PRH acquires Irish YA tackling abortion and rape

Penguin Random House Children’s has bought an Irish YA novel about a girl’s race to discover her family’s hidden history, touching on the themes of abortion, illegitimate pregnancy, the tragedy of the Magdalen Laundries, rape and gay rights.

All the Bad Apples, by Moïra Fowley-Doyle, is about 17-year-old Deena, whose sister Mandy is seen leaping from a cliff. Then Deena starts receiving letters from Mandy, saying the Rys women have been cursed through the generations and that she has gone in search of the curse’s roots.

Fowley-Doyle said: “All the Bad Apples is a book built of equal parts hope and fury – it’s about feminism and history, family and identity, and what happens when hidden truths are told. I wrote it as Ireland reeled from the findings of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, as grassroots feminist activists rallied to repeal the 8th amendment, and the rage felt by most of this country infused into a story about a teenage girl retracing her family tree and finding herself in its branches.”

Editorial director Natalie Doherty acquired world rights from Claire Wilson at RCW. Publication is set for August.