Perfectly Preventable Deaths

(Paperback)

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Description

Fifteen-year-old twins Madeline and Catlin move to a new life in Ballyfran, a strange isolated Irish town, a place where the earth is littered with small corpses and unspoken truths. A place where, for the last sixty years, teenage girls have gone missing in the surrounding mountains. As distance grows between the twins - as Catlin falls in love, and Madeline begins to understand her own nascent witchcraft - Madeline discovers that Ballyfrann is a place full of predators. And when Catlin falls into the gravest danger of all, Madeline must ask herself who she really is, and who she wants to be - or rather, who she might have to become to save her sister.

Reviews

Deirdre Sullivan handles darkness in a way that instills addictive dread, but also, somehow, hope. She is a natural successor to Angela Carter - and Perfectly Preventable Deaths, a tale of rural horror, family and peril, is the Irish Gothic we deserve. -- Sarah Maria Griffin, author of SPARE AND FOUND PARTS
This is the novel the recent Sabrina reboot wishes it could be - a thrilling, eerie exploration of sisterhood, first love and dark powers hiding out of sight. Perfectly Preventable Deaths lures you in with wit and compassion before hitting you with horror and twists worthy of Stephen King or Shirley Jackson. Nobody writes teenagers or witches like Deirdre Sullivan, and Perfectly Preventable Deaths is her best novel yet. * Dave Rudden, author of KNIGHTS OF THE BORROWED DARK *
I am completely smitten with Madeline's voice and this witty, wise and weird depiction of a quiet, strange village where neither girls nor small creatures are safe from predators. Deirdre Sullivan has crafted a tale that is both achingly tender and unsettlingly creepy, a world where magic and love have tremendous power and devastating consequences. * Claire Hennessy, author of NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD *
Sullivan has an eye for the uncanny, a taste for the macabre, and a gift for beautiful prose. Perfectly Preventable Deaths is her best book yet. * Louise O'Neill *
This intoxicating, skilfully crafted novel laced with sisterhood, first love and witchcraft is sure to entice fans of Angela Carter or Melissa Albert's The Hazel Wood. * The Bookseller, Editors Choice *
This book, this book. Deirdre's writing is a drug, her characters crackle and the magic is so tactile you can feel rough bark and leaves under your fingers. I swallowed this whole. * Moira Fowley-Doyle, author of SPELLBOOK OF THE LOST AND FOUND *

Author Bio

Deirdre Sullivan is a writer from Galway. Her books include Prim Improper, Improper Order and Primperfect, which was the first YA novel ever to be shortlisted for the European Prize for Literature. Her 2016 novel Needlework was awarded a White Raven and the CBI Honour Award for fiction. Deirdre's most recent book, Tangleweed and Brine, a collection of dark fairy-tale retellings, won an Irish Book Award for Best Young Adult Book of the Year 2017. Deirdre loves reading, knitting, bodily autonomy and guinea-pigs.