'Brimming from start to finish with sly humour and gothic mischief' SARAH WATERS

'Beguilingly clever, very sexy and seriously frightening' GUARDIAN

'Atmospheric, sexy, creepy...totally addictive' KATE DAVIES, author of In At The Deep End

'A gloriously over-the-top queer romp' I PAPER

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'It's a terrible story and one way to tell it is this: two girls in love and a fog of wasps cursed the place forever after...'

BROOKHANTS SCHOOL FOR GIRLS: Infamous site of a series of tragic deaths over a hundred years ago. Soon to be the subject of a controversial horror movie about the rumoured 'Brookhants curse':

In the early 1900's, Brookhants students Flo and Clara fell madly in love, brought together by their obsession for a scandalous memoir.

A few months later they were found dead in the woods, after a horrific wasp attack, the book lying next to their intertwined bodies.

Three more grisly deaths followed before the school was forced to close.

Now, the school's doors are open once more. But as the crew of glamorous young actresses assemble to start filming, past and present begin to blur. And soon it's impossible to tell quite where the curse ends and Hollywood begins...
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'Buzzing with wickedness...sly, wry and dangerous to know' Rosie Garland

'Ingenious, jaw-dropping...a queer roar and it's terrifying and it's a goddamned triumph' Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World

'Wears its brilliance lightly...it's dark, sweet, and addictive. Simply one of the best books I've read in the last decade' Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman

'A hot amalgamation of gothic horror and Hollywood satire, it's draped with depth but bursting with life' Washington Post

'A deviously delicious cake' O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

The extraordinary new gothic novel and work of LGBT literary fiction

About the Author

emily m. danforth is the author of the highly-acclaimed young adult novel The Miseducation of Cameron Post. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of Montana and a PhD in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She lives with her wife and two terrible dogs in Rhode Island. This is her first adult novel.

Reviews

'Brimming from start to finish with sly humour and gothic mischief, Plain Bad Heroines is a brilliant piece of exuberant storytelling by a terrifically talented author' SARAH WATERS

'Full of Victorian sapphic romance, metafictional horror, biting misandrist humor, Hollywood intrigue, and multiple timeliness-all replete with evocative illustrations that are icing on a deviously delicious cake' O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

'A gloriously over-the-top queer romp' I PAPER, top picks for 2021

'Big and messy - and immensely enjoyable' I PAPER

'Spooky, sexy and immensely entertaining' CLAIRE HENNESSY,THE IRISH TIMES

'I can tell you that it is a ride very much worth taking. One full of the Gothic and the glamour, brimming with historically bad heroines and women with warped predilections, but there is one thing I have failed to mention so far: the yellowjackets. Their buzzing echoes eerily throughout the pages of Plain Bad Heroines, the consequences of their repeated stings are devastating and reverberate across the centuries' DIVA MAGAZINE

'Plain Bad Heroines is immersive, addictive, frustrating and highly entertaining featuring a brilliant cast of extremely eccentric, yet very intriguing, characters. A tale made for the big screen I would think!' SWIRL AND THREAD

'Immensely enjoyable' SCOTSMAN

'A labyrinthine tale in every way, slowly unfolding horror after horror with a sense of creeping dread and inevitability invading every page' Palatinate

Book Information
ISBN 9780008346959
Author Emily M. Danforth
Format Paperback
Page Count 640
Imprint The Borough Press
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Weight(grams) 440g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 40mm