Well, I loved this the first book, When She Was Me! Gave it 5 stars. This one is good too. Had fun reading this one. It's not the typical fast-paced thriller but more a mystery you want to solve. It grabbed me and I knew there was something more behind this than you first think.
The story is about Ren and her sister Margo. You get to know the story about the death of Margo but also what is happening on this school, in their hometown. But that's not all. There is also something dark about Ren and the bond between her and her sister Margo.
It kept me going and read this one in two days. I loved it!

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for my advanced copy.

I think most teenage girls at some point end up having a crush on that one high school teacher. You know the one, everyone likes him, he's easy to talk to, makes jokes in class and when he smiles you just know it's for you. You start to get all dreamy and planning your future but what if that one teacher and that one crush haunts you forever? That's when you hear the whispers, The Whispers of Dead Girls pushing you to do what is right, to protect these young girls, find the answers, keep them safe and from making that same mistake. You know how they feel, you know what the others are saying about them, you know the grief, the guilt but you don't know the twist so you have to read this book!
The author does a great job of telling Ren's story, a teacher who is suspicious of a student's crush on another teacher along with the her own crush from the past and all the guilt, grief and danger that comes along with it all with an unexpected twist. It has a great combination of suspense, emotions and what's going to happen next thrill.

This book is just wow! The characters were well written, the plot was excellent, and I was hooked the entire time. Ren was a bit complex, but I cheered her on throughout the book. The book was great and kept me engaged so I finished it in one sitting.

Think A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, but from the teacher's perspective. I devoured this book in one sitting. It was impossible to predict the outcome and the twists along the way were shocking. I never expected the ending which is just how I like my thrillers. This is one thriller of 2025 not to miss!

Thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a good book. It was intriguing and fast paced due to shorter chapters, but I really did not like Ren at all and I did find some of the external story lines to be a bit overwhelming.

Ren accepts a job teaching at her old high school. Here she hopes to make peace with her past, but the fact that her murdered teenage sister is still immortalized in town makes that challenging. Ren can’t stop seeing her sister everywhere she goes, and she’s still distraught by the scandal that both ruined her childhood and killed her sister. Soon, Ren meets physics teacher Bryson Lewis. Bryson is both handsome and charismatic. The more Ren watches him from across the hall, the more suspicious she becomes. Then, she sees him developing a close relationship with a girl from one of his classes, a girl who reminds her of her sister. Ren is terrified that history is about to repeat itself. This time she won’t sit back and watch. This time Ren will do something before it’s too late.

This was my second book by Marlee Bush. She hooked me right from the beginning. I read this book pretty much in one sitting. The small-town atmosphere featuring a gossip hotline is just perfect. The main character, Ren, is very relatable, and it’s easy to root for her in the story. Clear your schedule for this one because once you start, you won’t be able to stop. I recommend this one to anyone that enjoys twisty thrillers! I give it 4.5/5 stars.

I found this book lacking as a thriller. It might be great marketed as a YA book. It just wasn't for me.

Whispers of Dead Girls
Marlee Bush
05/27/2025
Poisoned Pen Press

Meet Ren Taylor, a very flawed protagonist who will challenge yours, hers and everyone else’s moral boundaries. She will encourage you to broaden your understanding, and prompt you to reflect on how you would respond in those situations. Ren is part vigilante and part anti-hero.

10 years earlier Ren lost her sister and best friend Margo. Margo’s murder, and the truth and facts around that murder, are dropped little by little, but only one person knows the truth. Since then, Ren has been hardened toward men. She finds herself back home, teaching at her former high school, where she lost her sister and finds too many similarities to her sister’s murder when compared to current missing and murdered girls, and sexual predators. Ren wants to make sure victims are heard, but what if the victims are not victims at all? What if Ren just always sees the worst?

This book is a fast paced, heart wrenching read with twists and turns that will keep you up all night reading. There really is no way to stop. The reader needs to know what happened to Margo; what happened in Ren’s past that made her become so cynical and distrusting of men and anyone in authority? What will stay with you long after you finish is Marlee Bush's ability to balance the emotional pull and importance of the topics among the pages with a heart-pounding plot!

My sincere thanks to NetGalley, Marlee Bush, and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The book follows Ren Taylor, who returns to her small hometown to take a teaching job at the high school where she once faced the tragedy of her sister’s death. Now, a decade later, Ren is still haunted by her sister’s murder, quite literally sees Margo everywhere, and when a series of disturbing disappearances begin to mirror her past, Ren becomes obsessed with stopping history from repeating itself. Her suspicions fall on Bryson Lewis, a male teacher who seems way too familiar with the victims. As Ren delves deeper into the mystery, she must confront the dark secrets of her past and confront a reality she is hiding even from herself.
It's a good book that could be exceptional, not to mention empowering, if it wasn't for a false note close to the ending, and admission of guilt that should not be there, or at least not in this form. Sadly it weakens the essence of solidarity and shared perspective present for the majority of the plot, solidarity of hurt girls, broken girls, girls exploited and dechieved, silenced and disregarded, powerless against men in position of authority, confused by their own feelings, suffering from betrayal and stripped of safety and innocence.
That being said, it's still a deeply sad, emotional and intimate story and it surely will resonate with many readers, especially female ones.

#WhispersofDeadGirls #NetGalley

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 4 Stars
This book follows Ren, haunted by her sister’s untimely passing, and her journey back to where it all began. She is back to her home town, starting a new job at her old high school. She grows mysterious of the teacher across the hall, noticing that things aren’t right between him and a fellow student. But her sister is always there with her, even though she is dead.

There’s a lot of things I liked about this book. The writing style was quick and zippy, and definitely kept me wanting to turn the page to see what was happening next. However, sometimes the author would switch between past and current tense in an unclear manner, so it was a little hard to follow in the beginning before I got used to it.

A fair warning, there is a LOT of grooming in this book. Not sure I would have picked it up had I been aware, but I don’t regret reading it. Overall it was a solid thriller with a twist I did not guess!

A huge thank you to Atria Publishing and Poisoned Pen Press for an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts!

Wasn’t able to read this one digitally but I did order a copy of the book so will be reviewing it after I’ve read it. I’m really excited for it as I’ve only heard great things about it.

Thank you, Poisoned Pen Press for providing the copy of Whispers Of Dead Girls by Marlee Bush. I loved the premise of the book, and former students coming back as teachers is always enticing.. I’m not sure this book was for me, though. I didn't connect with Ren and the supporting characters weren’t compelling. Maybe because I didn’t connect with Ren, the writing style didn’t grab me. The big reveals were huge surprises, so if that’s your thing, you will love this book. 2. 5 stars rounded up to 4.

I gave this book a 4/5 ⭐️. This book was entertaining and it I couldn’t put it down once I started reading! There were moments that were suspenseful and had me guessing so much! It was such a good book! I wouldn’t say it was fast paced, but still good where I wanted to keep reading! I didn’t expect the plot twist either! There are still some unanswered questions that I have!

I LOVED everything about this book! This was the first time reading Marlee Bush and I am definitely her newest fan! This was so easy to read, a great story and one I had a hard time putting down. I was hooked from the first page. I loved the characters and the twists and turns along the way . This was definitely one of my favorite reads this year. Highly reccomend.Can't wait to read more by Marlee Bush!

Whispers of Dead Girls started off a little lackluster for me but really started to pick up the more I read. By the time I got to the end, it was far twistier than I ever saw coming!

My only real criticism is that the Margo in Ren's current life doesn't seem to fit with the Margo Ren tells us about. Current Margo seems very snarky and sometimes mean. The Margo from Ren's childhood seemed to be more of a kind, caring big sister.

Other than that, I really did enjoy this one! There were red herrings that made me think things were going in one direction but then they spiraled and ended up somewhere totally different. Marlee Bush definitely did a great job keeping me on my toes!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 rounded up.

This book was a phenomenal read that I finished in one sitting, unable to put it down. It is a masterful exploration of grief, guilt, and the feeling of being hated, evoking a haunting atmosphere. The tension builds eerily, revealing secrets from the past and a mind-blowing plot twist. I was hooked from page one. The author's writing is outstanding.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

Marlee Bush's new psychological thriller hits close to home — maybe too close. Set in a small town where everyone knows your name (and probably your secrets), Whispers of Dead Girls follows Ren Taylor, a woman brave enough — or foolish enough — to return to her hometown as a high school teacher. But some doors are better left closed, and some memories better left buried.

Bush, who brings her criminology background to bear on this twisted tale, knows how to get under your skin. The town she creates feels real — the kind of place where smiles hide daggers and every friendly wave carries unspoken threats. From the first page, there's this creeping sense that something's just... off. And you're right.

Ren Taylor might be one of the most fascinating protagonists I've encountered this year. She's messy, complicated, and possibly unreliable — exactly the kind of character that keeps you guessing. The rest of the town's cast feels equally authentic, each hiding their own dark corners that Bush slowly, deliciously reveals.

The story takes its time in places, especially mid-book, but patience pays off. When the twists come — and oh, they come — they hit hard. The ending especially packs a punch that'll have you rethinking everything you just read.

There's something deeply unsettling about how Bush peels back the layers of seemingly normal people to reveal the damage underneath. She understands that the scariest monsters aren't the ones hiding under our beds, but the ones hiding behind friendly faces at the grocery store.

For fans of Gillian Flynn's sharp-edged character studies or Paula Hawkins' twisted narratives, Whispers of Dead Girls delivers. It's not perfect — the pacing stumbles occasionally — but it's the kind of book that'll have you side-eyeing your neighbors and wondering what secrets lurk behind their perfectly trimmed lawns.

3.5/5 stars

Perfect for: Anyone who loves psychological suspense, small-town secrets, or questioning their own memories

Appealing to fans of true crime and dark mystery, Whispers of Dead Girls throws you into the deep end as you second-guess everything you think you know right alongside main character Ren. Ren is a complicated character - I wanted her to find some closure and relief from the experience of her sister's death, but she is also hard to like. I found myself reminded of some of Gillian Flynn's characters. I found some behaviors out of character, especially for Ren's sister, but overall the book is a decent exploration of characters acting before they have all the answers.

3.5 stars

Whispers of Dead Girls follows Ren, who returns to her hometown ten years after a tragic incident left her sister dead. She comes back to teach at the same high school that holds reminders of her sister and what took place when they were young girls, the trauma of which she still carries with her.

The mystery kicks off when Ren meets the physics teacher Bryson Lewis, who is loved by teachers and students alike, yet Ren can't bring herself to trust him - not when he reminds her of a certain man she knew when she was in high school. Yet it wasn't the mystery that interested me as much as it was Ren's character. Her POV was an interesting one. We know from the onset that something terrible happened when she was young but we aren't completely privy to the details until much later. Yet this event looms over her and colors her thoughts, which we see when she interacts with Bryson. We wonder if she's right to feel the way she does, or if she's projecting onto him. Ren is an unreliable narrator and that was what kept me invested in the story - that and trying to learn what happened in the past. As for the actual mystery, I felt that the big reveal kind of went against what the book was trying to say and made it a more typical thriller, but the end saved it for me. Overall, this was a well written book with a complex character that made it worth the read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the arc!

This is a new author for me and I am so happy I found her! Whispers of Dead Girls was such a thrilling book to read. I loved Ren from the start of the book. She was relatable as a main character and I loved how she was trying to overcome her grief, while helping others at the same time. The author did an amazing job of making me second guess if some of the things the other characters were doing was indeed as Ren thought, or if she was totally off the mark. Kept me guessing!!! I flew through this book, it just kept me wanting to know more. Honestly, I could totally do with a sequel or more info on what happens further to Ren and her life. I'm really glad I picked this one up. I highly recommend this as a thrilling read for anyone.