#plain bad heroines

[mayasaurusss]

"Most crucially for our purpouse here, you should know that when they're in distress, yellow jackets relase a pheromone to call on potenitially thousands of their angry friends to help them come get you" -"One macabre afternoon to begin" from Plain Bad Heroines.

[cosmogyros]

I just finished reading Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth and mannnn am I impressed. It's been a while since I read a contemporary book where the writing quality was THAT good. It made me so excited to go do some more writing myself!

Made the mistake of looking in the book's tag here on Tumblr, though, and... oof. It's half TERFs criticizing the book for using the "slur" "queer", and half people who hate one of the characters because she had a prickly personality and was a realistic, complex person with trauma. Funny how male characters can be total assholes and people still gush over them, but a female character is slightly awkward and unfriendly and it's like "I hate her sooooo much omg she's the worst character of all time I want her to suffer" (I wish I were exaggerating. but. I am not)

Anyway. It's a very good book :D Some of the best-written female characters I have ever seen, and so much queerness, I am happy.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Historical Fiction Book Bracket: Round 1A

Book summaries below:

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Our story begins in 1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary���s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.

Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.

A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.

Setting: Rhode Island, 1900s and present day

Horror, historical fiction, contemporary, mystery, gothic, 1900s, adult

Variations by Juliet Jacques

Variations is the debut short story collection from one of Britain's most compelling voices, Juliet Jacques. Using fiction inspired by found material and real-life events, Variations explores the history of transgender Britain with lyrical, acerbic wit. Variations travels from Oscar Wilde's London to austerity-era Belfast via inter-war Cardiff, a drag bar in Liverpool just after the decriminalisation of homosexuality, Manchester's protests against Clause 28, and Brighton in the 2000s. Through diary entries of an illicit love affair, an oral history of a contemporary political collective; a 1920s academic paper to a 1990s film script; a 1950s memoir to a series of 2014 blog posts, Jacques rewrites and reinvigorates a history so often relegated to stale police records and sensationalist news headlines. Innovative and fresh, Variations is a bold and beautiful book of stories unheard; until now.

Setting: Various time periods in British history

Short story collection, historical fiction, experimental, metafiction, multimedia, ephemera, adult

[bones-clouds]

favourite books of 2023:

“plain bad heroines”

emily m. danforth

“that version, as with so many of the stories we tell about our history, erased a woman – a plain, bad heroine – in favor of a less messy and more palatable yarn about two feuding brothers from new england.”

[rayless-reblogs]

2024 Book Recommendations

I have an embarrassment of riches this year -- I had the chance to read a lot, and I kept finding so many good books. So many that instead of my normal ten recs, you're getting fifteen.

As always, these recommendations are not complete endorsements. Especially with the older books, there are definitely elements present that are questionable and even offensive.

Dragons – Pamela Wharton Blanpied (fantasy written as nonfiction, the first section recounts what happens when dragons invade Earth, the second section is a treatise on the habits and biology of dragons, and the third is a fascinating series of field notes from those who dare to befriend the monsters)

The Chatham School Affair – Thomas H Cook (mystery, a rural school, a beautiful lonely teacher, a lake, luscious language, loaded with atmosphere, you keep making and remaking your theories as you guess what happened)

Plain Bad Heroines – Emily M Danforth (mystery, braided narrative between the early twentieth century and present day, copious narrator commentary, cheeky footnotes, extremely funny but also extremely dark, gothic tropes, mostly female cast)

Cloud Cuckoo Land – Anthony Doerr (sci-fi, braided narrative spanning centuries, the story of one ancient text's journey through history, ancient Greece, medieval Constantinople, the present day in a small-town library, space travel and ai, it all comes together across the endless reach of time and you feel a lot)

Fanny Herself – Edna Ferber (pre-WW1 coming of age women's story, old-fashioned Anne of Green Gables thoughtfulness and sweetness in some places, rousingly modern in other places, strong focus on the heroine's Jewish identity, extremely funny narrative voice, the love of nature versus the industrial verve of Chicago, will our heroine keep her soul?)

The Vows of the Peacock – Alice Walworth Graham (Middle Ages, poetic fantastical language, Isabella the She-Wolf of France, messy politics, a darkly sexy historical villain, a complex but at times quite moving arranged marriage, an absorbing female protagonist)

A Thousand Ships – Natalie Haynes (Homer's women retell Homer's stories, angrily, tragically, bitchily, including many women you might not have thought of [and it isn't just the women Homer mentioned – we get into the weeds], the story is cut into bite-sized pieces that still offer filling food for thought)

The Masqueraders – Georgette Heyer (Georgian-era glitz and witty repartee, the heroine lives as a man, her brother lives as a woman, their father is full of wild schemes that might very well get them all executed for treason, the romance is a slow burn, and we get highwaymen)

Venetia – Georgette Heyer (a Regency-era GH romance, if you know GH then you know she's the author every other Regency romance writer is trying to be, it's funny, it's daring, it's tender, GH's romances are solid, but this one especially stands out for its strong-willed and capable heroine)

The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson (the house is a character, and not a nice one, psychological instability, unreliable narrator, creeping inchoate horror, whose hand am I holding, let's dwell on the unhappiness of being a smart woman in the 1950s)

Thornhedge – T Kingfisher (Sleeping Beauty but WHAT IF, I love the heroine, her name is Toadling, it's funny, it's romantic, it's thoughtful, it's even folkloric, there's a lot about ugly lady lake trolls, the prose reads beautifully, and it's compact, it doesn't waste your time and is short enough to knock out in a day or two)

The Silver Metal Lover – Tanith Lee (sci-fi, awkward dystopian-glam girl falls in love with a robot, whom she does not own, the sci-fi is as soft as pudding but it's more about the vibes anyway, inimitably stylish Tanith Lee weirdness, the robot is an absolute doll along with being a robot)

Pony Confidential – Christina Lynch (a pony is on a revenge mission against his former Horse Girl, but what if it was both funny and serious, but what if there was also a murder mystery, but what if we dwelt on human-animal negligence a la Black Beauty, but what if we also brought in Homer's Odyssey, it gets emotional)

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich – Deya Muniz (fantasy, graphic novel, nonbinary protagonist lives as a man and is appalled to suddenly fall in love with the local heroic princess, gorgeous gorgeous shoujo-ish art, also very funny, it will make you crave cheese)

The Alice Network – Kate Quinn (WW1 and WW2, braided narrative, women acting as spies in occupied France, little-known historical events unfold on the page, so much Baudelaire, an old heroine and a young heroine and both are smart and bitter and compelling, but there's still room for some sweet romance and sharp humor)

[quiet-gal]

if anyone knows any other pieces of media like this please please lemme know em

[positivewlwvibes]

i need more queer horror and less queer coded BEING the horror, y’know what i mean???

[thedevilundercover]

TFW you read a new book or watch a movie and you fall in love with it but it literally does not exist on the internet

[bookishfreedom]

this story out of context: 🐝🍎👭📖🍂🚬🌊🪆🎥

[libinih28]

I just attract books about lonely women and mothers I think. even ones I don't even realize they're about women before I pick them up.

[rhywhitefang]

Thank you so much @warriornunsgirlfriend for for donating again and thanks to @thelockedtombcfp ! ! These are the two main characters from Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

maybe it's just some sort of proximity bias but Plain Bad Heroines is giving me big Lemony Snicket vibes and I can't figure out why because except for the "dear reader" parts, they're nothing alike 😂

but there's something about the timelessness and the aura of menace and not quite knowing how everything ties together that is just making me feel things

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Historical Fiction Book Bracket: Round 2A

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Our story begins in 1902, at The Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.

Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.

A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.

Setting: Rhode Island, 1900s and present day

Horror, historical fiction, contemporary, mystery, gothic, 1900s, adult

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

Endorsement from submitter: "Badass lesbian knight, lesbian princess, gay nerd prince, depressed gay duke what more could you want"

It’s been hundreds of years since King Arthur’s reign. His descendant, Arthur, a future Lord and general gadabout, has been betrothed to Gwendoline, the quick-witted, short-tempered princess of England, since birth. The only thing they can agree on is that they despise each other.

They’re forced to spend the summer together at Camelot in the run-up to their nuptials, and within 24 hours, Gwen has discovered Arthur kissing a boy, and Arthur has gone digging for Gwen's childhood diary and found confessions about her crush on the kingdom's only lady knight, Bridget Leclair.

Realizing they might make better allies than enemies, Gwen and Art make a reluctant pact to cover for each other, and as things heat up at the annual royal tournament, Gwen is swept off her feet by her knight, and Arthur takes an interest in Gwen's royal brother. Lex Croucher's Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is chock full of sword-fighting, found family, and romantic shenanigans destined to make readers fall in love.

Setting: Medieval, post-Camelot

Historical-ish fiction, romance, romantic comedy, medieval, Aruthuriana, young adult

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Characters, book, and author names under the cut

Maurice Hall/Alec Scudder - Maurice by E.M. Forster 

Tatianna/Clarissa - Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Nick Russo/Andy Fleming - We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian 

Audrey Wells/Harper Harper/Merritt Eamons - Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth

[iknikblackstonevarrick]

Only i can appreciate how good an idea it would be to cast Olivia Rodrigo as Audrey Wells and Chappell Roan as Harper Harper in an adaptation of Plain Bad Heroines

[quiet-gal]