Plain Bad Heroines

by Emily M. Danforth

Danforth opens with wasps and a cursed orchard, and the rot never lets up. Plain Bad Heroines braids two timelines — a doomed 1900s New England girls' school and a contemporary horror film production — around a shared obsession with a real historical text about women who refused to behave. The novel is genuinely funny, genuinely creepy, and structurally ambitious in ways that mostly pay off. The footnoted narrator is a masterstroke, adding archival texture without slowing the dread. Where it strains is length — this is a book that loves itself, occasionally too much. But the queer gothic atmosphere is immaculately rendered, and Danforth's prose earns its indulgence. Best suited to those who want their horror literary, their heroines difficult, and their endings unresolved.