Spoiled Milk: A Novel - Avery Curran

The untimely death of a student at a girls’ boarding school sparks a haunting series of escalating supernatural events.

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 and quickly grows more threatening. As the body count rises, Emily confronts the fatal forces poisoning the school, but if she is to survive, she must reevaluate everything she knows about Violet, Evelyn, Briarley and, ultimately, herself.

A thrilling debut novel about teenage repression, queer desire and the everyday horror of coming of age.

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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 midway through 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.