Overview

A thrilling gothic debut • The untimely death of a student at a girls’ boarding school marks the first in a haunting series of escalating supernatural events, and uncovers buried truths of teenage repression, queer desire, and the everyday horror of coming of age. ""A truly impeccable novel.” —Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea ""This book destroyed me.” —Tamsyn Muir, author of Gideon the Ninth In 1928, Emily Locke's final year at the isolated Briarley School for Girls is derailed when Violet, the school's brightest star (and a cunning beauty for whom Emily would do anything), falls to her death on her eighteenth birthday. Emily and her buttoned-up rival Evelyn are, for once, in agreement: Violet’s death was no accident. There's an obvious culprit, the French schoolmistress with whom Violet was getting a little too close—they only need to prove it. Desperate for answers, Emily and her classmates turn to spiritualism, hoping for a glimpse of wisdom from the great beyond. To their shock, Violet’s spirit appears, choosing pious Evelyn as her unlikely medium. And Violet has a warning for them: the danger has just begun. Something deadly is infecting Briarley. It starts with rotten food and curdled milk, but quickly grows more threatening. As the body count rises and the students race to save themselves, Emily must confront the fatal forces poisoning the school. Emily's fight for survival forces her to reevaluate everything she knows: about Violet, Evelyn, Briarley, and, ultimately, herself. Avery Curran channels the indelible ambience and intrigue of the classic boarding school novel while turning the beloved genre on its head in this visceral, exuberant debut.

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9780385551595

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Reviews

“Spoiled Milk is a dirty little jewel of a novel, as thrilling as it is unsettling, as moving as it is frequently horrifying. Curran writes with incredible precision on fear, desire and the insidiousness of authority and empire. A truly impeccable novel.” —Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea “Spoiled Milk is a post-war fable about the death of Empire and a lesbian phantasmagoria, but it's also one of the most well-executed pieces of horror writing I've ever read. It is a terrifically nasty, loving, heretical, filthy look at the boarding school story; Avery Curran puts the entire genre in its grave and then invites the reader to view its exhumed corpse. This book destroyed me.” —Tamsyn Muir, Locus Award-winning author of Gideon the Ninth “Seances, ectoplasm, soft and furious kisses, a love triangle with a ghost, all of it hurtling towards a hauntingly beautiful finale. Spoiled Milk is the book of my dreams and my nightmares.” —Maggie Thrash, Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and author of Honor Girl “The haunted lesbian boarding school horror show we always wanted. From its dread-inducing opening to that breathtaking finale, Spoiled Milk is brimming with images that we’ll carry into way too many nightmares. Avery Curran is a witch.” —Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, authors of Feast While You Can “Dread crawls steadily and inexorably throughout the pages of this thrillingly creepy novel, culminating in an ending that is thoroughly unsettling and – as in the best Gothic fiction – inevitable. Trust is an illusion, and safety is only ever fleeting. No one is safe, not even the reader."" —Suzette Mayr, author of the Giller prize-winning novel, The Sleeping Car Porter “Spoiled Milk asks what would happen if the acolytes of Muriel Spark's Brodie set were left to fend for themselves in a Shirley Jackson novel--and the answer is this deliciously dark gothic debut from Avery Curran. I adored Curran's twisted take on the campus novel."" —Lindsay Lynch, bestselling author of Do Tell “Something wicked oozes through Briarley School for girls. Has the slave trade, spiritualism or sapphic desire unleashed it? Whichever way it’s slick and rotten fun. Get ready for your new literary crush.” —Clare Pollard, author of Delphi ""Bristling with tension, Spoiled Milk is Enid Blyton on acid; a gothic, sinister and darkly funny read. I raced through the blood-chilling finale.” —Flora Carr, author of The Tower “Queerness weaves through the novel like an inversion of the rot spreading through the school. . . The use of foreshadowing effectively builds tension and dread . . . the novel’s true strength is exploring the complex relationships among the girls—both living and dead—and the unknowns of the world. A queer, eerie debut.” —Kirkus “Brilliantly bitchy, but also haunting and tender, Spoiled Milk perfectly captures the youthful longing for something that feels just out of reach. It’s gothic, gruesome and sassy: the unholy lovechild of Beetlejuice and Picnic at Hanging Rock. I will miss these girls!” —Tobi Coventry, author of He's the Devil “Step into the halls of Briarley, where nothing is to be trusted and the only thing more frightening than death is having to live long enough to grow up. Both darkly funny and genuinely harrowing, Spoiled Milk is the boarding school novel my spooky heart has been waiting for. Avery Curran has written an absolute knockout.” —Allison Epstein, author of Fagin the Thief “Pure class with a delicious touch of high kitsch, Spoiled Milk is gory, tender, sexy, wry, and just so exquisitely written. It says as much about first love as it does masticated limbs, about Empire as it does ectoplasm—read it and be enthralled.” —Krystelle Bamford, author of Idle Grounds “I loved this—lesbian Malory Towers meets The Conjuring.” —Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller “A sapphic hothouse of heady spiritualism and bitter, shifting loyalties . . . a slow-burn horror story in the vein of Daphne Du Maurier, deepening the dread as the girls careen toward a bloodcurdling cry of a climax.” —Margaret DeRosia, author of Eight Strings ""What a vicious, elegant, deliriously unpleasant book - as if Stephen King's IT was a lesbian boarding-school story set in the beginning of the dying days of empire. I was thrilled."" --Arkady Martine, Hugo Award-winning author of A Memory Called Empire ""A nauseatingly good work of lesbian horror where nobody comes out unscathed, reader included. What rot!!"" --Grace Curtis, author of Floating Hotel "" Avery Curran's spellbinding Gothic debut is sinister and playful in equal measure, and builds to a roaring crescendo of repressed rage and queer desire. The coming-of-age novel I wish I'd had."" --Ally Wilkes, author of Where the Dead Wait

""Spoiled Milk is a dirty little jewel of a novel, as thrilling as it is unsettling, as moving as it is frequently horrifying. Curran writes with incredible precision on fear, desire and the insidiousness of authority and empire. A truly impeccable novel."" --Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea “The haunted lesbian boarding school horrorshow we always wanted. From its dread-inducing opening to that breathtaking finale, Spoiled Milk is brimming with images that we’ll carry into way too many nightmares. Avery Curran is a witch.” --Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, authors of Feast While You Can

“Spoiled Milk is a dirty little jewel of a novel, as thrilling as it is unsettling, as moving as it is frequently horrifying. Curran writes with incredible precision on fear, desire and the insidiousness of authority and empire. A truly impeccable novel.” —Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea “Spoiled Milk is a post-war fable about the death of Empire and a lesbian phantasmagoria, but it's also one of the most well-executed pieces of horror writing I've ever read. It is a terrifically nasty, loving, heretical, filthy look at the boarding school story; Avery Curran puts the entire genre in its grave and then invites the reader to view its exhumed corpse. This book destroyed me.” —Tamsyn Muir, Locus Award-winning author of Gideon the Ninth “The haunted lesbian boarding school horror show we always wanted. From its dread-inducing opening to that breathtaking finale, Spoiled Milk is brimming with images that we’ll carry into way too many nightmares. Avery Curran is a witch.” —Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, authors of Feast While You Can “Something wicked oozes through Briarley School for girls. Has the slave trade, spiritualism or sapphic desire unleashed it? Whichever way it’s slick and rotten fun. Get ready for your new literary crush.” —Clare Pollard, author of Delphi “Bristling with tension, Spoiled Milk is Enid Blyton on acid; a gothic, sinister and darkly funny read. I raced through the blood-chilling finale.” —Flora Carr, author of The Tower “Brilliantly bitchy, but also haunting and tender, Spoiled Milk perfectly captures the youthful longing for something that feels just out of reach. It’s gothic, gruesome and sassy: the unholy lovechild of Beetlejuice and Picnic at Hanging Rock. I will miss these girls!” —Tobi Coventry, author of the forthcoming novel He's the Devil

Author Information

AVERY CURRAN studied history at university, where she first became interested in spiritualism. She finished an M.A. in Victorian studies in 2021, and is now midway through a Ph.D. on spiritualism and queerness in the nineteenth century. She was born in New York City and currently lives in London with her girlfriend and their cat.

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