Kate Turner and her daughter, Alex, have moved to a small town in Florida from New York. Kate hopes the move will help, that she and Alex will make new friends, and put their tragic past behind them.

Alex has a run-in with Daphne, Callie and Shae, three mean girls at her new school, but Kate is befriended by Genevieve, Ingrid and Emma, the mothers of those girls.



The book is written in the first person past tense PoV of Kate. This main narrative is interspersed with transcripts of the footage from Alex’ video diary.

I could relate to Kate, to the fact that she was swamped with life and had no real friends. But I couldn’t understand her desire to be friends with Genevieve and her clique, while completely disregarding how fake they were.

The dialogue between Kate and Joe Miller, the handsome single father she befriends, is quite lame. The writing too was rather prosaic. At one point, Kate tells us that she is ‘incandescent with rage.”

I didn’t like any of the characters. Kate herself appeared rather petty in her attitude towards her neighbour, Lita Green. Granted that Lita gossips a lot, but that didn’t condone Kate’s high-handed attitude towards her.

Also, she complains about Alex having distanced herself but makes rather feeble attempts to get closer to her.

The novel went on for far too long. The middle should have been cut down. It added nothing of value to the narrative. The action picks up towards the end, by which time we are nearly running out of patience.

I wish authors would stop resorting to the Mean Girls trope. It’s been done once too often, and in this novel, there isn’t even a valid reason for why the girls act the way they do.

I've enjoyed previous books by Margot Hunt, so I was excited to dig into this. Kind of a crazy premise, but it worked. I flew through this book and finished in less than a day. I loved the character of Alex and thought she was stronger than other female teen characters I've encountered lately. My only critique is that the character of Kate seemed a little... dumb? Or maybe desperate is a better word? I found myself yelling "get there faster" at her in my head near the end of the book.
Overall, I enjoyed this and would recommend it to others.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC!

Highly recommend this one! This was my first book to read by this author but definitely won't be my last. The characters will stay with you long after you finish the book and you will find yourself wishing the story would never end.

Margot Hunt gives us a fresh take on Mean Girls with her terrific thriller Lovely Girls. The story is riveting! The novel is well-written and expertly plotted and paced. Protagonists Kate and Alex are a mother-daughter duo struggling with grief while adjusting to life in a new town. They are likeable women we can empathize with and root for. As I turned the pages, I could hardly wait to find out what happened next. We know bad things are going to happen, and the build-up of tension lets us know things will be very, very bad, indeed. Fortunately, the author brings levity to the story with a budding romance we can get behind while we anticipate the darker plot twists. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. A recommended read.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for providing an ARC to read and review. This review will appear on Bayside Book Reviews at https://baysidebookreviews.com and its Instagram page on release day. *NetGalley Top Reviewer*

I stayed up wayyy past my bedtime finishing this last night. My first book by this author and what a welcome surprise! This gave me chilling Mean Girls and a bit of Cruel Summer vibes with mystery and loads of suspense. Lots of high school drama, cliques, and bullying. Parents not excluded. Throw in a murder and you have a very entertaining thriller! This was an easy read that held my attention the entire time and got better as it went on.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you @netgalley and Thomas & Mercer for the complimentary ebook!

Pub Date: 3/1/23

I couldn’t put this down! It reminded me of shows like Pretty Little Liars. There was plenty of backstabbing, drama, privileged moms and children, bullying. I’m glad I was raised in a time where social media didn’t exist. It’s truly terrifying what kids go through in school now. I had trouble understanding Alex during certain parts but I think she wound up being relatable. No one is perfect and not everything is black and white. The last chapter was my favorite part.

This book was a great read. A teen dealing with bullying, loss of a family member, and working through them. Bullies were portrayed well and hateful, showing where they came from in a horrifying manner. Small twist at the end was unexpected. I thoroughly enjoyed this story.

Wow! This book was not at all what I expected and that truly was in a good way. I love going into books blindly and getting a wonderful surprise. Add this to your list!

3.5 stars rounded up ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Newly widowed Kate Turner and her daughter Alex are looking for a fresh start, and they think they’ve found it in the beachside town of Shoreham, Florida. While Kate easily makes friends with a clique of moms, their daughters take an instant dislike to Alex, who documents their extreme bullying in her video diary. Kate is quick to brush off Alex’s concerns until rumors about the moms and their daughters start to spread and someone ends up dead. Can Kate trust anyone in this town, including her own daughter?

The bullying in this book is just awful. To think that anyone could get away with that for so long is ridiculous. That said, the book was an engaging, easy read that kept me interested from start to finish. The ending of the book was predictable but chilling nonetheless.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Publication: March 1, 2023

This is my first book by Margot Hunt and I struggled with this book. It's a typical run of the mill domestic thriller with the mean girl trope.

I think what really turned me off to this book was the mean girl trope and the excessive bullying. I'm personally not a fan of either of those pieces in a mystery/thriller. It made it very uncomfortable for me to read personally.

I will say on the positive side Hunt's writing is very readable and suvks you in from the start.

2.75 stars rounded up to 3

I first discovered Margot Hunt several years ago when I read For Better or Worse. I loved it so much I tracked down as many of her other books as I could get my hands on -- and liked them just as much. Ms. Hunt's newest domestic thriller, Lovely Girls, is every bit as engaging and enjoyable as her previous novels. Highly recommend.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Lovely Girls by Margot Hunt is a thriller focusing on the lives of Kate Turner and her daughter, Alex, who, after an unfortunate accident, had to move out to the illusorily perfect town of Shoreham. As Alex struggles to fit in in her new school, making immediate enemies with a group of seemingly lovely girls, her mum’s social life seems to be soaring – she befriends another group, three women, the mothers of Alex’s enemies. But things aren’t so good in Shoreham, as Alex shares in her secret vlogs, exposing the truth about what is going on, and her mum continues to be told to get away from her new friends and not trust them. As time progresses and the events become more drastic they have to ask the question – what is truly going on?

The book was pretty interesting to read, combining the perspectives of the two women – Kate’s, the mum’s, through entire chapters written in her perspective, describing the current events of their lives in Shoreham and Alex’s, the daughter’s, through her vlogs. This allowed the reader to discover the town and get to know the characters from various views.

The characters themselves were alright, I enjoyed Kate and her personality, though I found myself irritated by Alex in some moments. Obviously, the bad characters, the ones created to be evil stood out to me and gave out the reader the impression that they are the antagonists indeed.

Although there were many plot twists in the story, many of them were rather easy to guess and predict. I think the biggest shock for me were the titles of both parts that the book was divided into, as they, on one hand, spoiled what was about to happen but they also kept the reader on their toes.

Altogether, it was a quick and rather enjoyable read, it was interesting to observe the intrigues, the lies and the breakdown of the seemingly perfect town and the perfect people.

3/5 stars.

THANK YOU THOMAS & MERCER AND NETGALLEY FOR PROVIDING ME WITH A DIGITAL COPY OF THIS BOOK.

Why do girls have to be so mean???

We are not going to get along in this book. Not at all.... We have Kate and her daughter Alex who move to Shoreham, FL: A beach town to start their lives over after losing her husband/dad in a auto accident. Kate soon becomes friends with a group of women while Alex starts to immediately have trouble with their daughters. Like big time trouble as they ruthlessly start to bully her. Things start to intensify until it builds up to a deadly climax.

What works: In a nutshell, I just really liked this book. It was very engaging and easy to read while at the same time didn't shy away from the intensity. There was never a time when I was at ease with this book and there was always a sense of dread with no comic relief. Margot Hunt is a talented writer and she ropes you in pretty quickly. The main characters are also written well. Kate is a badass as she goes into mom mode to protect her daughter. Alex is also strong as well as she handles their bullying as well as anyone could. She makes some very bad decisions that start to train-roll this book but even when you're cursing her for being so dumb you also can't help but "get it" to why she snaps and makes some of the decisions she does.

The ending is very chilling..... I re-read the very last sentence several times.

What doesn't work: It's just a thriller? You have read this before. The plot is very simple overall but you could easily take that as a positive. In fact, once the plot starts to steamroll this one becomes more character then plot driven which I really liked.

On the whole I highly recommend this book. You will read about some very mean girls and intense bullying in a expertly written and engaging novel.

I really appreciate Thomas & Mercer for giving me the opportunity to review this book and it has a publication date of March 1, 2023.

I received this advance reader copy for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.

Lovely Girls by Margot Hunt is a compulsively readable thriller that features a mother/daughter duo (rather than the ore typical husband/wife pairing). As the mother of a teenage girl- I thought the author did an amazing job capturing the often fraught and confusing relationship between this person you created and know so intimately, who is also, often, a complete mystery. Great book, highly recommend!

Newly widowed Kate and her daughter Alex move to Shoreham, Florida for a fresh start in life. Shortly after their move, Alex starts her final year of highschool and is looking forward to joining their tennis team. While Kate seems to be bonding with the other girls' moms, Alex is immediately targeted by the clique of mean girls on that team. What starts as bullying soon turns deadly in this high drama novel.

This was like Mean Girls to the extreme, minus the comedy. The girls in this novel were ruthless to say the least and I found myself appalled by their actions and the sad part is, most of the things in this do actually happen. This was a quick, enjoyable read. However, I found Alex to be a little too naive. There were also times the solution would be blatantly obvious and she would choose the complete opposite. I found it a little aggravating but besides that, I enjoyed this one. Three stars.

This was a great book. I loved every paragraph, every sentence and every word of this masterpiece! I read it in 12 hours, which is a lot for me to do! It had everything and more laid out in the novel! I sure hope she writes more! I am totally hooked!

Lovely Girls is the first book I have read from the Margot Hunt collection. I loved her style of writing which is quite addictive and makes you turn the pages. This book redefines mean and there is a focus on mental health and bullying as a part of the premise.

The book focuses on both Kate and Alex and how they are impacted which I found to be interesting. The tropes of mean girls, recent move post a tragedy and not everything being what it seems like were what made me pick this up.

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story about how awful teenage girls can be and even harder on the new girl. Sadly, I found this very believable. The characters were so well described and felt so believable that at times I felt like I was ready a true crime novel.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The meanest of the mean girls and their mean moms are diabolical characters in this novel.

I enjoyed lovely girls. Following a personal tragedy Kate and Alex move to the seemingly idiotic town of shoreham, however all is not what it appears to be on the outside

A fast paced plot that grips you from the beginning. I am a sucker for the “character moves to a new town” plot and this one doesn’t disappoint. The duel narration from both Kate and Alex makes for a compelling read which kept me engaged through out. I read this in one go and I think this is due to the format, making this a good poolside/ holiday read for 2023.

Thank you netgalley and publishers for an ARC