Plain Bad Heroines

‘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




Genre: Literary Fiction

"Plain Bad Heroines wears its brilliance lightly and like the Black Oxford apples described in these pages, it's dark, sweet, and addictive. Emily Danforth displays all the gothic wit of Edward Gorey and all the soaring metafictional ambitions of David Mitchell, alongside a generosity and humanity that is uniquely her own. Simply one of the best books I've read in the last decade." - Joe Hill

"Emily Danforth's ingenious, jaw-dropping novel is a time-hopping epic about the history of a cursed New England girls' school, doomed lovers, and an equally cursed modern-day retelling via film, plus yellow jackets. Hell, those yellow jackets! The expertly rendered characters are as heartbreaking as they are written with an integrity of vision that saturates every page. Plain Bad Heroines is a queer roar and it's terrifying and it's a goddamned triumph." - Paul Tremblay

"Brimming from start to finish with sly humor and gothic mischief, Plain Bad Heroines is a brilliant piece of exuberant storytelling by a terrifically talented author." - Sarah Waters