THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB by Damien Angelica Walters (Crooked Lane Books, December 2019) Hardcover, 280 pages. ISBN: 1643851632 / 9781643851631
Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .
A supernatural thriller in the vein of A Head Full of Ghosts about two young girls, a scary story that becomes far too real, and the tragic--and terrifying--consequences that follow one of them into adulthood.
Red Lady, Red Lady, show us your face...
In 1991, Heather Cole and her friends were members of the Dead Girls Club. Obsessed with the macabre, the girls exchanged stories about serial killers and imaginary monsters, like the Red Lady, the spirit of a vengeful witch killed centuries before. Heather knew the stories were just that, until her best friend Becca began insisting the Red Lady was real--and she could prove it.
That belief got Becca killed.
It's been nearly thirty years, but Heather has never told anyone what really happened that night--that Becca was right and the Red Lady was real. She's done her best to put that fateful summer, Becca, and the Red Lady, behind her. Until a familiar necklace arrives in the mail, a necklace Heather hasn't seen since the night Becca died.
The night Heather killed her.
Now, someone else knows what she did...and they're determined to make Heather pay.
My five-star review on the Goodreads website . . . . .
It was hard to put this one down. It moves along like a steamroller.
I initially thought the chapter by chapter back and forth between now and then would break the rhythm of the story, but it never did. In addition, the first person narration remained convincing even when the main character was revisiting her younger past.
Walters does a really good job of making readers understand the depths of Heather, which is what makes her such a likable character in spite of where she's been and what she's going through in the present.
The novel can be viewed as a supernatural tale or a contemporary thriller. Just like Paul Tremblay's HEADFUL OF GHOSTS, this novel straddles the line between reality and the supernatural. While reading THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB I was never sure if the imaginary witch (The Red Lady) in the creative storytelling of Beth (Heather’s childhood girlfriend) was somehow real.
THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB is a wicked unraveling of a personality, a descent into anxiety, paranoia and madness. The ending was satisfactory and came as a bit of a surprise, although I don't feel that Walters cheated the reader.
You'll breeze through this one in several days or less. Recommended.
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