I am a huge fan of the alternating chapters between past and present. I am also a fan of true crime so I was excited to read this. I really, really wanted to like this book. It just fell flat for me. It was way too long and I kept losing interest. I'm not sure if I will read any more books by this author or not. Thank you to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.

This book was awesome. I enjoyed the ride of this book! Almost a little sci fi/witchy! Really really good book!

I thought the story idea was brilliant and for the most part I enjoyed it.
I kind of hated Heather.
A LOT.
She was rather reckless and ridiculous in both time lines of the book.
Most of the things she does (or doesn't do) had me shaking my head and rolling my eyes.
This did pique my interest for checking out the authors other work.
Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for my ARC.

Heather's best friend Becca died the summer they were twelve. More accurately, Heather killed her. But it wasn't just Heather...The Red Lady was there too. Now, 30 years later, details about Becca's death are coming back to haunt Heather, and she's quickly unraveling.

I loved this book. I loved the "kids going on an adventure during summer break" vibe it had. I loved the constant ramping up of action, and I loved the paranormal elements. That depiction of youthful nostalgia will get me every time, and Walters does a great job of it here. The Dead Girls Club makes you think a lot about what is real, what is fiction, and how fragile our perception is. It also makes you think about true love in friendship and the lengths some will go to int he name of that love and loyalty. I really applaud Walters' depiction of tween girl friendships in this book. They are messy and powerful and beautiful and she really nailed them.

Walters blends real world drama with paranormal terror in such a skilled and exciting way. Jumping back and forth between Heather's past and present helps build the suspense to the point where I was ignoring all other life obligations just so I didn't have to put this book down! And while I did have a couple of issues, none of them got in the way of my enjoyment of The Dead Girls Club. I look forward to reading more from Walters in the future!

The Dead Girls Club was founded by a group of friends including our protagonist Heather Cole. The four girls of the club are united in their curiosity for the stories about gruesome topics - serial killers and chilling fantasy beings. So begins the tale of The Dead Girls Club and The Red Lady - an ancient witch with a thirst for retribution. Becca's belief in the mysterious spirit is inevitably why she dies at the hands of Heather, her best friend forever. Heather has been building her life for over thirty years and done her best to try and forget the events that transpired but someone isn't willing to let her forget.

The Dead Girls Club is written in a way that it feels like a descent with our main character Heather for her memories and current life. As a character Heather is well put together, successful and no nonsense - she is not what I would consider a vapid female character. This book is like reading the tricks your mind plays on you after something disconcerting happens to you or watching something scary/paranormal.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it was easy to get sucked in and the 90's tween characters are pretty on point. It does touch base on some sensitive subjects and contains some profanity. Fans of suspense, horror, paranormal and urban legends would enjoy this book. I received a copy of this novel through NetGalley in change for an honest review thanks to Crooked Lane Books.

The first thing I noticed about this book is that the description gives away most of the plot and I felt like I didn't need to finish the book because I knew what was going to happen. This made the story almost predictable. The main character was well developed and I like that the story flash back and forth between past/present. However, there was so much dialog between the girls when they were young that I don't think really needed to be included. I really wanted a very dark-plotted murder mystery and this book just wasn't it. However, the writing was well done and I liked how the characters were developed.

Holy wow! This book……what can I say about this novel? Well, for starters, it is absolutely a fantastic, thrilling, often times downright twisting, mind screw. That’s right. I can’t say the word I really wanna use, so we will just say mind screw. That made this book absolutely phenomenal. Walters is a new-to-me author and this book now has me hooked on her writing style!

Childhood friendships, one deadly night, and many haunting years later, this story will twist you up, make you think, give you chills all while keeping you up at night. Reading Heather’s story, of wondering if the Red Lady is really real, or if it’s a just a story she told as a kid with her friends in the Dead Girls Club, really messed me up inside…..in a good way! Especially after reading about one fateful night. I’ll admit that Heather was……..well, she took getting used to because she just didn’t do things like I would have done! But, that’s okay. Because she was perfect for role.

If you scare easily, or if you just don’t like disturbing reads, then do not get this novel. This novel is one that you will absolutely not be able to put down. You’ll crave knowing what happened to Heather’s friend Becca. You’ll find yourself needing to know who sent Heather something from that one awful night. You’ll find yourself up late, into the eerie night, turning page after page of this 5 star psychological mind blowing novel! Pre-order your copy today!

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from the Publisher and was under no obligation to post a review, positive or negative.*

Enjoyable mystery, intriguing characters. Mostly something I would read as a good plane book or on vacation.

When Heather was twelve she and her friends formed a club to talk about ghosts and serial killers. Her best friend, Becca, told them a story about the Red Lady and the girls become fascinated and scared at the thought she might be real. The story picks up nearly thirty years later and we follow Heather, who is now a psychiatrist, as the past comes back to haunt her.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel that Heather was a very sympathetic character, especially in the 'Now' sections, and so I never got fully invested in her story. Some of the character motivations and decision making required suspension of disbelief and there are times when things felt drawn out and repetitive.

I felt that this was a pretty generic thriller and full of tropes. It was okay but there wasn't anything that really made it stand out to me. I have previously read Walters' short story collection Cry Your Way Home which I really enjoyed. The interesting ideas and excellent writing from that collection just weren't present in this novel which made for quite a disappointing read in comparison to what I was expecting. It was still quite a compelling read but I was left wanting more.

The story starts off with a really interesting setup with girls playing in an abandoned house, talking about murders/horror stuff, truly believing about a Red lady. One kid, Becca is brutally killed and the mother ends up in jail for murdering her own kid. The narrator, Heather, a child psychologist, is one of the girls now grown up with a family and suddenly the whole murder is back in her life. The story shifts between the past and current life which helps filling up the gaps. There is a constant suspicion if the narrator is the actual killer and if not, who could have killed.

It does have horror elements but was not scary so it felt to be more of a whodunnit mystery and also keeps the reader guessing how much supernatural activity is involved. It has some good twists and keeps up intrigue level till the end. Though it started off great, I felt the plot didn’t pick up until 20%. It got better after that and kept its pace. Heather was not that likable and also she makes really stupid decisions. But because of her personality, it keeps readers waiting to see what she decides at each step.

Overall an interesting story and a good psychological thriller.

Thank you Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me an advanced copy.

This is billed as a “supernatural thriller.” I don’t read in the horror genre, nor do I read much dealing with the supernatural, so I can’t say how this book measures up against Trembley’s A Head Full of Ghosts or others in this category. As a thriller, I think it was a mixed success.

This novel is written in the ever-popular dual timeline format.

In the “now,” we follow adult Heather as she receives the necklace in the mail and hunts for who sent this to her. In the “then” sections, we follow Heather and her other friends during the summer between 7th and 8th grade. Becca tells stories about the Red Lady. They’re fascinated. But as the summer progresses, “fascinated” becomes “obsessed.” As you’d expect, the two timelines converge at the end.

At first, the “then” sections didn’t interest me. When I was 12-13 years old, the supernatural wasn’t enthralling to me. Ditto for scary stories, ghosts, anything macabre. Never played Bloody Mary or Light as a Feather. In other words, the girls of the Dead Girls Club would’ve kicked me out if a) we’d known each other, and b) they weren’t fictional characters.

Even so, there were things in those sections that rang true in my memory. The mistaken idea that once you make a promise, you must keep it. The equally mistaken idea that adults don’t have a clue and can’t help. The idea that best friends stay best friends forever.

Walters does a great job capturing the teen mindset and how easily they succumb to obsessions not easily understood by the adults around them. Because of this, by the end of the book, the “then” sections captured my attention. I read quickly, eager to learn what happened to Becca.

The opposite was true of the “now” sections. At first, I was curious about Heather’s reactions. But as her mental state rapidly deteriorated, her decisions became self-defeating and hurtful, both to herself and others. Just like Becca became obsessed with the Red Lady and was convinced only the Red Lady could help her, Heather becomes obsessed with finding out who knows “the truth.” She can’t think rationally.

After a certain point, I (along with another character) lost patience with her. She’s a trained child psychologist. Yet she behaves unprofessionally: forgets to take notes during sessions; zones out during group sessions with volatile teens; and reschedules patients’ appointments so she can hunt for whoever continues to send her items from the past.

(As a mom, I feel badly for the guardians of her child clients who have undoubtedly taken off from work, specifically chosen a particular time to fit into the child’s school/activity schedule, and will not be happy at last minute cancellations. Like I said, Heather’s not being professional, nor empathetic to her clients’ needs.)

At this point, she appears to need counseling more than give counseling.

It’s also increasingly apparent that she’s an unreliable narrator. How much of what she tells us is real? How much is delusional? Is her memory reliable? For example, we hear the Red Lady stories through Heather’s first person point of view memories from thirty-odd years before. Were these really the stories that Becca told? Have the stories been colored by Becca’s fate?

While I can enjoy an unsympathetic, unreliable narrator, these characters are tricky to pull off. (The type of narrator has also been overused in recent years, in my opinion.)

Heather’s paranoia escalates quickly. Rather than a gradual mental breakdown, which would feel more compelling and understandable for most readers, her reactions become overreactions.

While I understand her desire to keep this a secret, her continual secrets and lies make her previous stability seem unbelievable. How on earth was this woman able to function well enough (without counseling, apparently) to get a doctorate in psychology? Of all people, she should know the dangers of keeping secrets; she kept the secret of Becca’s mother’s “problems” even when questioned by her parents, with disastrous results.

At the same time, though, I understand why she’s haunted by Becca. She turned a blind eye to her best friend’s need, and when she did try to help, she only hurt her. That’s not a decision that can be undone.

I remember being a teen and responding inadequately to friends in similar circumstances. The evidence was right before my eyes but I was too naive, too preoccupied with myself to act in my friends’ best interest. (Yes, plural.) Those times of willful blindness haunt me to this day. As I read this book, I thought about them. No one died, but if they had . . . Who’s to say that I wouldn’t be as paranoid as Heather?

All that to say, while I frequently lost patience with her, I also saw certain elements of myself reflected in her. And that scared me more than any Red Lady story.

I had mixed feelings about the ending. It felt like the conflict both was and wasn’t resolved at the same time. Still, I don’t know what a better ending would be.

In the end, The Dead Girls’ Club is worth reading. Here’s why: Walters beautifully captures the early teen mindset of all-or-nothing thinking. Heather and Becca’s story serves as a sober reminder that the stories we tell ourselves are rarely only stories, obsessions can turn deadly, and turning a blind eye to those in need will haunt you for life. Recommended to suspense fans.

Thanks to Crooked Lane Books and Netgalley for a copy of The Dead Girls’ Club in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4
Note: this review will appear on my blog on November 18, 2019.

Heather Cole is a 40ish-year-old child psychologist with a loving husband and a quiet life. Then her life is turned upside-down by the arrival of half of a "Best Friends Forever" necklace in the mail. While the other half of that necklace is safe at her house, she knows this half was last seen on the body of her best friend who died 30 years ago...at Heather's own hand. What follows is a tale of fear and obsession as Heather tries to find out who sent her the necklace, while having terrifying memories and dreams about her teenage days, when she and her friends tried to summon a witch.

I know that the lower I rate a book, the longer the review tends to be, so I'll try to be more succinct in this one. Most of what I really want to say is spoilery anyway, so here goes. I really did not like the main character...couldn't connect with her at all. I also didn't find the mystery or the twists all that interesting or surprising, and pretty strongly dislike the ending. And the synopsis is very misleading.

The story is told in 2 timelines--the NOW is first-person POV with Heather as an adult narrator. The THEN is third-person POV, but still focuses on teenage Heather. I could not stand adult Heather. She acts like a victim of this mysterious person who is sending her little things that Heather knows were directly related to the night Becca died, but uses this as an excuse to stalk people from her past and treat pretty much everyone she interacts with terribly. By the second half of the book, I would literally groan every time the book went back to the NOW storyline, because it was just so boring. Her obsession with finding out what was going on turned her into a monster. And don't even get me started on how terrible she became at her job, which just bugged me so much.

I also got to a point by halfway in the book where reading it made me feel kinda skeevy. Heather had a habit of picking at her cuticles when she was nervous and stressed, which of course she was during the entire book. As an author, it is important to give characters quirks, ticks, habits like this to make them seem real, but the amount that her peeling, biting, and scratching at herself enough to draw blood is shown got under my skin (pun intended).

I am surprised I haven't seen this in any reviews yet, but during the THEN timeline, the teenage girls go into a bit too much detail about their menstrual cycle for my taste, which makes me feel especially bad for any men who read it. There's just no need for some of what they said to be included in this book...at all.

Now about the horror aspect...I honestly can't even tell you why I requested a book classified as horror (I told myself that it must not have been listed as horror until later, but I really can't say if that's true), because I am really not into horror in general. But I steeled myself for a scary read...that hardly came. The supernatural elements that the book promised were flimsy and constantly explained away by the MC. I think I came to realize at some point that the narrator was very unreliable, which just made me doubt everything that happened in the THEN parts. I also didn't find the stories about the Red Lady scary. A bit gruesome and over-the-top, yes, but not so much scary. Near the end, the combination of reading the last 25% at night and a decently creep scene did finally give me some chills, but that was pretty much it. I'm seriously a wimp when it comes to scary things, so that might tell you something about the level of horror in this book. I also wouldn't really classify it as a thriller, so suspense is the best I could come up with.

In the end, a lot of this probably boils down to personal preference. So this wasn't a good book for me, but it has plenty of 4- and 5-star reviews. The THEN parts contain some 90s nostalgia that a lot of people will probably enjoy, and the horror and thriller elements will likely hit the mark with plenty of people. So if it seems interesting to you, please be sure to check out others' reviews for this book.

The Dead Girls Club was such a fun read. It reminded me of a more macabre Pretty Little Liars.

Essentially, the story is about 4 young girls with an unhealthy interest in serial killers and murder stories. They create a club and nerd out over their shared obsession until something very dark happens.

The book alternates between past and present to create a full picture. The author successfully creates a foreboding and suspenseful tone throughout the book.

Thriller fans who enjoy books such as Sometimes I Lie, or authors like Ruth Ware or Lisa Jewell will enjoy this one. I enjoyed it for the entertainment value.

The Dead Girls Club is fun and trope-y, filled with the kinds of witchy cliches that I personally love, but something about this one just seemed unsatisfying to me. I would have a hard time recommending this to readers whose taste I'm not familiar with, but I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix or The Babysitters Coven by Kate Williams. Definitely fast-paced and enjoyable, but mediocre execution gets in the way of a good story.

First, I want to thank Crooked Lane Publishing for a review copy of this novel for review. All opinions are my own.

We start this journey off with a mystery right off the bat. We follow Heather and her friends that have a Dead Girls Club where they like to talk about serial killers and true crime, but then the storyline gets so much deeper. You really can't get into much detail without giving away things, but that ending - with! Knocked me out, never seen it coming. These characters are relatable and there's just something you feel for them as the storyline goes back and forth from the THEN & NOW. Let me tell you I gave it a solid 4 stars, but as I sat on this review.... I had to give it a solid 5 just with this being one of the best psychological thillers I've read. I will tell you this now...cone January - BUY IT I highly recommend it!!

“The true ghosts are made of deed and word and live deep inside the marrow and bone.” (pg. 46)
The Dead Girls Club tells the story of Heather from two perspectives. One is as she is now, a child psychologist with a successful practice and a good marriage; and one is as she was then, a twelve-year old girl running with three friends who share a fascination for serial killer statistics and ghost stories. It always seems strange that young girls should be so preoccupied with tales of violence and horror, but I myself can remember poring over a copy of Helter Skelter as a preteen with my best friend, both of us mesmerized. At sleepovers I’d play the Bloody Mary game, and like Heather and her friends try to levitate people with “light as a feather, thick as a board.” They say horror stories provide people with a safe space to face their fears and vulnerability. And arguably, no one is more vulnerable than a 12-year-old girl.
But it appears that something happened back when Heather was a child that went farther than Ouija board antics in a basement rec room. And now, in her adult life, that something may be coming back to haunt her in the form of the “Red Lady,” a witch/ghost story her best friend Becca was obsessed with at the time of her disappearance all those years ago.
The author’s writing has technical strength, and the fiction is well plotted. I really liked and empathized with the premise. There are a few excellent lines (like the one quoted above). But overall there was a tendency toward cliché that affected my enjoyment of the story. While other reviewers found it difficult to appreciate the adult version of Heather, I found the young Heather sections less authentic and more in keeping with a YA novel. I appreciate that the author was attempting to communicate a child-like mentality of that young narrator, but I still think there is a way to do this with the sophistication of adult audiences in mind. Examples that come to mind are Room by Emma Donoghue and Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
Still, I appreciate authors who seek to relate the unique experiences of women and girls. And the morbid fascination with dark magic and dark crimes in those younger years is as much a part of the shared feminine tradition as whispering about who’s got their period and who doesn’t.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

cover165462-medium I recently got really into Marianne on Netflix. I binged the entire series in a weekend and was superbly creeped out the entire time. I loved the idea of a centuries old demonic witch having controlled a young writer into telling the world of her stories so that she could use the magic of influence to continue to kill and mame through brutal accidents each time the woman wrote a book. It was really well done and if you have a weekend where you just want to binge something creepy, I highly recommend it.

Similarly, Damien Angelica Walters takes us on a journey through the past and present to bring to life the story of a decades old murder and the tale of The Red Lady. Years ago, Heather was part of a club with her friends. They called it The Dead Girls Club because they would sit around and tell stories about death, the macabre and serial killers. Somewhere along the line, one of the girls, Becca, introduces the story of The Red Lady, who is a witch that was killed centuries ago.

After the story is shared, strange things start happening to the girls and ultimately tragedy strikes that summer when one of the girls is killed. Was it really The Red Lady or was it just hysteria among a group of 12-year-old girls? Years later, Heather is bent on finding the answer as she takes us back through her story and we weave into the past and present trying to put the pieces together. As Heather gets closer to the truth, mysterious threats and clues arrive, bringing Heather into a panic...who could really know what happened that summer? Who would know and why are they coming forward now? Heather becomes lost in a sea of time and regret, unable to distinguish between what is real and what is not, leaving us readers in just as panicked a state as we try to reach our own conclusions on whether or not Heather had killed Becca 30 years ago or if The Red Lady is, in fact, very real.

The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters is the kind of horror thriller that will keep you reading until the early hours of the morning. This is a book that will keep you on your toes and won't let you go until it's done. Walters crafted a solid plot that immediately pulls you in and drives you through a roller coaster of events and moments before reaching it's inevitable end. Just be sure to read this one with your lights on and your husband near by because you will feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and little noises will send your book flying across the room-- a wonderfully written thriller.
Book Information

The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters is scheduled to be released on December 10, 2019, from Crooked Lane Books with ISBN 9781643851631. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

As children Heather and Becca are part of the Dead Girls Club, a group of girls obsessed with monsters, serial killers, and all things scary. When the girls start talking about the Red Lady, things take a deadly turn. 30 years later, when Heather receives a necklace in the mail, she is confronted with a secret that she has managed to keep buried: she killed her best friend Becca.

After all the hype I have heard about The Dead Girls Club I was expecting a lot from this novel. I didn’t really like Heather, in fact I found her kind of annoying, so by extension I didn’t really enjoy the novel. The characters are well developed, and the story line is a good one, but I just could not get into it with my dislike of Heather.

Thank you NetGalley for an e-arc of The Dead Girls Club, given in exchange for an honest review.

I received a free e-copy of The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters from NetGalley for my honest review.

This was an interesting read but the writing fell flat for me. I enjoyed the beginning of the book a lot more than the last half of the book.

Heather and her best friend Becca, along with two other friends are obsessed with serial killers. Becca loves to tell scary stories. One story in particular, The Red Lady, keeps getting revisited. A story of a witch who was murdered by her own town and not even her friends did anything to help her. The story continues that the whole town ended up dying afterwards. Becca believes the story and convinces all her friends as well except Heather. But then something happens that makes her doubt herself and her friend Becca. Heather decides to help Becca prove the Red Lady is real until Becca turns up dead.

Now 30 years later and strange things start to happen. Someone knows what Happened all those years ago. Is Heather's life in danger? What really happened to Becca and who knows the truth?

DNF 🤦‍♀️

This book had everything going for it: Title, cover & premise! Except, it didn't quite work out the way I hoped.

The story started off strong with Heather and the package she receives. Where things quickly went downhill for me were Heather's repetitive thoughts and unnecessary description of her house. I can already feel Heather being an exhausting character. It's never a good sign when I start zoning out while reading.

Such a shame, cause I was intrigued by this 'Red Lady' business!