The Vulpine

Enter a darkly dystopian world full of eerie folklore, in which illness and difference have been prohibited. But from deep beneath the earth, a rebellion is rising… Perfect for fans of Never Let Me Go and The Luminaries.

Ora has always been fascinated by chilling fairy stories of the Vulpine – the mythical, fox-like monsters who live below ground, emerging at night to snatch ‘imperfect’ babies and children. Because Ora knows that disability and illness have no place in her world. To succeed is to be genetically ‘perfect’, just like her best friend Casta and his family.

Then, one day, Casta’s baby sister disappears. And Ora’s mother reveals a long-buried secret: Ora herself has a genetic illness that affects her lungs… And she’s about to be found out. Desperate for answers and sanctuary, Ora decides to do the unthinkable and seek out the fabled Vulpine. And below the earth, she discovers a hidden world that turns everything she has been taught upside-down…

• A unique and powerful story about stepping into your power and creating a better world, with a brilliant cast of disabled heroes, from an author whose own experiences of chronic illness inform Ora’s.
• A chilling dystopian world filled with eerie science fiction and a sweet, slow-burn romance.
• Perfect for fans of Never Let Me Go, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hunger Games and The Luminaries.

The Vulpine is a dystopian novel that explores the place of sickness and disability in a ‘perfect’ society. This is an Own Voices novel, as author Polly Crosby was the first baby in the world to be diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis via the heel prick test, and her heroine has the same condition (although it remains unnamed in a world where illness has supposedly been eradicated). While Cystic Fibrosis has a huge impact on Polly’s life, she emphasises that this is only one facet of her life, and that depiction of chronic illness in books needs be more varied.

“When I first set out to write this book, I knew it was going to be a huge undertaking, but I also knew that I had to do it. As a teen with a chronic illness, I rarely saw myself in the stories I read.”

Promotion has already started for The Vulpine with Polly giving an interview to UK publishing’s biggest trade magazine, and with nation coverage already booked in for January.