It's Surrey International Writers' Conference week again, and life around here is a little crazier than usual. I've set up a Zoom station in the livingroom, I've pulled out all my colourful tights, and printed off all my notes. Clinging to the hope I'll get to see all my friends again in person next year, I'm still so happy to reconnect with everyone on screen!
But I don't want the month of October to whiz by without telling you of my favourite recent read: PLAIN BAD HEROINES, by emily m. danforth. [High five to another lower-case-loving writer!]
This book grabbed me by the ears [I listened in audio] and wouldn't let go.
It's a delightfully creepy, queer doorstop of a novel [think Stephen King-sized horror] that takes the form of a dual-timeline story, teeming with black humour. The tale is by turns set at a wasp-riddled, (and also WASP-riddled) girls' school in turn of the 20th C New England and deep in the contemporary, social-media driven B-movie -- bee-movie? --world of Hollywood.
It's a skilled writer that can hold a reader's attention for a book this size, and Emily M. Danforth manages to do just that. I was riveted all the way through. A perfect read for this time of year, too. Curl up to read it with a steaming cup of tea, but make sure your window screens are all tightly closed!
More on all the crazy that is SiWCatHome soon...
~kc