Title: The Burning Girls
Author: C.J. Tudor
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date: February 9, 2021
Pages: 335
Book Source: Netgalley
“A dark history lingers in Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, Protestant martyrs were betrayed—then burned. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And a few weeks ago, the vicar of the local parish hanged himself in the nave of the church.
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Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping for a fresh start. Instead, Jack finds a town rife with conspiracies and secrets, and is greeted with a strange welcome package: an exorcism kit and a note that warns, “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.”
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The more Jack and daughter, Flo, explore the town and get to know its strange denizens, the deeper they are drawn into the age-old rifts, mysteries, and suspicions. And when Flo begins to see specters of girls ablaze, it becomes apparent there are ghosts here that refuse to be laid to rest.
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Uncovering the truth can be deadly in a village with a bloody past, where everyone has something to hide and no one trusts an outsider.” – Amazon
Kim’s Review
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The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor shows once again that she is a master at intertwining various threads that keep you guessing until the end… and then she drops one more little twist… and then another one… and maybe, one more.
While none of the twists were jaw-dropping, if you were paying attention, they still kept the story moving quickly and I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish. I was confused for a moment at the beginning (and this is just my middle-aged white lady making an appearance), but I thought Jack was a man. It was after the third time-ish that Flo said “Mum!”, that I was like…. Ummmm.
The other thing that had me a bit flummoxed was I was looking forward to more supernatural elements, especially since the synopsis talks about specters and an exorcism kit. There was some of it, but not as much as I was expecting. The Burning Girls was still excellent, it just went in a different direction than I thought it would.
If you like twisty thrillers with twisted people, you Need to Read, The Burning Girls.
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