A challenging story to get into it however it was very cleverly written in it's approach and once it captured you in then it was hard to get out.

This book made me very uncomfortable but at the same time I couldn't stop reading it as I wanted to know how it would end. The family dynamic was both compelling and horrifying at the same time and made you wonder what goes on behind closed doors.

This dark thriller was a surprise throughout. The tale twists and turns in ways I didn't see coming. Lily, the 17yr old at the heart of the story is a complex character constantly trying to fix and mend her family whilst at the same time being unable to acknowledge how broken they all are, including herself. I look forward to Ella King's next book.
(Copy received via Netgalley in return for an honest review)

A very unusual look at an unhealthy mother-daughter relationship. A tiger mum and her mixed race daughter who does not look like her fuel each other dysfunctions and gives this story tones of “mommy dearest”. I became really involved in the narrative but quickly felt let down by the lack of direction and lost interest as the story became less and less believable bordering on exaggerated for the sake of it. It is still an interesting read but definitely not for everybody.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for providing me with an ARC.

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.

This book was more than just a thriller to me, it was about the characters, especially Lily and learning along with her. Ella King has done a wonderful job of building the story in a way that makes you feel like you are going at the same pace as Lily. Ella takes time to let you as a reader learn what the family dynamic is like and form your own questions on what has made the characters the way they are. The subjects of abuse, generational trauma and their effects are covered very well in my opinion and I felt like I truly learned something from reading this book.

The story builds to become one that you just can't stop reading. I was walking around the flat, feeding the cat, making my lunch, brushing my teeth and my Kindle was with me while I just had to keep reading.

I really enjoyed this book and I will definitely be recommending it to friends when it is released in August. I can't wait to see what Ella King writes next!

I have read an extensive number of psychological thrillers, and they don’t come more complex, more haunting, more disturbing, and yet so beautifully written than Bad Fruit. King’s debut novel (I’m still struggling to believe this masterpiece is a debut!) is utterly immersive. The toxicity drips off the page from the very first chapter! From the get go, you know something is a bit cray cray with this family.

It is a character driven novel at its finest. King shrouds you in intricate layers of deceit, lies, and some downright “What The Actual….?” moments as we explore the devastation of intergenerational trauma. Each family member is heartbreakingly damaged in their own way, and they all have such incredibly unhealthy symbiotic relationships. None more so than “mama’s girl, mama’s doll” Lily and her mother. My god, the mother! Let’s just take a moment to fully relish the utter volatility and dangerous nature of this woman! I mean, absolutely deranged! She brought such presence (and by presence, I mean staring a cobra directly in the face kinda presence). The way King brought her to life on the page is commendable.

Through such powerful prose, King brings a terrible sense of foreboding; through Lily’s increasing flashbacks we begin to piece together what happened in the past to cause such a devastatingly chaotic pot of simmering tension; a pot which finally just blows its lid clean off, scalding everything in its path!

As disturbing as the content of this novel was, Kings writing is an aesthetic masterpiece - a sensory feast!! Never have I read a book so dark, while so vividly colourful! The way King uses colour and food to create atmosphere and setting is downright genius. Ella King is certainly one to watch out for!

This book will resonate with me for some time and I am so grateful to Emma Pickard at Harper Fiction for the opportunity to read this and provide my personal thoughts.

Lily is planning for university, she’s going to Oxford. But first she must survive her final summer at home. She’s the youngest of three, the only one still at home and life isn’t what you’d call normal. Unless normal is painting your skin yellow, wearing coloured contact lens and spoiling OJ because that’s what you do for your mum. Is that normal?

As I delved further into this rather unusual family set, the more I was intrigued to see where King was taking me. I felt trapped in Lily’s life, claustrophobic from the control this young adult felt. I wanted to assist Lilly in some way, fast forwarding time for her to leave for Uni, giving her an escape route from these strange behaviours put upon her. But then as we went on, I needed to know what the blackouts and dreams Lily suffered from meant. What had caused them to be buried and what triggered them to manifest to startle Lily so much?

Bad Fruit is dark and twisted. I felt unnerved throughout, waiting for the proverbial worm to turn as Lily delved more into the re-emerging memories. The coercive behaviour of her mother sets the tone for what pans out to be a tense and unsettling domestic/psych thriller. A stunning and astonishing debut.

It’s summer and 18 year old Lily is waiting to take up her place to study law at Oxford. In the meantime she is caught between her warring parents, well, her mother Mae is certainly at war. Lily is a mamas girl, she panders to her mothers every whim and some of those are extreme. Lily escapes to a bolthole she has created in the attic and as if the toxic atmosphere in the home isn’t bad enough she starts to have flashbacks which present a puzzling conundrum, who exactly is the bad fruit?

I like selecting debut novels mostly so you can spot who you think might be the next ‘big thing’ and an automatic author to read. I have a very strong feeling that Ella King will fall into that category. This is a very powerful, emotional and heartbreaking debut. Initially it seems to be darkly funny until it’s not. There are some scenes at the beginning that are entertaining and very visual but then you start to fully appreciate the lengths that have to be gone to in order to keep Mama Mae sweet. The impact she has seems to be like dynamite then you realise it’s nuclear with all the fallout. Lily‘s sister Julia is a Molotov cocktail and Lily is the UN peacekeeping force. A sense of fear, foreboding and impending doom begins to provide the storytelling and that builds in intensity and it’s palpable.

It’s excellent on the exhausting psychological and emotional toll within the household and there are some original metaphors to describe it. It’s equally fascinating on the psychology of the siblings and their fathers survival of all the toxicity, damage and control and it makes for riveting reading that is increasingly shocking as you begin to get a truer picture. The characterisation is excellent especially of Lily and the introduction of Lewis into the storytelling gives the reader hope of salvation for Lily. As it reaches a climax towards the end it’s heartbreaking, so tense the atmosphere can be cut with a knife and although it’s not an easy read you are transfixed. My jaw literally falls open on occasions with what ensues. The ending is exactly what you hope for.

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.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Emma Pickard at HarperFiction for the opportunity to read this in return for an honest review.

Bad Fruit blew me away with its powerful and absolutely immersive look at 17-year old Lily’s life. This psychological thriller explores a complex and dark family dynamic: what do you do if the most toxic relationships in your life are with your immediate family?

We meet Lily in the summer just before she’s due to start university, she’s secured a place at Oxford – her future looks bright. She lives with her parents in Greenwich, South-East London and has two older siblings: a sister, Julia and a brother, Jacob.

On the surface, Lily’s life looks idyllic but it soon becomes clear that it’s far from that, revealed to us through her unique coping techniques, including the safe space she creates in her attic bedroom: 'Here’s where I keep me, in this hole under the floorboards.'

Lily’s relationship with her mother is the crux of Bad Fruit. Her mother exerts an unhealthy amount of control over Lily, even forcing her to wear make-up and dye her hair black to look more like her, more Chinese: 'Despite everything Mama has done to bring out the Chinese in me, I remain resolutely myself, her whitest child.'

However, the foundations of their relationship are crumbling and we’re right there with Lily as she finds out exactly why…

There are some heart-wrenching, awkward and downright weird moments between Lily and her mother that mean you are obsessed with knowing what will happen next.

During this sticky summer, Lily starts to have disturbing hallucinations or flashbacks and she has to try and work out what’s real and what’s not and if her mother has been lying about her past.

The story also sees Lily develop a friendship with an older man, Lewis, who lives near her. On paper, this is the dangerous relationship but Ella King subverts what is expected when it comes this, heightening the impact of Lily’s relationships with her family.

Another really engaging thread to this book is Lily’s interest in etymology. As a parallel to exploring her own roots, Lily’s love of the origin of language is woven throughout by giving us lovely descriptions like this: 'The Latin root for ‘hallucinate’ is irresistibly beautiful, alucinari, something you would name a Victorian child.'

I just couldn’t stop reading Bad Fruit, there were more than a few moments where my heart was in my mouth and it’s been a while since I so desperately wanted things to turn out OK for the lead character – but Lily grasped my heart.

Bad Fruit is a truly memorable debut novel. A cleverly layered story of inherited trauma, a complex and damaged family dynamic, identity, trust, growth and a young woman understanding that the hardest thing she can do might just be the thing that saves her.

Highly emotive, sometimes shocking, sometimes uplifting and with a steady and sinister sense of tension that just won’t quit. I’m excited to read more from Ella King.

Bad Fruit by Ella King is a study of family trauma through the lens of teenage Lily.

The story follows Lily in the summer before she’s supposed to go and study at Oxford University however she starts to experience strange flashbacks surrounding her mothers family and family history. But as the flashbacks get more and more intense she begins to learn more about her mother and things may not seem as clear about her family as they once were. This book is a very raw exploration of how trauma can impact generations of people and whole families. It explores in a very accessible way how events can shape our relationships with people and how we act. King’s writing style is very engaging and easy to read making the more mysterious elements of this book more inviting to the reader and helps develop the plot of the book. The pacing and event placing is cleverly thought out and the book is formatted into chapters that make you want to read the next one. The plot was well developed and the main character Lily was likeable and Ella King managed to achieve a wide range of different character stories without slowing down the plot. On the other hand, there were some aspects of this book that the flashbacks made confusing and there was a point in the middle of the book where I was unsure if the flashbacks would be explained hence why I gave this book 4 stars and not 5 stars. I would urge other readers to look up or investigate content warnings before reading this book.

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.

Without revealing too much, we view the story from the point of view of Lily, a girl about to go off to Oxford. She struggles with the idea of leaving her close relationship with her mother behind, particularly as we gradually see the twisted dependence between mother and daughter. Would Lily's 'mama' function without her daughter, her 'doll'? The 'Bad Fruit' of the title is not just the referring to the mother's taste for soured juice, but giving us a metaphorical insight into the impact parenting can have on the trajectory of children's lives from generation to generation. We are left wondering what really lies at the heart of this strange family and how any of them can escape the destructive cycle of dependence and anger we bear witness to.

The descriptions, of a sweaty, oppressive summer in Greenwich, juxtaposed against the cultural roots of Singapore, leap off the page. King balances the description with plot, the pace of revelation balanced perfectly throughout. This book is going to be devoured by readers who I know will find this dark, twisted tale equally as thrilling as I did. 5 stars,

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher who provided an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When we first meet Lily, we see an obedient daughter who anticipates her mother’s every wish. She seems to dote on her in a way is surely not healthy. She prepares her food just the way she likes it, reorganises her wardrobe and soothes her when she is angry. But Mama is angry to often, and violent, and nasty. I’ve read a lot of thrillers featuring strained relationships between mothers and daughters, but this really is something else.

This dark, psychological thriller is a real page-turner. King’s characters are unbelievably complex, in ways that they don’t always understand themselves, and interactions within the family are unstable, stirring up an volatile cocktail of emotions and memories. This is an edgy, twisty thriller of the highest calibre. I really hope that Ella King is working on her next thriller - this is an author worth looking out for!

Thank you to Harper Fiction and NetGalley UK this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Bad Fruit is a dark thriller about a family hiding what is rotten within, set in the leafy streets of Greenwich. Lily is seventeen, almost off to Oxford, but she's also her mother's perfect doll, made up to look just right and wearing just what her mother wants. Lily brings her mother spoilt orange juice and cooks recipes from her mother's childhood that her father wouldn't make, but it's so quick for her mother to change from love to hate, and maybe Lily can't remember exactly what happened with her and her family when she was younger. As memories come back, Lily starts to realise that being the perfect daughter isn't going to work, so she's going to have to become something else.

With Lily and her mama so vividly painted from the start, Bad Fruit quickly grips you, unfolding a complex family dynamic and a girl starting to question what she thought she knew. You know something is up, but King withholds details, slowly revealing the narrative in a classic literary thriller way. What I found particularly compelling, however, was the complex morality and characterisation, particular of Lily's siblings, whose childhoods and interactions with the family are similar and yet very different to Lily. The first person narration means that you're never quite sure what her siblings might be hiding from her, or whether her picture and judgement of them is clouded, and the same goes for her parents, particularly her father. Even by the end of the book, the family dynamic is still not quite unravelled, showing how sometimes there aren't easy answers.

Layered and hard to put down, Bad Fruit explores trauma and family through a thriller lens that asks who might snap first. I enjoyed the Greenwich setting and the complexity of race and culture in the book, and found the perspective of Lily a very interesting one, especially in terms of how her childhood has impacted things like her ability to know what she likes or make choices.

Bad Fruit is disturbing. It's complex. And it's compelling reading.

Seventeen year old Lily spends her life terrified of her Mama's rages. Her father is subservient and often the victim of her ire. Her brother and sister no longer live at home, so Lily adopts the role of peacemaker. Her mother is very particular. Her orange juice must be past its use by date, 'fizzy with a sour tang'. Lily must look more Chinese with yellow make-up, dyed hair and contact lenses.

Lily just has to get through the summer and then she can escape to Oxford.

But when she begins to be haunted by flashbacks, she is deeply affected. Are they her memories or her mother's?

As she pieces together the truth of her mother's life, and her own, she finds herself broken and longing for oblivion.

She always believed her mother had a loving side. That the accusations from her sister were false or exaggerated. But she is forced to admit she was wrong. Can Lily escape her mothers clutches and begin a new life?

Dealing with complex issues of childhood neglect, sexual and emotional abuse, this is a complex novel. But one that fascinated me as I longed to learn how Mama became the monster she was. And despite her being pretty vile almost all of the time, it is a testament to the author's skill, that by the end of the book, I did have some sympathy for her.

A very original and interesting read, dark and disturbing yes, but with delicious moments of black humour and certainly, by the end, a wonderful sense of hope.

Bad Fruit, Ella King

Lily looks after Mama, she protects her. But Mama is walking on an edge and as Mama starts to unravel, so too is Lily.

She was trying to put Mama back together but perhaps she’ll tear her apart.

Like Claire Fullers Unsettled Ground, Bad Fruit brings to the surface the complexities of family dynamics and relationships. With a cast of fascinating characters, Bad Fruit is a careful, measured and dark descent into the underbelly of a damaged family. Promising that sometimes the rot starts just beneath the skin. More than just your average thriller, Bad Fruit juggles relationships, responsibilities, race, sex and blame as it escalates towards a razor sharp end. This deserves to be on your must reads this year.

Thanks for the chance to read Bad Fruit early on Netgalley. I started the book right away, and a few hours later I’ve finished.. simply couldn’t put it down! It’s a thriller that gets darker and more fast paced with each chapter. And with each chapter it explores multi-generational trauma, unveiling the truth, with a series of flashbacks, blocked memories and triggering times.

This will be one that I’ll remember for a long time. Recommend for fans of My Dark Vanessa.