Spoiled Milk

A thrilling gothic debut. The untimely death of a student at a girls’ boarding school marks the first in a haunting series of escalating supernatural events, and uncovers buried truths of teenage repression, queer desire, and the everyday horror of coming of age.

"A truly impeccable novel.” —Julia Armfield

"This book destroyed me.” —Tamsyn Muir

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, but quickly grows more threatening. As the body count rises and the students race to save themselves, Emily must confront the fatal forces poisoning the school. Emily's fight for survival forces her to reevaluate everything she knows: about Violet, Evelyn, Briarley, and, ultimately, herself. Avery Curran channels the indelible ambience and intrigue of the classic boarding school novel while turning the beloved genre on its head in this visceral, exuberant debut.“Spoiled Milk is a dirty little jewel of a novel, as thrilling as it is unsettling, as moving as it is frequently horrifying. Curran writes with incredible precision on fear, desire and the insidiousness of authority and empire. A truly impeccable novel.” —Julia Armfield, author of Our Wives Under the Sea

“Spoiled Milk is a post-war fable about the death of Empire and a lesbian phantasmagoria, but it's also one of the most well-executed pieces of horror writing I've ever read. It is a terrifically nasty, loving, heretical, filthy look at the boarding school story; Avery Curran puts the entire genre in its grave and then invites the reader to view its exhumed corpse. This book destroyed me.” —Tamsyn Muir, Locus Award-winning author of Gideon the Ninth

“Seances, ectoplasm, soft and furious kisses, a love triangle with a ghost, all of it hurtling towards a hauntingly beautiful finale. Spoiled Milk is the book of my dreams and my nightmares.” —Maggie Thrash, Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist and author of Honor Girl

“Lush and haunting . . . a chilling tale of repressed passion, queer awakening, and the corrosive power of silence. It’s an impressive start." --Publishers Weekly

“The haunted lesbian boarding school horror show we always wanted. From its dread-inducing opening to that breathtaking finale, Spoiled Milk is brimming with images that we’ll carry into way too many nightmares. Avery Curran is a witch.” —Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, authors of Feast While You Can

“Dread crawls steadily and inexorably throughout the pages of this thrillingly creepy novel, culminating in an ending that is thoroughly unsettling and – as in the best Gothic fiction – inevitable. Trust is an illusion, and safety is only ever fleeting. No one is safe, not even the reader." —Suzette Mayr, author of the Giller prize-winning novel, The Sleeping Car Porter

“Spoiled Milk asks what would happen if the acolytes of Muriel Spark's Brodie set were left to fend for themselves in a Shirley Jackson novel--and the answer is this deliciously dark gothic debut from Avery Curran. I adored Curran's twisted take on the campus novel." —Lindsay Lynch, bestselling author of Do Tell

“Something wicked oozes through Briarley School for girls. Has the slave trade, spiritualism or sapphic desire unleashed it? Whichever way it’s slick and rotten fun. Get ready for your new literary crush.” —Clare Pollard, author of Delphi

"Bristling with tension, Spoiled Milk is Enid Blyton on acid; a gothic, sinister and darkly funny read. I raced through the blood-chilling finale.” —Flora Carr, author of The Tower

“Queerness weaves through the novel like an inversion of the rot spreading through the school. . . The use of foreshadowing effectively builds tension and dread . . . the novel’s true strength is exploring the complex relationships among the girls—both living and dead—and the unknowns of the world. A queer, eerie debut.” —Kirkus

“Brilliantly bitchy, but also haunting and tender, Spoiled Milk perfectly captures the youthful longing for something that feels just out of reach. It’s gothic, gruesome and sassy: the unholy lovechild of Beetlejuice and Picnic at Hanging Rock. I will miss these girls!” —Tobi Coventry, author of He's the Devil

“Step into the halls of Briarley, where nothing is to be trusted and the only thing more frightening than death is having to live long enough to grow up. Both darkly funny and genuinely harrowing, Spoiled Milk is the boarding school novel my spooky heart has been waiting for. Avery Curran has written an absolute knockout.” —Allison Epstein, author of Fagin the Thief

“Pure class with a delicious touch of high kitsch, Spoiled Milk is gory, tender, sexy, wry, and just so exquisitely written. It says as much about first love as it does masticated limbs, about Empire as it does ectoplasm—read it and be enthralled.” —Krystelle Bamford, author of Idle Grounds

“I loved this—lesbian Malory Towers meets The Conjuring.” —Alice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller

“A sapphic hothouse of heady spiritualism and bitter, shifting loyalties . . . a slow-burn horror story in the vein of Daphne Du Maurier, deepening the dread as the girls careen toward a bloodcurdling cry of a climax.” —Margaret DeRosia, author of Eight Strings

"What a vicious, elegant, deliriously unpleasant book - as if Stephen King's IT was a lesbian boarding-school story set in the beginning of the dying days of empire. I was thrilled." --Arkady Martine, Hugo Award-winning author of A Memory Called Empire

"A nauseatingly good work of lesbian horror where nobody comes out unscathed, reader included. What rot!!" --Grace Curtis, author of Floating Hotel

"Sharp and teeming with intrigue, Spoiled Milk explores the tribulations of schoolgirls and spiritualism with equal care and attention. The kind of book you can imagine reading late into the night with a flashlight and pushing earnestly into someone's hand the next day -- you won't want to put it down." --Sarvat Hasin, author of Strange Girls

"Avery Curran's spellbinding Gothic debut is sinister and playful in equal measure, and builds to a roaring crescendo of repressed rage and queer desire. The coming-of-age novel I wish I'd had." --Ally Wilkes, author of Where the Dead WaitAVERY CURRAN studied history at university, where she first became interested in spiritualism. She finished an M.A. in Victorian studies in 2021, and is now midway through a Ph.D. 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.ONE

The Beginning of the End

1928

The night Violet died, we had just finished celebrating her eighteenth birthday. Being the darling of the lower years, upper years, and schoolmistresses alike (and rich on top of that), Violet had been given countless presents. She held court after dinner in the younger girls’ playroom while she opened them. It was the sort of little kindness she liked to extend when it suited her; our common room was off-­limits to everyone but the upper sixth.

One of the lower fourths gave her a posy of evening primroses and the last of the harebells, picked during afternoon break and tied with a ribbon. Violet gasped with delight and leaned forwards to drop the girl a swift kiss on her rosy cheek. Then it was our turn.

Three weeks before, when everyone had arrived for the new school year at the beginning of September, I’d persuaded the other upper-­sixth girls to pool our allowances, meagre as some of them were, to buy Violet a pair of real kid gloves with pearl buttons at the wrist. That ghastly prig Evelyn Hart had gone to the village on Saturday to pick them up, and she’d come back full of stories about how the shopkeeper had allowed her to touch them before he wrapped the gloves in parcel paper, and how they were softer and more delicate than anything she had ever seen, and how it was a shame none of us with our grubby paws would be allowed anywhere near the cream-­coloured leather so as not to stain them before they reached Violet’s perfect hands. I loathed Evelyn more than I could express.

As Violet opened her present, we held our breath, waiting for her approval. She seemed to like them; at least I think she did. I never got the chance to ask her about it in private. I like to think she would have told me the truth. Either way, she thanked us all and slipped the gloves on, exclaiming at how well they fit and promising to wear them at chapel the next week, a bending of the rules that I felt dead certain she would be allowed. I gave myself a moment—just a moment—to think about how her gloved hands would look holding the hymnal, or clasped together during prayers. Naturally we were supposed to keep our eyes shut during that part, but I thought I might be forgiven a peek. If you were in Violet’s orbit, the rules could bend around you, too.

After Violet had made her fuss over the gloves, she turned delightedly around to the pile of packages from her parents, which had arrived in that morning’s post. She always opened gifts with such enthusiasm that it almost felt like getting something yourself. As her white fingers tore apart the lovely printed paper, I hoped that later she might give me one of the silk ribbons that tied the parcels together, pressing it into my hand before bed like a mediaeval lady giving a knight a favour to tuck into his armour. She inspired that sort of devotion, you know: the chivalric, courtly kind, where, if you never got anything else, it would almost have been enough just to wear her ribbon.

Violet’s parents had gone all out. First, there was a matching silver-­backed hairbrush and hand mirror, which came in a slim box from one of the better department stores in London. Then she slit open a parcel containing a peach-­coloured silk slip that was miles away from regulation but might never be seen as long as she was careful not to let the skirt of her pinafore ride up—this came with a sly note from her father, who owned a textile business, about how it had been made in one of his own factories. There were biscuits from Fortnum’s in a turquoise tin, a jar of lemon drops, a mountain of powdery pink Turkish delight. She promised to share it all, though she never got the chance.

My family didn’t send anything like that for my birthdays. If they’d had the money, they wouldn’t have spent it on me. Usually I received an ill-­suited card decorated with kittens or balloons that looked like it was for a much younger girl, the contents of which only served to imply my inadequacy as a daughter. I’d have killed for sweets and trifles, but Violet was always so good about giving me hers, sometimes to the point of not leaving any for herself, even though she had a sweet tooth like no one else I knew.

This was the point at which Sophie chose to unveil what I considered at the time to be a great betrayal. She interrupted the proceedings with a curious mixture of shyness and glee, bringing out a slim, dark green book. Its cover was plain, but there was gold type on the spine, and from my vantage point that was all I could see.

Evelyn’s face went white. “I thought we had agreed—the gloves—”

“Why, Sophie, whatever could this be?” Violet cooed, reaching for the book.

“I found it in a bookshop,” Sophie said, “in London.” You could hear her pause for effect before saying London, and to her credit, I would’ve as well.

“In London,” Violet repeated, ever sharp to the little devotions we paid to her.

“I was down with Mumsy and Dad to see something at the theatre, you remember how I told you, and I went into one of the bookshops on Charing Cross Road”—very bold of her—“and I found this.”

“Out with it, what is it?” I said, surprising myself with how loud my voice was. I felt the strange sense of unease that I sometimes had when Violet turned her attention away from me, like the slight chill that comes when a candle is blown out.

Violet studied the spine. “Spiritualist Phenomena and Mediumship, by A. L. Walden. Oh, Sophie, Miss Stone would have kittens!”

“I thought you could hide it in your trunk,” Sophie offered.

Violet flipped through to the table of contents, murmuring as she went. “Crystal gazing, table tipping, movement of objects without contact, materialisation—”

A thrill ran through me. Supernatural exploration was the sort of thing one always hoped might happen at school, like in the books. We had midnight feasts from time to time, and Alice had played a well-­timed prank or two, but it was always kid stuff, never the real thing, no romantic kidnappings or other proper adventures. I felt as though I was peering over a precipice, at the bottom of which were mediums, and crystal balls, and the mysteries of adulthood.

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” Evelyn started.

“Rot,” Violet said. “It’s a splendid idea, one of the best anyone’s had this term. Don’t be an ass about it. Thanks ever so, Sophie.”

At this, Sophie went scarlet, words failing her, and I got up to fetch Violet another present to break the moment.

It was the final one, a small parcel from Made­moi­selle Lefèvre, the very young and very pretty French mistress. Ma­demoi­selle had arrived the year before, in April, after the previous French mistress had got married. She was tall and willowy, with strong eyebrows and a rosebud mouth; she looked like a proper woman, lovely and grown-­up, wearing a white lawn dress with her hair in an old-­fashioned Gibson Girl pompadour. I’d heard Violet’s father remark when we were all dropped off on the first day of term that Made­moi­selle was hardly out of girlhood herself.

She rapidly became an object of admiration for us all—but Violet, as always, was the exception, because Made­moi­selle admired her back. She had taken a special shine to Violet on account of her lovely lilting French accent, which the rest of us were constantly trying and failing to mimic. It wasn’t the custom for schoolmistresses to give us gifts, but in the run-­up to that September evening, we had all speculated among ourselves whether Made­moi­selle adored Violet enough to break with tradition. In the end, she had: she gave her a little bottle of scent with violets all over the label, stoppered by a heavy piece of cut glass. Violet took the stopper out and put the bottle to her nose, sighing happily.

“I’ll wear it always—and when it runs out, I’ll simply have to scrounge all I can till I can buy another. It’s terribly cruel of Made­moi­selle, to give me a scent I couldn’t live without once I’d tried it for the first time,” she said, preening. She pressed the mouth of the bottle to the base of her palm and upended it, then brushed her wrists together in a brisk gesture that made her seem older than she was.

By that time, the festivities were coming to an end. We’d had our fill of Violet’s birthday cake and the cordial Cook had given us, and while Violet’s relationship with the rules was particular to her alone, the bedtime bell waited for no one. The lower years streamed from the playroom, chattering loudly. There were a few minutes of peace, then. The room was left to us upper-­sixth girls: me, Dorothy, Alice, Marion, Sophie, and Evelyn. And then there was Violet, next to whom all others paled in comparison. She had always seemed more real, more vivid than the rest of us.

As Sophie and Marion bustled around, folding up torn paper and stacking Violet’s gifts into a neat pile, I asked Violet if she wanted her hair plaited before bed. She did—she always did—so I stood behind her and combed through her long blonde curls with my fingers. I thought that when she had her hair plaited, she looked like Maid Marian from an old illustrated version of the stories of Robin Hood I’d had as a child. She had the kind of hair you only saw in illustrations and advertisements, anyway. We talked the whole time in a low murmur. I can’t remember what we spoke about now, though I wish I could. I pitied all the other girls, none of whom had been granted the privilege of proximity and intimacy with Violet in that moment, which I prized above anything else in the world. When I’d finished, Violet let her eyes shiver shut for a moment, and then yawned. “Time for bed, I think.”

Without needing to be asked, Evelyn scurried to pick up the presents, ready to carry them upstairs. We all filed out of the playroom with its wallpaper of pink and yellow flowers to make the chilly journey up to the top-­year dormitory.

“You go on,” Violet said. “Evelyn, could you be ever so decent and put those on my bed? I’m just going to say goodnight to Made­moi­selle.”

I followed the others as they made their way up the stairs. Made­moi­selle was waiting for her on the landing, in the dim electric light; her smile on seeing Violet was radiant. Alice whispered something to Dot, who was too sweet-­tempered for her own good and said, “Don’t!” in a scandalised gasp. Evelyn shushed them both with the self-­importance that came from having been given a task to do.

I wasn’t looking when it happened. I was a few steps up the narrow staircase, the last in the queue, when I heard Violet say goodnight to Made­moi­selle. I could see her in my mind’s eye, stretching up on tiptoe to kiss Made­moi­selle on the cheek. She’d started doing it last June, and I’d seen it every night since term began again. They had a sweet sort of intimacy that had begun to shape the run of our days: Violet slipping out of the dormitory early in the morning to wheedle Cook into making a cup of coffee for Made­moi­selle, Made­moi­selle trying and failing not to favour Violet when it came time to practise dictation in French class, Violet kissing her goodnight before traipsing back up to the dormitory to close off the evening.

The night of Violet’s birthday moved differently.

I remember it now rather like a picture reel that’s got stuck, moving at a snail’s pace and then, all of a sudden, speeding up past the point of possible intervention. I can feel every second when something might’ve been done, as if anything we could’ve done would have saved Violet, saved any of the rest of them, erased from history everything that came after. I even prayed for it, once or twice and very privately, in the days after she died. What I understand now, though, is that nothing any of us could have done would’ve headed off disaster. It was inherent in the foundations of the place.

I can’t put off the inevitable any longer. Violet kissed Made­moi­selle goodnight. I imagine her frozen in amber, perfect for the last time. I heard her light footsteps, then a strange, aborted cry, then nothing, then a loud crack-­and-­thump. I whirled around and ran back down as fast as I could, but my feet moved slowly, clumsy in my slippers. By the time I reached the landing, I could hear my own scream in my ears, high and piercing, a sound I’d never heard before and one I didn’t know that I was capable of making. Before long, everyone else had clustered around me. We hung for a while in that suspended moment when it was just us and Made­moi­selle and Violet’s broken body.