Borough Press wins three-way auction for Danforth adult debut

The Borough Press has won a three-way auction for the adult debut by Emily M Danforth, an “utterly immersive and hugely compelling” queer gothic novel.

Danforth is the author of the acclaimed YA novel The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which was adapted into a film starring Chloë Grace Moretz in 2018.

Borough Press senior commissioning editor Carla Josephson acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Abner Stein for Plain Bad Heroines. In the US, Jessica Williams pre-empted the novel for William Morrow in a deal with Jess Regel at Foundry. It will be published in the UK on 4th February 2021.

The synopsis explains: “In 1902, at an all girls' boarding school in Rhode Island, students Flo and Clara are madly in love with each other, as well as completely obsessed with The Story of Mary MacLane, the scandalous debut memoir by 19-year-old MacLane. A few months later they are found dead in the woods, after a horrific wasp attack, the book lying next to their intertwined bodies. Within five years The Brookhants School for Girls is closed. But not before three more people died on the property, each in a troubling way.

"Over 100 years later, Brookhants opens its doors once more, when a film crew arrive to start work on a movie about the rumoured curse. And as past and present become grimly entangled, it’s soon impossible to tell quite where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins…”

The author said: “My three-word elevator pitch for this novel is that it's a work of sapphic-gothic-metafiction, which – no surprise – makes lots of people blink at me in confusion. This is why it's been such a pleasure working with Carla Josephson and Borough Press. They so brilliantly understood not only this story's queer horror, but also its humour. These plain bad heroines, past and present, couldn't have landed in better hands!”

Josephson added: “Equal parts wickedly funny and deeply unsettling (you’ll never be able to be near a wasp again!), Plain Bad Heroines is an absolute triumph. This is an intricately layered, modern gothic novel that is utterly immersive and hugely compelling, and I could not be more delighted to be publishing Emily on the Borough list.”