father, Charlie. Volatile and distraught, there's only one thing that calms May down: having a glass of cool, spoiled orange juice served to her by Lily, who must always taste it first to make sure it's just right.

May suspects that Charlie is having an affair, which triggers memories of her unhappy childhood in Singapore. As May becomes increasingly unhinged, Lily starts to have flashbacks that she knows aren't her own. Over the course of the summer, all semblance of civility and propriety is set aside as Lily begins to uncover the harrowing history that has always cast a shadow on her family, culminating in a shattering revelation about May that finally sets her free.

An unforgettable portrayal of the often-fraught complexity of mother-daughter relationships-especially for biracial first-generation immigrant daughters-as well as a heartrending account of a young woman's search for love, approval, and redemption, Bad Fruit will leave readers breathless and questioning their own notions of belonging, femininity, and freedom. Ella King is a Singaporean novelist who lives in London. A graduate of Faber Academy's novel-writing program, she is an award-winning writer who has worked as a corporate lawyer and for anti-human trafficking and domestic violence charities.