It’s the 1990s in small-town Scotland, and Zoe Fitzgerald is trying to grow up quietly and make a good life for herself. But between her parents’ lengthy and challenging divorce and her mum’s spiralling obsessions, Zoe’s childhood starts slipping away.

Zoe becomes her mother’s reluctant sidekick - posting secret notes, making malicious phone calls, and cycling past someone’s house in the dark at her mum’s request. Zoe’s world shrinks under the weight of her mum’s likely undiagnosed mental illness and alcohol dependency, writing on walls, tangled family fallout, and the messy business of survival. Zoe misses her good family friend, her dad, and her beloved Granny. Most of all, she longs for the simple security and peace of what a home should be like. As an older teenager growing up, Zoe meets her first female love, and learns to reach out: to trust, to connect, to heal and to grow.

Tender, sharp, and full of heartbreak, humour, sex, loss, and grief.Racy and dark at points, it’s also enlightening and inspiring - offering a glimpse of hope and resilience in the face of chaos. Why Change to Vodka? is a coming-of-age story about learning who you are, making your own mistakes and growing up to thrive and succeed, when the grown-ups around you are playing games and losing themselves to chaos. It’s about rewriting the rules, choosing your own path, leaning on others, being true to yourself, and ultimately becoming free to be the best you can be.