Fig Tree Publishing Director Juliet Annan has acquired World Rights to a first novel by current WriteNow mentee Geraldine Quigley.
Music Love Drugs War tells the story of a group of teenagers and their families in Derry in 1981. The friends’ interests are music, love, drink and drugs (probably in that order) but some of them will become increasingly consumed by the ongoing war going on around them. Music Love Drugs War will be published in Spring 2019.
Geraldine lives in Derry, Northern Ireland, and works full time in a call centre earning minimum wage. She applied to WriteNow as a way to try to get her voice – one which represents working class women – to be better heard.
Juliet said: “This is a novel that is full of heart: it is moving and funny, it is so touching about this group of friends and their families, and it’s such an amazingly observant portrait of a time and place that you can imagine yourself there at that time and in that place.”
Geraldine added: "Working with Juliet has been a privilege. With her guidance, I have been encouraged to tell the story of a different time, with as much humour and truth as I could manage. It is a tale of family, friendship, and being young in difficult times, of making the wrong choices for the right reasons.