Overview

'A dirty little jewel of a novel' Julia Armfield 'Malory Towers meets The Conjuring' Alice Slater 'Gory, tender, sexy' Krystelle Bamford 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 just 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 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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9781529443585

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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 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 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 pash. -- Clare Polland 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 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

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 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 Loved this - lesbian Malory Towers meets The Conjuring -- Alice Slater 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 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 pash. -- Clare Pollard 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 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 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 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 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 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 Is there a more atmospheric gothic setting than the cloistered halls of an English girls' boarding school on a rotting country estate? Spoiled Milk's Briarley harbours a sapphic hothouse of heady spiritualism and bitter, shifting loyalties as its girls grapple with the shocking death of their charismatic classmate Violet. Curran's chilling prose offers 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 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 Spoiled Milk is like the most delicious kind of treat: midnight, clandestine, and best eaten with your hands. When the favourite girl at Briarley falls to her untimely death, an inexorable chain of events is set in motion. 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 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 Malory Towers meets The Craft in this deliciously claustrophobic Gothic horror . . . [a] biting tale of queer desire, teenage friendship and putrid Englishness. * The Bookseller * lush and haunting . . . Briarley contains echoes of classic literary gothic manors like Thornfield Hall and Hill House . . . Curran delivers a chilling tale of repressed passion, queer awakening, and the corrosive power of silence. It's an impressive start. * Publishers Weekly * Sharp and teeming with intrigue, Spoiled Milk explores the tribulations of schoolgirls and spiritualism with equal care and attention. The kind of book you can imagine reading late into the night with a flashlight and pushing earnestly into someone's hand the next day - you won't want to put it down. -- Sarvat Hasin The classic boarding-school setting is the basis for delicious, perfectly executed horror in this moving gothic debut. Rich with tension, Spoiled Milk explores queer repression, dread and desire. The narrative is simultaneously sharp and romantic, with a suspenseful plot that will have you staying up all night to finish. Best read with a torch under the covers. * GQ * A haunting book about 20th-century England and an instant queer classic. * Dazed *

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 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 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 pash. -- Clare Polland 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

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 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

Author Information

AVERY CURRAN studied History at university, where she first became interested in spiritualism. She finished an MA in Victorian Studies in 2021, and is now finishing a PhD 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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