The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters is currently being billed as supernatural horror, but I would argue that its strength and success have less to do with anything supernatural and more to do with the connections between women it explores (and they're not the connections you think they are when you start reading, either). A page-turner, this novel is at its strongest when it narrates the past events that took place between a group of girls: falling in and out of friendship, gaining and losing obsessions, becoming interested in boys. The dialogue is very authentic and Red Lady myth the girls construct is a good story in itself. I wasn't as engaged with the "Now" chapters that detail Heather's adult struggles; I found it difficult to sympathize her as a character. This may, of course, just be a failing on my part, and it didn't keep me from wanting to know what happened.



Note: Easily-triggered readers should be aware that child abuse is an aspect of the book.

I received this book via NetGalley to give an honest review.

Once I started it was hard for me to put it down. I wanted to know who was behind sending the items to Heather and essentially driving her to seem crazy. We go back and forth between what Heather is going through now to what happened back in 1991. Heather and her three friends were the Dead Girls Club. When the past comes back to haunt Heather she knows she will have to come to terms with her past. Just shoving it away in the back of your mind is not going to cut it. Heather will relive her past and we find out what truly went on with the Dead Girls club and what happened that night Becca died. As the story progresses we see Heather slowly unravel and make decisions that she probably wouldn't have made if she was sane. The past wants payment and its time Heather pays, yet can she deal with the consequences of her actions? I have to say towards the end I was surprised at who had a hand on the night Becca died. Wasn't really suspecting that.

Heather and Becca were best friends since their first day of school. They were friends with Gia and Rachel. Becca has the sneak into an empty house. Her mom sells houses so Becca got the key to get in the house where they gathered to have meetings. They like to read to read true crime stories and tell scarey stories to each other. Becca tells the story of Red Lady. Heather finds it hard to believe it’s a true story. Becca assures Heather that the Red Lady is real. She says to Heather that she will prove it at their next meeting. How will Becca prove it? As time goes by Becca and Heather find their friendship strained. Will they be able to be best friends again? Thirty years later Heather receives mysterious reminders of Becca but doesn’t know who it is. Will Heather find out?

Keeping secrets is not easy. No matter how important the secrets are. Friendship isn’t always an easy thing to maintain. I found that the friendship between Becca and Heather to be fascinating as it changes throughout the story. To me this wasn’t a horror story but a drama about a friendship and the unexpected consequences of keeping secrets.

This was a decent read. A little drug out in some places and a little unbelievable in others.

The book follows the life of Heather and her childhood friend in a Then/Now, back and forth style. The girls are best friends and begin telling scary stories, one of which begins to haunt them. Things go wrong and something terrible happens only to be brought back up years later as adults.

This book was worth a read especially for those girls who remember playing Bloody Mary as a child.

Great story! This one was hard to put down. Perfect blend of supernatural and mystery. Unique twists.

3.5 stars, rounded. A narrator you aren't sure is reliable or not, urban legend type lore and the intensity with which kids can believe these stories, and an ending I didn't see coming. Despite the length, this was a very quick read. The ending was quite intense and the story wrapped up very quickly, and while bits of it were predictable, there was one big twist I hadn't fully expected.

One of my biggest pet peeves with books is when the blurb is misleading. I get that it should catch the attention of would-be readers, but if you tell me it's a specific thing, I darn well expect it to be that thing. The Dead Girls Club is not a supernatural thriller. Supernatural adjacent, maybe, but other than the made-up stories of one troubled little girl and another letting it get in her head, there was nothing supernatural here. Honestly, I didn't find anything remotely thriller-like either. Here's where I put in that none of that would've been a deal-breaker for me. I still could've enjoyed a good drama with some tragedy thrown in. What I got was a lengthy, wordy story that took way too long to get through. To be brutally honest, I was bored through about 75% of this one, and it was only sheer determination that made me push through to the end. I did like some of the "Then" chapters until they became repetitive with pre-teen drama and angst, but today's Heather got on my last nerve. I finally got to Becca's death, and yes, Becca had a tragic life, but when it came right down to it, I only had one thought about the night this girl died - they were young, yes, but they were old enough to know better. There are a couple of decent twists toward the end that could've been great had the book been better executed, but they were just too little, too late for me. Then an ending that was less than satisfying, to say the least, was just adding insult to injury.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3 for Goodreads.

I was all over this book because it was giving me some serious 90’s throwback to when my little 8-year-old self would stand in my dark bathroom and chant Bloody Mary three times and pray she shows, but also that she doesn’t show… because creepy.

This book is told in the popular then/now format relating to Heather and what happened all those years ago to her bff Becca. Running around at the age of 12, the 4 of them would sneak into an empty house and tell murder stories in the basement. HONESTLY, this was my favorite part of the book because I’m a huge thriller seeker and love My Favorite Murder, Dr. Death etc. so to read about a ragtag group of girls who talk that stuff, was thrilling for me!

Becca decides to take it one step further and talk about the Red Lady. A witch who was sentenced to die by being buried alive but not before her hands and tongue were chopped off. OKAY. The Red Lady will help you if you give something in return. You will know the deed has been done when you lose something of value, there’s blood on the floor and dirt in your enemies’ mouth. At this point, you’re thinking ‘okay would I have thought up something this horrifying at 12? No.’ But Becca did.

This is where I was kind of taken off track. I felt like present time Heather was too much. She was being overly paranoid, she giggled weirdly in uncalled for moments, her actions didn’t make sense, she makes herself bleed consistently and then thinks her husband is randomly cheating on her with her best friend? It’s a bit much. The dialogue felt all over the place and I wasn’t a fan of how Heather was portrayed as an adult. I was a huge fan for all the past descriptions and how the Red Lady story came about but I felt like Damien could’ve done a better job at cleaning up the present day story line so that it flowed more fluidly.

Super grateful to Crooked Lane Books for giving me an advanced copy on NetGalley. This was a story I was highly looking forward too and the Red Lady did not disappoint.

At times the "Dead Girls Club" seemed to drag. I feel as if there was a lot of unnecessary information that could've been left out. There was quite a bit that led up to the one specific night during Heather's childhood. Towards the end of the story I was totally thinking this was all in Heather's head and maybe she was nuts. The end wasn't one I saw coming. There's just enough thriller and supernatural elements to keep it interesting. I'd recommend this if you're looking for something a little different.

The Dead Girls Club was a thrilling read! The story jumps back to the past, when Heather and her three friends Becca, Rachel, and Gia would get together and talk about serial killers (hence the name of the club), their victims, the criminal case, etc. Nothing sinister, just four twelve-year olds talking over the latest news. Then Heather's best friend Becca starts telling a story she created about the Red Lady - a witch who was betrayed by her friends and buried alive for the sin of witchcraft. The Red Lady came back to kill those who wronged her, and kept killing. According to Becca - who became obsessed with the story she created - The Red Lady can still be summoned to help - for a price.

In the present Heather Cole is a successful child psychiatrist, treating troubled children and volunteering at youth facilities. She's happily married and has a lot of friends - none from her childhood though. One ordinary afternoon she receives a battered necklace in the mail - half of a Best Friends Forever necklace that looks just like the one she and Becca shared when they were twelve. Only Becca's necklace was buried with her when HEATHER KILLED HER that summer! We learn more of the story and how Heather came to murder her BFF as we watch Heather descend in to madness as someone, or something from her past stalks her mercilessly.

Damien Angelica Walters created a suspensful, scary story. The pace was very fast, slowed a little by the trips into the past, then picking the pace right back up. It was tough to witness Heather's increasing paranoia and madness as her reality is manipulated, but the story came to a satisfying conclusion. I confess I was checking over my shoulder for The Red Lady a couple of times before I finished. Fans of Sarah Hawkins and Tana French would enjoy this book as would anyone who enjoys a creepy, cerebral read.

The blurb and story idea really jumped out at me! This book called to me. Then I read it and was like not so interested. It had me rolling my eyes at some points during the book - mostly at the character of Heather. I sort of, kind of hated her. This book hasn't turned me off the reading future books from the author though because there were certain aspects that I liked from the book.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Heather and her best friend Becca were inseparable. They, along with Gia and Rachel, were The Dead Girls Club. Obsessed with serial killers, spooky stories and everything in between, the friendship was on the cusp of something big. When Becca tells the girls the stories of The Red Lady, their entire summer changes...

Many years later, Heather is a child psychologist. She's happily married. One day, she opens the mail and find the other half of a "Best Friends Forever" necklace. Becca's half. The half that was on Becca the night she died.

This book had the potential to be great. Teenage friendship, a scary urban legend, a death. However, it felt...too fast paced and disorganized. There was something hollow about it. The resolution came out of nowhere and frankly made me very mad, which, maybe that was the point.

Still, this is a quick fun read for something looking for the terror of teenage friendship and guilt.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was a tough read. You can’t mix bad writing, unbeliever idea and annoying lead character. Even in the acknowledgements the author admits to having trouble with this book.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC

Is it true that people become psychologists or psychiatrists because they have so many of their own personal problems? That seems to be the case with Heather, a child psychologist who is at the center of our story.

The Dead Girls Club is billed as a supernatural thriller yet I did not find that to be the case. The more apt description, in my opinion, is it is a wannabe supernatural story but never gets there plus it's hardly thrilling. I had to force myself to get through the second half of the book. In fact, because it’s considered a supernatural thriller, I expected The Dead Girls Club to be a fast read that I wouldn’t be able to put down. I was wrong. Finally, while the ending caught me by surprise, it seemed anti-climactic.

The story is alternately told in ”Then” and ”Now” chapters with ”Then” being when our main character Heather is 12 and ”Now” is when she is 40-ish. For me, the ”Then” chapters were more compelling and interesting -- we learn about the Red Lady, an urban legend about a witch who was killed centuries ago. These stories were the most appealing element for me as was the buddy relationship between young Heather and Becca, the Red Lady storyteller.

The ”Now” chapters were somewhat boring and didn't hold my attention as well. There seemed to be some redundancy and aspects came across as contrived. Her husband and two other childhood friends were never fully developed and didn’t play much of a role — it felt like the husband in particular was an afterthought. These chapters show that Heather is spiraling out of control, becoming increasingly paranoid. She isn't exactly a likable or sympathetic character and that contributed to my being unengaged with the story.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Horror in the form of a vengeful ghost. Heather and her friends were members of the Dead Girls Club. They would get together in an empty house and tell ghost stories, talk about serial killers and monsters. Becca became obsessed with a story she told the group about the Red Lady - the story of a vengeful ghost who was brutally murdered centuries earlier - until Becca believed she was real and she told Heather she could prove it. As the book's description says "That belief got Becca killed."

Thirty years later Heather receives a necklace in the mail that she hadn't seen since the night Becca died. Is the Red Lady back?

A ghost story with somewhat of a surprise ending that I think might be enjoyed more by teens. I wasn't invested in the characters and the main character was pretty unbelievable. I didn't really get tense or creeped out while reading the book - it just didn't inspire emotion for me. The story went back and forth from the time the girls were 12 to a period 30 years later where Heather is a child psychologist. I think it was more believable in the 12-year-old stage.

Thanks to Damien Angelica Walters and Crooked Lane Books through Netgalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

When I read the blurb for The Dead Girls Club, I was intrigued. I loved the idea that the blurb presented. While I did like the book, I found it confusing to read at times.

The Dead Girls Club is split into two storylines. Now and Then. The author did identify when it was Now or Then’s chapters. I am not a massive fan of dual storylines, but in this case, it was needed. I do wish that the book started with a Then chapter because I was a little confused about the necklace and why it scared Heather so bad.

Even though the book had dual storylines, the author was able to keep the flow of the story going. There were parts of the book, though, where the plotline lagged. That happened mainly towards the end of the book.

I do wish that the Red Witch was more of a presence in the book. That story wasn’t even introduced until the middle of the book. It wasn’t mentioned regularly until the last half of the book. It was the whole reason why I read the book.

I didn’t like Heather in either storyline. In the Now storyline, she was becoming unhinged. At first, I got why she was so freaked out about the necklace. Then she became obsessed. She started cyberstalking/stalking people. She wasn’t focusing on her job. I will say that I wasn’t surprised when everything imploded. The same goes for her behavior in the Then chapters. I will say that Becca knew how to manipulate Heather into doing what she wanted, and Heather didn’t fail to deliver.

I did feel bad for Becca. How horrible was her life that she needed to make up stories? And to alienate the only person who truly understood what was going on? As weird as this sounds, I do wish a couple of chapters had been written from Becca’s perspective. That way, I could have gotten a better handle on what was going through her head. I also couldn’t believe that any observant adult would notice the bruises and everything else that was going on with her.

I am going to age myself here, but I was the same age as Heather and Becca were in The Dead Girls Club. Just reading some of the things that they did, the music they listened too, and the clothing they wore sent me back to that time. Like Heather and Becca, I was interested in some of the same things they were. One memorable time of reciting “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary,” and using the Ouija board is seared into my brain. But it ended when our parents found out, and we all got into trouble. No one dies (well, one girl was convinced Bloody Mary showed up and scratched her legs up), and we all grew up to be who we are today.

There were two big plot twists in The Dead Girls Club. I didn’t see either of them coming. Honestly, there was a point in the book where I did think the same thing as Heather. Then, when it was revealed, I was stunned. But, I was even more shocked by what was revealed towards the end of the book. It came out of nowhere. I had to put the book down and say, “Are you flipping kidding me???”

This book captures a lot of the horror of being a pre-teen girl and the excitement that comes along with forays into the supernatural at that age. It also encompasses the long-term effects when those things go too far.

This is not so much a supernatural thriller as it is a thriller with elements of the supernatural in the story. As young teens, many of us fall into the "urban legends" and ghost stories and take them just a little too seriously. It is also a method of coping with some very real terrors.

Overall I found it to be an enjoyable read, and though I predicted the big reveal fairly early, it didn't take away from the suspense building up to it.

First off I love this cover which is what made me stop and check this book out. The blurb sounded good so I decided to take a chance on this new to me author. I didn’t hate the book but I didn’t love it either. The story is told in past and present. I really enjoyed the past parts of the book and reading about the Red Lady. I would have loved a point of view from Becca as well. The present part of the story is where I struggled big time. I didn’t care for Heather and found her to be bland and lacking personality. The ending of the book was anticlimactic as well. This book is billed as a supernatural thriller but I didn’t get that vibe while I read. It felt more of a mystery story than thriller. I wouldn’t be opposed to reading another book by this author in the future.

I received a complimentary electronic galley of THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB by Damien Angelica Walters for an honest review! Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and Netgalley for the chance to read and review!

Heather was part of a Dead Girls Club as a kid along with three of her friends. They loved scary stories about serial killers and monsters. Heather’s best friend Becca begins telling stories of the Red Lady which have her friends begging for more. The Red Lady is a vengeful spirit of a witch who was killed centuries before and Becca insists that the Red Lady is real. Setting out to prove the Red Lady’s existence winds up getting Becca killed.

Years later Heather is now all grown up. She is happily married and working as a child psychologist, but the events surrounding Becca’s death still haunt her. She has never told anyone what happened back then, but someone obviously knows because she receives a necklace int he mail, one that she believes Becca was wearing when she died. Heather is determined to discover who is out to uncover all of her secrets.

This is a book told in two time periods. We get Heather and Becca’s story from the early 1990s and Heather’s story from present day. With the split timeline, there’s always the danger that one story line is more engaging than the other and with this book I definitely looked forward to the 1990s story more than the present day. Present day Heather is deeply impacted by what happened to her as a child and she makes a lot of poor decisions which wind up being a lot of self-sabotage. Finding out what was going on with the Red Lady and the kids’ obsession with her was much more compelling for me.

The mystery of what happened to Becca and Heather’s role in her death was played out well. The author did a good job of laying in cliff hangers between sections and building the suspense. The present day mystery of who was bringing all of this back up with Heather also kept me interested to see how it would all wind up, but I felt the ending just a little anti-climatic for me.

Though this was a little slow to engage for me in the beginning, I kept getting drawn more and more into the story as it went along. Overall THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB was an enjoyable read and I’m glad that I had the chance.

THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB will be out on December 10, 2019!

The long-awaited The Dead Girls Club by horror author Damien Angelica Walters has the same crackling energy as the film, The Craft but also Heathers, with this book featuring even more sinister characters. The protagonist, Heather, was part of a Dead Girls Club with her best friend, Becca, Gia, and Rachel. They used to read from true crime books about serial killers and imagined what it would be like to be killed in a horrific way, “The bloodier, the better.” They used to be obsessed with serial killers, such as Ted Bundy.

Years later, someone knows about Heather’s secret and is after her for it.

I find this book to be noir mixed with horror--a crime fiction thriller more along the lines of The Girl on The Train and Gone Girl. The horrors come from the serial killer/true crime aspect.

If you enjoyed the same structure of the ‘now’ and ‘then’ as The Haunting of Hill House adaptation on Netflix, you’ll really enjoy The Dead Girls Club, which has the same episodic quality.

There’s an urban legend about the Red Lady who is like a Salem Witch (except in this case, actually was a bona fide witch, and it causes huge issues with her community and young girls. That's all I can say without going into major spoilers. The closest comparison of what the girls do when they find out about this urban legend is to try to summon the Red Lady, similarly to Bloody Mary.

The twist, when it does come, is not a shocker, but it’s still executed very well, so bonus points to the author on that. The book builds up on a tension that permeates throughout the book. I found it a compelling read for several reasons, and think fans of the author's short work and other books, such as Paper Tigers will enjoy it, as well as those who are newer to her work. If you're looking for a wonderful gift for someone who loves this type of book, with the holiday release timing pretty close, I think it would a great choice.