Shaunna Lee Lynch: The Goddess Complex
- Children & YA
- Free. YA (and also loved by adults)
- Bantry Bookshop
- 16/07/2026 - 11:30 am
The Goddess Complex by debut Cork novelist Shaunna Lee Lynch is an unmissable feminist dystopia set in a future Ireland. Based on real Irish history, this thought-provoking new YA novel follows two very different young women, Elmagh and Amber, as they navigate a future Ireland where women’s intuition is considered a dangerous mental illness.
Shaunna questions the current reality we live in, where women and queer people’s rights are globally under threat, by championing equality, community, hope and resistance. It is inspired by her grandmother’s experiences of the Magdalene laundries scandal in Ireland, where so-called ‘fallen’ women were condemned to institutions.
Shaunna will be in conversation with Molly Twomey
In Ireland, 2064, female intuition is considered a dangerous mental illness known as The Goddess Complex. Afflicted women and girls are institutionalized, and become property of the State – an already corrupt and highly segregated corporate governing body. Raised in a State facility, Amber is one of those young women, and has spent her whole life desperate to escape the Croí, Ireland’s capital city, where all citizens are expected to reside. But not everyone abides by the State’s regime. Sixteen-year-old Elmagh has grown up in the Deadlands of Ireland, raised by her four vagabond aunts. Yet despite her freedom, the isolation of her existence leaves her lonely and, like Amber, she yearns for a normal life – whatever normal is.
When both of their lives coalesce, Elmagh and Amber must tap into their prohibited intuition… or risk losing everything.
Writers
Writer
Shaunna Lee Lynch
Writer
