Nicci French meets Donna Tartt in this provocative tale of three girls whose friendship has deadly consequences. In a small-town high school in 1988, three misfit girls join forces to form the Bitch Goddesses, a take-no-prisoners gang of fierce teenage rebellion. Rennie, the stunningly attractive straight-A student, finds herself way out of her depth when she embarks on an affair with her married teacher. Cherry builds a shrine to Princess Diana in her bedroom while nursing her hippy mother through her coke-fuelled rages. Amy tears up her cheerleader's uniform while her drunken parents concentrate on presenting a facade of perfect family life to the outside world. The three girls swear to stick together, whatever life throws at them, until one night when something so horrific happens it shatters their friendship for ever. Fifteen years on, Rennie is a writer living in New York, struggling to keep her life on track and hiding an erotic obsession. In her Lake Superior show-home, a heavily pregnant Amy is certain that her husband is cheating on her and that she is jinxed by her past. Cherry, a model patient in an institution, suffers horrific nightmares of four red letters carved on human skin. The Bitch Goddesses may have grown up, but one way or another they must come to terms with a shared past...

This debut is provocative, suspenseful and involving. Anti-chicklit at its finest. WATERSTONE'S BOOKS QUARTERLY, April 2006

Martha O'Connor is an internationally acclaimed poet. Before turning to writing full-time, she was by turns a shop assistant, waitress, latte-maker and eighth-grade teacher. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and children.