Plain Bad Heroines: A Novel

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A delectable brew of gothic horror and Hollywood satire . . . [and] what makes all this so much fun is Danforth’s deliciously ghoulish voice . . . exquisite." —Ron Charles, THE WASHINGTON POST "A multi-faceted novel, equal parts gothic, sharply funny, sapphic romance, historical, and, of course, spooky.” —ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY Named a Most Anticipated Book by Entertainment Weekly • Washington Post • USA Today • Time • O, The Oprah Magazine • Buzzfeed • Harper's Bazaar • Vulture • Parade • HuffPost • Refinery29 • Popsugar • E! News • Bustle • The Millions • GoodReads • Autostraddle • Lambda Literary • Literary Hub • and more! The award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered around a cursed New England boarding school for girls—a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love, and the rebellious female spirit Our story begins in 1902, at the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, the Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer Merritt Emmons publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period-inspired illustrations, Plain Bad Heroines is a devilishly haunting, modern masterwork of metafiction that manages to combine the ghostly sensibility of Sarah Waters with the dark imagination of Marisha Pessl and the sharp humor and incisive social commentary of Curtis Sittenfeld into one laugh-out-loud funny, spellbinding, and wonderfully luxuriant read. “Full of Victorian sapphic romance, metafictional horror, biting misandrist humor, Hollywood intrigue, and multiple timeliness—all replete with evocative illustrations that are icing on a deviously delicious cake.” –O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

‘Brimming from start to finish with sly humour and gothic mischief’ SARAH WATERS ‘Beguilingly clever, very sexy and seriously frightening’ GUARDIAN ‘Atmospheric, sexy, creepy...totally addictive’ KATE DAVIES, author of In At The Deep End ‘A gloriously over-the-top queer romp’ I PAPER

‘Brimming from start to finish with sly humour and gothic mischief’ SARAH WATERS ‘Beguilingly clever, very sexy and seriously frightening’ GUARDIAN ‘Atmospheric, sexy, creepy...totally addictive’ KATE DAVIES, author of In At The Deep End ‘A gloriously over-the-top queer romp’ I PAPER

Now a major motion picture starring Chloë Grace Moretz *Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner* ---------- 'If Holden Caulfield had been a gay girl from Montana, this is the story he might have told-it's funny, heartbreaking, and beautifully rendered' Curtis Sittenfeld, bestselling author of Prep and American Wife 'An important book - one that can change lives' Jacqueline Woodson, award-winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming ---------- The night Cameron Post's parents died, her first emotion was relief. Relief they would never know that hours earlier, she'd been kissing a girl. Now living with her conservative Aunt in small-town Montana, hiding her sexuality and blending in becomes second nature to Cameron until she begins an intense friendship with the beautiful Coley Taylor. Desperate to 'correct' her niece, Cameron's Aunt takes drastic action. Now Cameron must battle with the cost of being her true-self even if she's not completely sure who that is. The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules. Don't miss this raw and powerful own voices debut, the basis for the award-winning film starring Chloë Grace Moretz. ---------- Praise for The Miseducation of Cameron Post: 'Danforth's narrative of a bruised young woman finding her feet in a complicated world is a tremendous achievement: strikingly unsentimental, and full of characters who feel entirely rounded and real . . . An inspiring read' Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith "Rich with detail and emotion, a sophisticated read for teens and adults alike." Kirkus starred review 'The story is riveting, beautiful, and full of the kind of detail that brings to life a place (rural Montana), a time (the early 1990s), and a questioning teenage girl' Publishers Weekly starred review 'LGBTQ cinema is out in force at Sundance Film Festival.' USA Today

Reproduction of the original: The Story of Mary MacLane by Mary MacLane

Now in paperback, returning to the universe of New York Times Notable book This Alien Shore comes a new space opera from an acknowledged master of science fiction. When deep-space travel altered the genes of the first interstellar colonists, Earth abandoned them. But some of the colonies survived, and a new civilization of mental and physical “Variants” has been established, centered around clusters of space stations known as the outworlds. Now the unthinkable has happened: a suicide assault has destroyed the life support system of a major waystation. All that is known about the young men responsible is that in their last living moments they were receiving messages from an uninhabited sector of space, and were playing a virtual reality game. Two unlikely allies have joined forces to investigate the incident: Ru Gaya, a mercenary explorer with a taste for high risk ventures, and game designer Micah Bello, who must find the parties responsible for the attack in order to clear his name. From the corridors of a derelict station lost to madness to an outlaw stronghold in the depths of uncharted space, the two now follow the trail of an enemy who can twist human minds to his purpose, and whose plans could bring about the collapse of outworld civilization.

"A fresh, funny, audacious debut novel about a Bridget Jones-like twenty-something who discovers that she may have simply been looking for love -- and, ahem, pleasure -- in all the wrong places (aka: from men)"--

The city of Seattle is stunned when a deadly bacteria tears through a nearby Bible camp - and the camp's residents are among its most vulnerable victims: children and teenagers. Further testing reveals that the strain of the bacteria is one that caused catastrophic losses in Iceland six months before. An experimental vaccine is deployed to battle a lethal outbreak - until patients start dying of unknown causes. Residence: Vancouver, B.C. Print run 20,000.

It’s taboo to regret motherhood. But what would happen if you did? Shifting perspectives and time periods, The Spectacular is a multi-generational story exploring sexuality, gender and the weight of reproductive freedoms, from the author of The Best Kind of People. It’s 1997 and Missy’s band has finally hit the big time as they tour across America. At twenty-two years old, Missy gets on stage every night and plays the song about her absent mother that made the band famous. Missy is the only girl in the band and she’s determined to party just as hard as everyone else, loving and leaving someone in every town. But then a forgotten party favour strands her at the border. Forty-something Carola is just surfacing from a sex scandal at the yoga centre where she has been living, when she sees her daughter, Missy, for the first time in ten years—on the cover of a music magazine. Ruth is eighty-three and planning her return to the Turkish seaside village where she spent her childhood. But when her granddaughter Missy winds up crashing at her house, she decides it’s time that the strong and stubborn women in her family find a way to understand each other again. In her new book, by turns sharp and provocative, Zoe Whittall captures three generations of very different women who struggle to build an authentic life in the absence of traditional familial and marital structures. Definitions of family, romance, gender and love will radically change as they seek out lives that are nothing less than spectacular.

"Exciting, heartbreaking, and far from ordinary." --Kirkus Emily Henry is "one of YA's preeminent voices....an exquisite, genre-bending novel. --Booklist The Serpent King meets Stranger Things in Emily Henry's gripping novel about a group of friends in a small town who find themselves dealing with unexpected powers after a cosmic event. Almost everyone in the small town of Splendor, Ohio, was affected when the local steel mill exploded. If you weren't a casualty of the accident yourself, chances are a loved one was. That's the case for seventeen-year-old Franny, who, five years after the explosion, still has to stand by and do nothing as her brother lies in a coma. In the wake of the tragedy, Franny found solace in a group of friends whose experiences mirrored her own. The group calls themselves The Ordinary, and they spend their free time investigating local ghost stories and legends, filming their exploits for their small following of YouTube fans. It's silly, it's fun, and it keeps them from dwelling on the sadness that surrounds them. Until one evening, when the strange and dangerous thing they film isn't fiction--it's a bright light, something massive hurtling toward them from the sky. And when it crashes and the teens go to investigate...everything changes.

The extraordinary bestselling novel from the acclaimed writer whose previous book, Martin John, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, and whose debut, Malarky, won the Amazon First Novel Award. "My name is Bina and I'm a very busy woman. That's Bye-na, not Beena. I don't know who Beena is, but I expect she's having a happy life. I don't know who you are, or the state of your life. But if you've come all this way here to listen to me, your life will undoubtedly get worse. I'm here to warn you ..." So begins this "novel in warnings"--an unforgettable tour de force in the voice of an ordinary-extraordinary woman who has simply had enough. Through the character of Bina, who is writing out her story on the backs of discarded envelopes, Anakana Schofield filters a complex moral universe filled with humour and sadness, love and rage, and the consolations, obligations and mysteries of lifelong friendship. A work of great power, skill, and transformative empathy from a unique and astonishing writer. "Anakana Schofield's Bina is a fiction of the rarest and darkest kind, a work whose pleasures must be taken measure for measure with its pains. Few writers operate the scales of justice with more precision, and Schofield is no less exacting in what she chooses to weigh. The novel's themes--male violence, the nature of moral courage, the contemporary problems of truth and individuality, the status of the female voice--could hardly be more timely or germane. Schofield's sense of injustice is unblinking and without illusion, yet her writing is so vivacious, so full of interest and lust for life: she is the most compassionate of storytellers, wearing the guise of the blackest comedian." --Rachel Cusk, Giller Prize-shortlisted author of Outline and Transit "Intimate, disarming, and riotous, Bina is a searing exploration of one woman's soul that unwinds like a reluctant confession. Whether Bina is rescuing a ne'er-do-well from a ditch, taking a hammer to a plane or considering the dark request of her best friend, Schofield has created a compelling, practical everywoman--someone who has had enough and is ready to make a spectacle." --Eden Robinson, Giller Prize-shortlisted author of Son of a Trickster and Monkey Beach "Insightful. Inventive. Hilarious. Genius." --Eimear McBride, author of A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, winner of the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction, and The Lesser Bohemians, winner of the James Tait Memorial Prize

A popular talk show is retro-scripted through the medium of food. The administration intervenes to manipulate human bonding. A Jenny Craig commercial is honored in silent ballet. Death proposes. The Ultimate Laugh collects eight of Sara Lautman's best stories from 2015 in autobiography, illustrated essays, and tall tales.

A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK! • An empowering, behind-the-scenes novel of a young Hollywood actress and the dark secret she’s ready to confront. One of Summer 2020’s Most Anticipated Novels Marie Claire, Entertainment Weekly, Oprah magazine, Bustle, E! Online, Popsugar, Goodreads, Today Show online, New York Post, Betches, Better Homes & Gardens, HelloGiggles, Bad on Paper podcast, The Stripe, Shondaland, HuffPost, CNN.com, Mashable “Beautifully written and compulsively readable…At its core, this book is about redemption, grace, and pain.” —Jenna Bush Hager “A novel so full-blooded, so humane, that the pages feel almost warm to the touch. A clarifying, purifying chronicle of a promising young woman gone astray and the story of her comeback. Grace Turner can do it. You can do it, too.” —A.J. Finn Grace Turner was one movie away from Hollywood’s A-List. So no one understood why, at the height of her career and on the eve of her first Golden Globe nomination, she disappeared. Now, one year later, Grace is back in Los Angeles and ready to reclaim her life on her own terms. When Grace is asked to present a lifetime achievement award to director Able Yorke—the man who controlled her every move for eight years—she knows there’s only one way she’ll be free of the secret that’s already taken so much from her. The Comeback is a moving and provocative story of justice—a true page-turner about a young woman finding the strength and power of her voice.

* INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * "This novel delivers sweet, smart escapism." —People "Fans of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society will adore The Jane Austen Society... A charming and memorable debut, which reminds us of the universal language of literature and the power of books to unite and heal." —Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Girls of Paris Just after the Second World War, in the small English village of Chawton, an unusual but like-minded group of people band together to attempt something remarkable. One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists. Now it's home to a few distant relatives and their diminishing estate. With the last bit of Austen's legacy threatened, a group of disparate individuals come together to preserve both Jane Austen's home and her legacy. These people—a laborer, a young widow, the local doctor, and a movie star, among others—could not be more different and yet they are united in their love for the works and words of Austen. As each of them endures their own quiet struggle with loss and trauma, some from the recent war, others from more distant tragedies, they rally together to create the Jane Austen Society. A powerful and moving novel that explores the tragedies and triumphs of life, both large and small, and the universal humanity in us all, Natalie Jenner's The Jane Austen Society is destined to resonate with readers for years to come.

The critically acclaimed, bestselling novel from Gayle Forman, author of Where She Went, Just One Day, and Just One Year. Soon to be a major motion picture, starring Chloe Moretz! In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen ­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, this will change the way you look at life, love, and family. Now a major motion picture starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time.

One of Betches' 7 Books by Black Authors You Need to Read This Summer One of Elite Daily’s Books Featuring Interracial Relationships You Should Read In 2020 One of Marie Claire’s 2020 Books You Should Add to Your Reading List When a Nigerian woman falls for a man she knows will break her mother’s heart, she must choose between love and her family. At twelve years old, Azere promised her dying father she would marry a Nigerian man and preserve her culture, even after immigrating to Canada. Her mother has been vigilant about helping—well forcing—her to stay within the Nigerian dating pool ever since. But when another match-made-by-mom goes wrong, Azere ends up at a bar, enjoying the company and later sharing the bed of Rafael Castellano, a man who is tall, handsome, and…white. When their one-night stand unexpectedly evolves into something serious, Azere is caught between her feelings for Rafael and the compulsive need to please her mother. Soon, Azere can't help wondering if loving Rafael makes her any less of a Nigerian. Can she be with him without compromising her identity? The answer will either cause Azere to be audacious and fight for her happiness or continue as the compliant daughter.

A broken family, a house of secrets—an entrancing tale of love and courage set during the Second World War. After Rebecca’s mother dies, she must sort through her empty flat and come to terms with her loss. As she goes through her mother’s mail, she finds a handwritten envelope. In it is a letter that will change her life forever. Olivia, her mother’s elderly cousin, needs help to save her beloved home. Rebecca immediately goes to visit Olivia in Cornwall only to find a house full of secrets—treasures in the attic and a mysterious tunnel leading from the cellar to the sea, and Olivia, nowhere to be found. As it turns out, the old woman is stuck in hospital with no hope of being discharged until her house is made habitable again. Rebecca sets to work restoring the home to its former glory, but as she peels back the layers of paint and grime, she uncovers even more buried secrets—secrets from a time when the Second World War was raging, when Olivia was a young woman, and when both romance and danger lurked around every corner... A sweeping and utterly spellbinding tale of a young woman’s courage in the face of war and the lengths to which she’ll go to protect those she loves against the most unexpected of enemies.

From the author of the "unputdownable" international hit The One Memory of Flora Banks comes a fast-paced cross-continental journey of identity, family, darkness and light, and the ways in which we define ourselves. Ella Black has always had dark inclinations. She's successfully hidden her evil alter ego from her family and friends, but Bella is always there, ready to take control and force Ella to do bad things. When Ella's parents drag her out of school one afternoon and fly across the globe to Rio de Janeiro with no believable explanation, Bella longs to break free--and so does Ella. Because for all that her parents claim to be doing what's best for her, Ella knows there is something going on that they're not divulging, and she is through with being treated like a child. Once in Rio, when Ella learns the truth--that the couple she's always called Mom and Dad are actually her adoptive parents--she runs off through the streets and waterways of Brazil in search of her true self. But the truth has many layers, and as Ella uncovers more and more about her own history, she struggles to come to terms with just where it is that she came from. Perfect for fans of Ellen Hopkins and Kathleen Glasgow, The Truth and Lies of Ella Black will have readers on the edge of their seat until the shocking, satisfying end.

Thelma and Louise gets remade in this powerful, darkly funny teen novel from acclaimed authors Brittany Cavallaro and Emily Henry. Two teenage girls who have had enough of the controlling men in their lives take their rage on the road to make a new life for themselves. Winona has been starving for life in the seemingly perfect home that she shares with her seemingly perfect father, celebrity weatherman Stormy Olsen. No one knows that he locks the pantry door to control her eating and leaves bruises where no one can see them. Lucille has been suffocating beneath the needs of her mother and her drug-dealing brother, wondering if there’s more out there for her than disappearing waitress tips and a lifetime of barely getting by. One harrowing night, Winona and Lucille realize they can’t wait until graduation to start their new lives. They need out. Now. One hour later, they’re armed with a plan that will take them from their small Michigan town to Chicago. All they need is three grand, fast. And really, a stolen convertible can’t hurt. Chased by the oppression, toxicity, and powerlessness that has held them down, Winona and Lucille must reclaim their strength if they are going to make their daring escape—and get away with it.

One of the most exceptional voices in literary fiction today, Curtis Sittenfeld is renowned for her rich prose, irresistible storytelling, and fascinating characters who struggle with the rules of gender, race, and privilege. Now, in this convenient eBook bundle, here are her blockbuster bestselling and critically acclaimed novels, Prep and American Wife. PREP Named One of the Top Ten Books of the Year by The New York Times Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when she leaves her family behind in Indiana to attend the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. Over the next four years, her experiences at Ault—complicated relationships with teachers, intense friendships with other girls, an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush—coalesce into a singular portrait of the universal pains and thrills of adolescence. AMERICAN WIFE Named One of the Top Ten Books of the Year by Time, People, and Entertainment Weekly A bookish only child born in the 1940s and raised in a small Wisconsin town, Alice Lindgren has no idea that she will one day end up in the White House, married to the president. So when the charismatic son of a powerful Republican family sweeps her off her feet, she is surprised to find herself admitted into a world of privilege. As he unexpectedly becomes governor and then president, she discovers that she is married to a man she fundamentally disagrees with yet deeply loves. And upon the advent of her husband’s second term, Alice must finally face questions nearly impossible to answer. Praise for Curtis Sittenfeld “One of the most tender and accurate portraits of adolescence in recent memory.”—San Francisco Chronicle, on Prep “A tart and complex tale of social class, race, and gender politics.”—The Boston Globe, on Prep “[Sittenfeld’s] dialogue captures teenage humor brilliantly, and her characters show remarkable depth.”—Chicago Tribune, on Prep “An intelligent, bighearted novel about a controversial political dynasty.”—Entertainment Weekly, on American Wife “Smart and sophisticated . . . Sittenfeld has an astonishing gift for creating characters that take up residence in readers’ heads.”—The Washington Post, on American Wife “An intimate and daring story . . . Alice is a woman of considerable intellect, compassion and character.” —USA Today, on American Wife

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 TRILLIUM AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE 2021 EVERGREEN AWARD • AN INDIGO BEST BOOK OF 2020 • A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST INDEPENDENT READ FOR FALL 2020 • AN APPLE BOOKS BEST BOOK OF 2020 • A CBC BOOKS BEST CANADIAN FICTION BOOK OF 2020 • A NOW MAGAZINE TOP TEN BOOK OF 2020 "Be prepared for this novel to stay with you for a long time, especially its ending."—GLOBE AND MAIL "[An] extraordinary book... packed with discovery and jarring emotional arcs."—TORONTO STAR "Penetrating and subtle ... [An] immersive, absorbing portrait."—EDEN ROBINSON "Explores with courage and storytelling finesse the harsh truths within the ideals of kinship and community." —DAVID CHARIANDY "An urgent and passionate read." —VIVEK SHRAYA "Visceral and emotional... a courageous feat."—QUILL & QUIRE (starred review) A brave, soulfully written feminist novel about inheritance and resistance that tests the balance between kinship and the fight against customs that harm us. When Sharifa accompanies her husband on a marriage-saving trip to India in 2016, she thinks that she’s going to research her great-great-grandfather, a wealthy business leader and philanthropist. What captures her imagination is not his rags-to-riches story, but the mystery of his four wives, missing from the family lore. She ends up excavating much more than she had imagined. Sharifa’s trip coincides with a time of unrest within her insular and conservative religious community, and there is no escaping its politics. A group of feminists is speaking out against khatna, an age-old ritual they insist is female genital cutting. Sharifa’s two favourite cousins are on opposite sides of the debate and she seeks a middle ground. As the issue heats up, Sharifa discovers an unexpected truth and is forced to take a position.