For the would-be Wonder Woman or Charlie’s Angel: an empowering how-to guide for conquering life’s toughest challenges—and saving the world one baddie at a time For every woman who wants to be as tough as Lara Croft, as nimble as the Bionic Woman, and as babe-a-licious as Charlie’s Angels, The Action Heroine’s Handbook shows you the essential skills you’ll need to conquer the bad guys and save the day without breaking a sweat. Find out how the real action heroines do it, directly from a host of experts, including stuntwomen, jujitsu instructors, helicopter pilots, detectives, forensic psychologists, survivalists, primatologists, and many others. Learn to: • Profile a serial killer • Outwit a band of home intruders • Navigate white water rapids • Go undercover as a beauty queen • Outrun a fireball And dozens of other Tough Chick Skills, Beauty Skills, Brain Skills, Brawn Skills, and Escape Skills. Special sections and appendices feature the top action heroine hairdos, handbag essentials, and the best footwear for every action situation. With step-by-step instructions and easy-to-follow illustrations, The Action Heroine’s Handbook will prepare you to save the world, one baddie at a time.

Killing It is a secret weapon for the modern day action heroine. This savagely hilarious guide covers all the fashion, etiquette, and ballistics tips every woman needs, according to all the blockbuster movies written and directed by men! Joan will help you perfect the impossible balancing act of being an all-powerful badass while remaining vulnerable, sexy, and super chill about men getting all the glory.

Filled with action movie-inspired advice, this hilarious guide is the ultimate gag gift or stocking stuffer for anyone who wants to ‘keep up with the Indiana Joneses’ For everyone who’s ever wanted to be as smooth as James Bond, as clever as Captain Kirk, or as tough as Charlie’s Angels, The Action Hero’s Handbook is the ultimate guide to the essential skills every action hero needs to survive and thrive in this dangerous but exciting world. This book features dozens of real-life action hero techniques, directly from experts in the subjects at hand: FBI agents, sexologists, stuntmen, hypnotists, karate masters, criminologists, detectives, and many others. Learn how to: • Catch a great white shark • Deliver the Vulcan Nerve Pinch • Spyproof your hotel room • Win a fight when outnumbered • Climb down Mount Rushmore National Monument And dozens of other Good Guy Skills, Paranormal Skills, Fighting Skills, and Escape Skills. With meticulously researched step-by-step instructions and easy-to-follow illustrations, The Action Hero’s Handbook will get you ready for anything. Good luck—we’re all counting on you.

A full exploration of the heroine in movies, comic books, television, and literature

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A delectable brew of gothic horror and Hollywood satire . . . [and] what makes all this so much fun is Danforth’s deliciously ghoulish voice . . . exquisite." —Ron Charles, THE WASHINGTON POST "A multi-faceted novel, equal parts gothic, sharply funny, sapphic romance, historical, and, of course, spooky.” —ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY Named a Most Anticipated Book by Entertainment Weekly • Washington Post • USA Today • Time • O, The Oprah Magazine • Buzzfeed • Harper's Bazaar • Vulture • Parade • HuffPost • Refinery29 • Popsugar • E! News • Bustle • The Millions • GoodReads • Autostraddle • Lambda Literary • Literary Hub • and more! The award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered around a cursed New England boarding school for girls—a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love, and the rebellious female spirit 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-inspired illustrations, Plain Bad Heroines is a devilishly haunting, modern masterwork of metafiction that manages to combine the ghostly sensibility of Sarah Waters with the dark imagination of Marisha Pessl and the sharp humor and incisive social commentary of Curtis Sittenfeld into one laugh-out-loud funny, spellbinding, and wonderfully luxuriant read. “Full of Victorian sapphic romance, metafictional horror, biting misandrist humor, Hollywood intrigue, and multiple timeliness—all replete with evocative illustrations that are icing on a deviously delicious cake.” –O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

Advice delivered with sense and sensibility just in time for the major motion picture Becoming Jane Women have looked to Jane Austen’s heroines as models of appropriate behavior for nearly two centuries. Who better to understand the heart of a heroine than Austen? In this delightful epistolary “what if,” Austen serves as a “Dear Abby” of sorts, using examples from her novels and her life to counsel modern-day heroines in trouble, she also shares with readers a compelling drama playing out in her own drawing room. Witty and wise—and perfectly capturing the tone of the author of Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice—Dear Jane Austen is as satisfying as sitting down to tea with the novelist herself.