The Burning Girls

The Burning Girls

The Burning Girls is a spooky claustrophobic thriller by the author of The Chalk Man.

Are you ready for some gothic horror? A female Church of England reverend is forced into becoming the interim vicar in the rural and superstitious town called Chapel Croft.

The town’s history includes eight Protestant martyrs burned for their religious beliefs long ago. On the anniversary of the purge, the villagers burn twig dolls called The Burning Girls to ward away the ghosts of those who died.

Just thirty years ago, two fifteen-year-old girls disappeared a week apart. Did they simply run away? Or did something worse happen to them?

Everyone in the town seems to be hiding something. Reverend Jack has some secrets of her own. She and her teenage daughter Flo see ghosts on their first day in the village. Jack receives an exorcism kit including dried blood on the knife on her front porch.

As you can tell by summary above, The Burning Girls is packed with subplots and backstories. There are so many characters that I occasionally had to check my Kindle notes to remember where I had met a character before. Still, it was a compelling and challenging mystery. Plus the drastic twist near the end was a great reveal that I didn’t see coming. 4 stars!

Thanks to Ballantine Books, Random House and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept that my given data and my IP address is sent to a server in the USA only for the purpose of spam prevention through the Akismet program.More information on Akismet and GDPR.