The original idea was to host Emily M. Danforth last October for our "Read of The Day" book club in partnership with Bank Square Books. After all, October is Halloween month, and Danforth's then-just-published and wonderfully received "Plain Bad Heroines" was the perfect choice for an appropriately evocative seasonal read. Then: COVID.

Well, it's never too late — and it IS October again. Danforth joins us Wednesday for an in-person "Read of The Day" discussion and signing event and — great news — she's as delightful and hilarious a conversationalist as she is a writer.

In "Plain Bad Heroines," the story bounces back and forth in time between a possibly cursed girls' boarding school in turn-of-the-20th-century Rhode Island and present-day efforts to make a horror film of what transpired at the academy. The titular stars at the heart of the novel are three 20-something women, two of whom are actresses in the movie and the third is the author of the book about the boarding school on which the film will be based.

Using an anonymous, snarky but not unsympathetic narrator, several metafictional elements that consciously poke fun at such devices, and wonderfully empathetic illustrations by Sara Lautman, Danforth has written a thoroughly hip, revealing and seductively haunting story perfect for October.

To read an in-depth interview with Danforth, see Friday's edition of The Day.

Emily M. Danforth, "Read of The Day" in partnership with Bank Square Books, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Bank Square Books, 53 West Main, Mystic; free but registration required;www.banksquarebooks.com, (860) 536-3795.