Spoilt Creatures: The incendiary debut of 2024 - 'compelling, cultish and utterly feral' Alice Slater

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'A simmering debut, heady with the possibilities of language and the righteousness of female rage'

Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies

'Lush and dreamlike - a sweltering novel, where the sunlight pulses with nightmarish dread'

Colin Walsh, author of Kala

'A modern-day Dionysian cult of women in the woods - haunting and exhilarating'

Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne

'Emma Cline's The Girls meets Lord of the Flies . . . compelling, cultish and utterly feral'

Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

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Iris is adrift: thirty-two, newly single, living at home with her mother and working a dead end job. Her life changes when she meets the mysterious and beguiling Hazel, who lives at a women's commune on a remote farm hidden in the Kent Downs. At the farm, the women can be loud and dirty, live and eat abundantly, under the leadership of the gargantuan Blythe.

Drawn to Hazel and the possibility of a new start away from a world of men who have only let her down, Iris throws herself into this alternative way of life, seizing on new experiences and hidden desires. But even among the women, she witnesses power struggles, cruelty and transgressions that threaten their precarious existence. When a group of men arrive on the farm, the commune's existence is thrown into question, culminating in an act of devastating violence.

Reviews

A simmering debut, heady with the possibilities of language and the righteousness of female rage -- Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of 'The Mercies'
Lush and dreamlike - a sweltering novel, where the sunlight pulses with nightmarish dread -- Colin Walsh, author of 'Kala'
A modern-day Dionysian cult of women in the woods - haunting, exhilarating and full of female rage -- Jennifer Saint, author of 'Ariadne'
Emma Cline's The Girls meets Lord of the Flies, Spoilt Creatures is compelling, cultish and utterly feral. I'm drinking the Amy Twigg Kool-Aid, and it tastes like blood and rotten summer berries. A firecracker of a debut!" -- Alice Slater, author of 'Death of a Bookseller'
A powerful, angry, dark and compelling feminist debut novel. It pulls you in to the visceral world of the women in the commune and it shocks and moves you. Beautifully written -- Georgina Moore, author of 'The Garnett Girls'
An intimate and intense tale of how a safe haven can become a dangerous place, told with much insight and humanity -- Ewan Morrison, author of 'Nina X'
Earthy and visceral, Spoilt Creatures is a depiction of female physicality unlike any I've read before -- Ben Tufnell, author of 'The North Shore'
This is a book that sinks its claws in and doesn't let go. Filled with atmosphere and incredible prose, it's compulsive reading right up until its terrible, inevitable end -- Jennie Godfrey, author of 'The List of Suspicious Things'
A gripping, beautifully imagined reflection on women and anger - I couldn't put it down -- Emily Howes, author of 'The Painter's Daughters'

Author Bio

Amy Twigg was born and raised in Kent. After studying Creative Writing at university, she moved to Surrey where she works as a freelance copywriter. Her debut novel, Spoilt Creatures, won the BPA Pitch Prize and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition and Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award. She is also an alumnus of the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course.