Spoilt Creatures: An Observer Best Debut of 2024 compelling, cultish and utterly feral Alice Slater

An Observer top ten best new novelist for 2024A simmering debut, heady with the possibilities of language and the righteousness of female rageKiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The MerciesLush and dreamlike - a sweltering novel, where the sunlight pulses with nightmarish dreadColin Walsh, author of KalaThis lusciously verdant novel is rich in grit and dirt, in sensuality and oblivionLara Williams, author of Supper ClubA modern-day Dionysian cult of women in the woods - haunting and exhilaratingJennifer Saint, author of AriadneEmma Clines The Girls meets Lord of the Flies . . . compelling, cultish and utterly feralAlice Slater, author of Death of a Bookseller______They thought they knew everything about us. The kind of women we were.Iris is adrift when she meets the beguiling Hazel, who lives on a womens commune. As she is drawn into commune life, Iris is soon seduced by the possibility of a new start away from a world of men who have only let her down. At Breach House the women are free to live and eat abundantly, to be loud and dirty, all whilst under the leadership of their gargantuan matriarch, Blythe.But is Breach House truly the haven it seems? And just how much can Iris trust her new family? When an unforgivable transgression threatens the communes existence, Iris and the other women find themselves hurtling towards an act of devastating violence.Fierce and unapologetic, Spoilt Creatures is an intoxicating debut that pulls back the skin of the patriarchy and examines the female rage that lies beneath.