Book Review: ‘Spoilt Creatures’ by Amy Twigg
Every once in a while, a book comes along that you didn’t know you needed. Spoilt Creatures by Amy Twigg wasn’t that book.
Because by the time Sophie and I picked it for Episode 5 of Season 11, we very much needed it, and we knew it. Our first pick for the episode was a spectacular failure to launch. And that’s fine, you are allowed to protect your peace. And then the back-up pick… Sometimes finishing a book just to finish it feels like dragging yourself through brambles barefoot, and for what? Book club martyrdom? So that got canned too.
But Spoilt Creatures? Oh, this one delivered.
“They thought they knew everything about us. The kind of women we were.
It was a place for women. A remote farm tucked away in the Kent Downs. A safe space.
When Iris - newly single and living at home with her mother - meets the mysterious and beguiling Hazel, who lives in a women's commune, she finds herself drawn into the possibility of a new start away from the world of men who have only let her down. Here, at Breach House, the women can be loud and dirty, live and eat abundantly, all while under the leadership of their gargantuan matriarch, Blythe.
But even among the women, there are power struggles, cruelty and transgressions that threaten their precarious way of life. When a group of men arrives on the farm, the commune's existence is thrown into question, hurtling Iris and the other women towards an act of devastating violence.”
It's a powerhouse of a debut, one of those books that makes you check the blurb twice because surely this isn’t someone’s first rodeo? I honestly don’t know how it wasn’t already on our radar. The cover alone should’ve stopped us in our tracks (lush, haunting, just a touch unhinged). Then there’s the description, which gives off big Midsommar energy; feminine power cults, the pull of isolation, trauma repurposed as ritual. And though I still haven’t watched Midsommar all the way through (sue me), I’m very here for any narrative that flirts with that eerie intersection of softness and menace.
What surprised me most was how fast it devolves into a kind of Lord of the Flies power standoff, but through a lens that's sharper, queerer, and more emotionally attuned. The pacing? Immaculate. There’s no flab here. Just tight, elegant tension with all my favourite conventions: female rage, blurred morality, the seductive logic of cult-like communities. I read it in two sittings, probably could’ve done it in one if real life hadn’t intervened.
Having already read Voice Like A Hyacinth this season, Spoilt Creatures felt like a spiritual cousin, both books brimming with longing and rot, and the inescapable consequences of choosing desire over decorum. Twigg is playing with big themes: the constructive and destructive power of community, the long-term effects of unprocessed grief, the hungry edge of collective femininity. But what really got me was the writing. Every scene feels so precise, so textured. I could taste the damp, feel the soil under my nails. There’s a kind of grim sensuality to it, like being kissed and slapped at the same time.
And the ending, well. I can’t say I saw it coming, but I wasn’t surprised by its visceral quality. It still hit like a scream muffled under wet earth. Terrifying, and memorable.
If you like your literary fiction with bite marks, or if you’ve ever dreamed of walking into the woods and not coming back quite the same, Spoilt Creatures deserves a place on your shelf.
Written by Sarah
