Falls Landing, Florida. Under the glittering lights of theme parks, the saccharine scent of caramelised popcorn, and the sticky summer sun, something is rotting. Slithering amidst the falsity of sizzling barbecues and housewives drinking margheritas by the poolside, there is a darkness in the town and its inhabitants. The preacher’s daughter, Sammy, has gone missing. No one knows where she is, except the group of 13-year-old girls who observe everyone from afar, behind bushes and above balconies. They have been watching Sammy for a long time, and they must decide if the dark truth is best kept hidden or not.

Brutes delves into a sickeningly sweet tale of girlhood and female friendship; the affection and safety felt, the jealousies and obsessions, the horrors and violence silently endured, and the seemingly unbreakable bonds formed in our youth. The novel is split into two timelines, the present told in the collective ‘we’ as though the girls are one, narrating the events before them like a Greek chorus. The other half is in the bleak and lonely future, where each girl, now told in the first person, is estranged and individual.

Although they are feminine, they are far from the dainty, porcelain dolls their mothers wish they were; they scream and curse, run barefoot till their feet turn black with dirt, and go to the lake where something is said to prowl and prey within. Girlhood has never been so raw and brutish, or as inspiring to witness, with such untamed, maniacal freedom.

Sultry and haunting, Brutes is a Southern Gothic perfect for fans of The Virgin Suicides and Mona Awad’s Bunny, or Ethel Cain’s folk-horror album Preacher’s Daughter. The grit and divinity of women is highlighted by Dizz Tate’s hypnotic and vividly rich prose, as intoxicating as a hazy fever dream.