Spoiled Milk

A Book Riot Most Anticipated Book of 2026

“A compulsively readable twist on the old-fashioned school story.” —The Guardian

“Read if any combination of the words ‘yearning lesbian Gothic haunted-house body horror’ gets you going” —The Cut

“Chilling . . . Brimming with spiritualism and sensuality, this neo-gothic story navigates the terrain between life and death, and between childhood and adulthood.” —The New Yorker

“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

“A dread-inducing, vicious, horrifyingly entertaining ride through queer adolescence. This gothic debut novel is the stuff of nightmares and fantasies.” —Ms.

“Spoiled Milk sinks its teeth in slowly, deeply and tightly. . . Lush, unsettling and oddly peaceful in its feral rhythms, Spoiled Milk lingers in the mind like something decadent that’s been left out too long.” —Seattle Times

“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

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

“This lesbian phantasmagoria has everything: silk gloves, sour milk, clandestine visits to mystics, potentially evil yet sexy French teachers.” –Electric Lit

“Curran injects fresh blood into the traditionally rigid paradigms of English girlhood narratives. . . it feels strikingly like a conversation, perhaps even a confession, that resonates with the present. It is a refreshingly self-aware debut, built on a rich tradition of gothic cultural capital as well as history, and a must-read for boarding school fiction junkies.” –Reactor

“An instant queer classic.” –Dazed

“Picnic at Hanging Rock vibes and cool girl sensibility. . . Eerie, atmospheric, and lyrically driven, Spoiled Milk may be the most intriguing gothic of the year.” –CrimeReads

“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

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

“A novel that turns the genre on its head” —Belfast Telegraph

“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

“Spoiled Milk contains echoes of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca . . . readers will keep guessing until the final pages.” —Shelf Awareness

“Thrillingly original” —Our Culture

“Avery Curran excels at depicting the sharp resentments and smothered lusts that emerge between these girls . . . as Emily and her fellows muddle then scream their way through Briarley’s foul legacy, the reader will be rooting for them every haunted step of the way.” –Historical Novels Review

“As much a letter of consolation to teenage grief and sexuality as it is a witty interrogation of the systems that uphold their repression.” —The Skinny

“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 Wait