Fruit Fly - Paperback

by Josh Silver (Author)

A BBC must-read book of 2026--"Sharp, dark and humorous, it's a real nail-biter."

Go gay. Go sad. Go dark.

A washed-up author will stop at nothing to claw her way back to relevancy--even if it means appropriating a young gay man's tragic story.

Mallory Maddox is buried under seven years of writer's block. With her status as a literary sensation fizzling, she'll do anything she can to resurrect her career. Inspiration needs to strike--and fast.

Enter Leo. He's a struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He's vulnerable. He's enigmatic. He's exactly what Mallory has been looking for.

Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. The world needs Leo's story right now, and Mallory believes she deserves to tell it. Really, it's her story--she's the one who wrote it, after all.

But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide how far she will go to pen the perfect story.

A razor-sharp satirical thriller, Fruit Fly will appeal to fans of R. F. Kuang's Yellowface and Yomi Adegoke's The List.

Author Biography

Bestselling author Josh Silver was born on a farm in the Lake District and lives in Manchester. In his twenties, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), performing in the West End and on Broadway, before changing careers to become a mental health nurse working with teenagers. His writing has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal and the YA Book Prize, and Erase Me was named a 2025 The Observer Book of the Year. Fruit Fly is his much-anticipated adult debut. It has already been selected by the BBC as one of their "12 Books to Read in 2026" and featured on "Best Books of 2026" lists in the Daily Express and Daily Mirror.