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

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An Observer top ten best new novelist for 2024

'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

'This lusciously verdant novel is rich in grit and dirt, in sensuality and oblivion'

Lara Williams, author of Supper Club

'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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They thought they knew everything about us. The kind of women we were.

It was a place for women. A remote farm tucked away in the Kent Downs. A safe space.

When Iris - newly single and living at home with her mother - meets the mysterious and beguiling Hazel, who lives in a women's commune, she finds herself drawn into the possibility of a new start away from the world of men who have only let her down. Here, at Breach House, the women can be loud and dirty, live and eat abundantly, all while under the leadership of their gargantuan matriarch, Blythe.

But even among the women, there are power struggles, cruelty and transgressions that threaten their precarious way of life. When a group of men arrives on the farm, the commune's existence is thrown into question, hurtling Iris and the other women towards an act of devastating violence.

Fierce and unapologetic, Spoilt Creatures is an intoxicating debut about transgression, sisterhood and the seductive nature of obsession. It pulls back the skin of patriarchal violence and examines the female rage that lurks beneath.

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'
This lusciously verdant novel is about female identity and obsession, desire and autonomy. It asks important questions about what we owe, and to who. It is rich in grit and dirt, in sensuality and oblivion, working towards a complicated and devastating end -- Lara Williams, author of Supper Club
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.