Moira Fowley-Doyle

Exquisite . . . It's a gorgeous set-up for a magical realist dive into today's teenagers confronting the hideous heritage of this country. This is a book to hold tightly to your chest

This lyrical, furious examination of victimised, silenced Irish women is compelling

This is beautiful, visceral writing; a primal scream that serves as a damning indictment of the way women have been treated in this country

Tender and fierce, full of blessings and curses, a fiery avenging angel of a book. I loved how it tied together family and tragedy and history and destiny, winding through generations and knitting everyone together, and, most of all, how it kept the crimes committed against young women who stray from the path at its heart, and exposed them to the sky, turning judgement on the judges, exposing the hypocrisy of it all. I am in absolute awe of it

Melinda Salisbury, author of The Sin Eater's Daughter

Fowley-Doyle travels through generations, examining the power women possess, the things that have been taken from them, and the things they fight to reclaim . . . An astonishingly potent offering to women who break the mould

An uncompromising, raw tale . . . Told in a mix of letters, family stories, and narrative, this devastating novel manages to find hope for the future while sending pointed messages that are as vital as they are timely

Beautiful and visceral, All the Bad Apples is for readers who've had enough of shame and secrets. This essential book unearths what patriarchy wants to keep buried, dragging truth into the light with a fierce belief in the power of telling stories. Moira Fowley-Doyle has crafted a tale devastating in its universality

Joy McCullough, author of Blood Water Paint

Intense social motivation sits easily alongside loveable characters and a compelling narrative . . . All The Bad Apples isn't just about evil doings, it's about silence too, and the complicity of that silence - the further evil done by knowing and not saying . . . The most emotive moment comes when the characters, previously almost crushed by their fate, realise the enormous power of telling their stories, loudly and without fear

Compelling . . . the book has a simmering, authentically righteous fury

Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books

Hints of magic, from a family curse to a banshee's wail, amplify the sense of mystery . . . evocative writing, eerie details, and intense emotional content. Compelling

With a memorable blend of magic and reality, Fowley-Doyle tells a harrowing and ultimately empowering story

The day after the funeral all our mourning clothes hung out on the line like sleeping bats. 'This will be really embarrassing,' I kept saying to my family, 'when she shows up at the door in a week or two.' 
 
On Deena's seventeenth birthday, the day she finally comes out to her family, her wild and mysterious sister Mandy is seen leaping from a cliff. The family is heartbroken, but not surprised. The women of the Rys family have always been troubled - 'bad apples', their father calls them - and Mandy is the baddest of them all. 
 
But then Deena starts to receive the letters. Letters from Mandy, claiming that their family's blighted history is not just bad luck or bad decisions, but a curse, handed down to the Rys women through the generations. Mandy has gone in search of the curse's roots, and now Deena must begin a desperate cross-country hunt for her sister, guided only by the letters that mysteriously appear in each new place. What Deena finds will heal their family's rotten past - or rip it apart forever.

Moira Fowley-Doyle

Praise for All the Bad Apples

Exquisite . . . It's a gorgeous set-up for a magical realist dive into today's teenagers confronting the hideous heritage of this country. This is a book to hold tightly to your chest

This lyrical, furious examination of victimised, silenced Irish women is compelling

This is beautiful, visceral writing; a primal scream that serves as a damning indictment of the way women have been treated in this country

Exquisite . . . It's a gorgeous set-up for a magical realist dive into today's teenagers confronting the hideous heritage of this country. This is a book to hold tightly to your chest

This lyrical, furious examination of victimised, silenced Irish women is compelling

This is beautiful, visceral writing; a primal scream that serves as a damning indictment of the way women have been treated in this country

Exquisite . . . It's a gorgeous set-up for a magical realist dive into today's teenagers confronting the hideous heritage of this country. This is a book to hold tightly to your chest

This lyrical, furious examination of victimised, silenced Irish women is compelling

This is beautiful, visceral writing; a primal scream that serves as a damning indictment of the way women have been treated in this country

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