Polyphonically technicolour and lushly textured, Brutes is a defiant elegy to the myth of girlhood innocence. Dizz Tate's talent is brazen - and brilliant. Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure Assured, insightful, quietly savage, Dizz Tate is capable of conjuring a whole world. Nicole Flattery, author of Show Them a Good Time In Falls Landing, Florida-a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes, and scorched bougainvillea flowers-something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of thirteen-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher's daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older, and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they uncover will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives. Through a darkly beautiful and brutally compelling lens, Dizz Tate captures the violence, horrors, and manic joys of girlhood. Brutes is a novel about the seemingly unbreakable bonds in the 'we' of young friendship, and the moment it is broken forever. The mystery and the danger of being a girl, of feeling crazy and vulnerable and wild, wanting to run away and be someone-anyone-is captured here across a landscape of nail polish and fire and sex, a sinister lake and the pink sky of Florida. Brutes is a beautiful and deeply strange novel, full of dread and longing. I loved it. Mariana Enriquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire