Ella King won the Blue Pencil Agency pitch prize in 2019 with the first 500 words of her debut novel 'Bad Fruit', an accolade which I am pleased to say is supported by the absolute quality of the entire novel. The ability to launch a story in such a powerful way is just one of the reasons why King's novel is a stunning masterclass in writing a deeply affecting psychological thriller. Having finished this book several days ago, I find myself haunted and moved by the dark events King presents, the representation of intergenerational trauma and the power of memory both skilled and engrossing for the reader. The starting point has to be the quality of writing – the first 500 words must be immediately gripping, compulsive, beautiful. But the other parts – the cover letter and the synopsis – are also important. The cover letter should include a one-line pitch summarising your novel and why it’s distinctive. Don’t be surprised if this takes you a while. I remember my agent, Hellie Ogden, saying that it takes her a day to come up with this when she sends novels to publishers; it’s supposed to be hard, it’s supposed to take time and thought. Writers often find the synopsis very difficult too; rather than an outline of events, my tip would be to think of it as a summary of how your protagonist has changed during the course of the novel – what are their motivations and desires at the beginning of the novel, what are the key events or confrontations that change this, how does this get resolved?

Best book I have read in a long long time. Intelligently written, really well paced. I devoured this’ Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Emily: Can you tell us about your writing journey and what lead you to this place – publishing your debut novel with HarperFiction?In this story, Lily and her stunningly disfunctional family live through through a London summer full of drama, insecurities, and betrayals, and we learn how her volatile mother affects the entire family and slowly unravels them. We follow Lily trying to cope with all the traumas that connect the different members of her family, parents and siblings alike. The dysfunctional (and abusive) relationship between Lily and her mother is the focus, but the rest of her family doesn’t fare well either. In addition, other hidden issues surface during the course of the story.

At some point in the book, I even questioned myself about feeling someone else’s trauma as I am very interested in the ability for your body to keep trauma. Could it be passed on to you from your ancestors? Not early at all. The title was entirely different when I signed with Hellie. She knew it was the wrong title but she took the bull by the horn a few weeks after she signed me and we had a “title-off” where we messaged each other title after title until we finally landed on “Bad Fruit”. Once we saw that, we knew it was the one. My advice for budding authors is not to worry too much about titles – they’re essentially a distillation of your novel and you can sometimes be too close to have a feel for. It will come. May, in particular, is a mother out of nightmares, tyrannical and manipulative one moment, child-like and vulnerable the next.Lily is the youngest of the three children of May who is Singaporean and Charlie who is British. The story is told from the viewpoint of Lily, 18, who has been offered a place at Oxford and just wants to survive the summer at home. She feels it's her duty to play the family peacekeeper between her volatile mother and the rest of the family. I also attended a 1-2-1 Fiction Surgery with Eva Lewin, Writer Development Manager at Spread the Word. You submit a 3000 word extract of your work plus synopsis and then meet with Eva for an hour to discuss. It was such a fantastic opportunity to gain a fresh perspective, Eva was so incisive and thoughtful, interrogating me about character arc and challenging me to up the stakes for the protagonist and the readers. First of all I just want to say how well written this was! The author creates such a tense and claustrophobic atmosphere throughout the book that makes you feel like you’re right there with Lily trying to navigate the unpredictability of her mother. This book was so easy to fly through and extremely hard to put down. There’s something about difficult mother-daughter relationships that really interests me and this was an incredible exploration of those bonds full of tension, anxiety and the sense of impending doom.

This book does deal with the subject of abuse and trauma, and although the subjects are covered with great care and obvious research this may be a trigger for some readers. What was the most interesting for me was how Lily knew that he mama was in the wrong, was unhinged, did bad things, and yet we see her come to her defense more towards some points of the book and Jules trying to break her sister out from under their mama, but then for Lily to finally be ready to break away, get away and leave all her family behind since she has finally been able to strand up against her mama AND THEN JULES IS LIKE WELL YOU COULD JUST LET IT ALL GO AND USE THIS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE! I was really hoping Lily would be able to escape with her sister and they’d break away from the control, toxic manipulation of their mother together, I found the book disturbing, especially the whole drinking sour orange juice and the weird coercions the mother put Lily through. It was truly some bizarre stuff. It just makes you wonder how trauma can affect someone so much that it’s passed on through the generations. The writing was just okay—a lil too try hard in some areas, but damn she nailed that plot and the ending. I'm glad it was a positive ending. I don't think I could've taken any more sadness tbh. And I loved how the author included two characters that actually cared and helped. You need people outside of your situation to get you out the other side. I don't know, I just feel like I should have felt something tugging at my heartstrings and I didn't. I just could not get immersed in this story no matter how sharp the actual writing was. I know her mother experienced horrific abuse but I'm not a believer in that being any justification for abusing her own children but I say that as someone who grew up with loving and supporting parents. What do I know? On this subject, thankfully, very little.Overall, this is an incredibly well written novel that has you full of questions from the start and you do get answers. The pace is pitched extremely well and I genuinely couldn’t put it down as this is a psychological thriller that has you in its grip Overall, this is an incredibly well written novel that has you full of questions from the start and you do get answers. The pace is pitched extremely well and I genuinely couldn’t put it down as this is a psychological thriller that has you in its grip throughout. Highly recommended. It’s a really memorable title – which has clearly inspired the brilliant cover art! How early in the process did the title come to you?

Just graduated from high school and waiting to start college at Oxford, Lily lives under the scrutiny of her volatile Singaporean mother, May, and is unable to find kinship with her elusive British father, Charlie. When May suspects that Charlie is having an affair, there's only one thing that calms May down: a glass of perfectly spoiled orange juice served by Lily, who must always taste it first to make sure it's just right. Books like this typically hit me right in the heart. How can they not? The idea of a child being abused by anyone much less their own parents that should love them unconditionally is heartbreaking. I don’t want to say too much more because like with any good psychological thriller, it’s best to go in knowing as little as possible and experience the twists and turns yourself- but this book and it’s author are both ones to watch! I devoured this, was completely gripped. Beautiful, astounding for a debut novel’ Reader review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is an exceptional novel about a toxic mother-daughter relationship and I found it extremely difficult to put down. It's definitely psychological in nature but I don't know if I'd call it a thriller. More like fiction or literary fiction as another reviewer noted. I'm not going to say much more because I don't want to give anything away. I'll just say that I was emotionally wrung out by the ending which I really liked by the way.A beautiful, bewitching, unsettling and unputdownable dream of a book . . . .I genuinely loved this, it will stay with me for a long time’ LISA JEWELL