I had high hopes for this book based on the title and premise of the book, but it turned out to be just alright. It is a psychological thriller that had so much potential.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books in exchange for an honest review.

Shocking secrets, dark deceit, shared stories about serial killers and a vengeful witch are all components in an unsolved murder that has haunted Dr. Heather Cole for thirty years.

Author Damien Angelica Walters has conjured a mixture of mystery and personal drama to provide readers of THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB with a tale populated by complex and interesting characters guaranteed to whisk them away on an emotional roller coaster ride……not to mention a climax you didn’t see coming.

2 stars! ⭐️⭐️

And the boring thrillers continue folks!

Damn this was a struggle to get through. The 4 and 5 star reviews are just mind-boggling!

First off, I love this stunning book cover. Between that and the blurb, I just knew I was in for a treat. Boy, I was waaaaay off!

Second, the blurb: A supernatural (really??) thriller about a group of teenage girls who form The Dead Girls Club. They are obsessed with talking about serial killers and telling stories about the Red Lady - a vengeful witch killed centuries ago. Sounds pretty good, huh? Nope. There are no supernatural vibes happening at all in this book. The characters are super unlikeable and Heather - the main character - could not be more annoying.

Finally, as much as I love the “here” and “then” format, this just didn’t work for me. The “now” chapters, which focused on Heather, got so tedious that I simply lost interest in caring what happened to her, her friends, her marriage and the end of the book. The “then” chapters grated on my last nerve. Besides the serial killer talk and the Red Lady talk (which I loved), this overly written teenage bickering and banter was just too much. Hello junior high!

I had the pleasure of reading and chatting about this book with some of my Traveling Sisters. I think it’s safe to say we all pretty much felt the same about it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books and Damien Angelica Walters for my advanced copy to read and review.

Double, double, toil and trouble!
The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters is a rollercoaster ride of events. The story is told in a present view and in flashbacks of Heather, one of the girls in a group self called The Dead Girls Club, who has a very dark secret and her very own stalker.

The Dead Girls Club was formed in the early nineties by four preteen girls obsessed with all things that go bump in the night. I think a lot of us can relate to being in late elementary school and middle school, forming clubs with our friends about things we liked or were interested in just because we could (I personally pretended I was in a secret spy group with my friends and every day at recess we would defeat our arch nemesis… but that’s another story). However, everything goes wrong when the girls get together and talk about a witch named “The Red Lady” who was brutally murdered years and years before. Becca, one of the girls in the club, insists she’s real and ends up dead because of it.

But is that what really happened? Read and find out!

The only reasons I didn’t give this a 5 star rating was that the flashbacks seemed more interesting to read than the present day Heather’s point of view. The stories they told were gripping and drew you in. Present day Heather seemed intensely paranoid but given her circumstances I sort of understand. I would say, if you like true crime novels or shows, the supernatural, and major twists this is the read for you.

Heather Cole and three other girls form a club they call the Dead Girls Club. Basically they sit around and tell each other serial killer stories. Typical teen stuff until Heather's best friend Becca tells them about the Red Lady. Becca is determined that the Red Lady is real and sets out to prove it to everyone. Becca ends up dead.

30 years later, Heather receives a necklace in the mail. A necklace she hasn't seen since the night Becca died.

This book was amazing, I can usually figure out twists and turns but this book kept me guessing. I'm a horror and thriller fan and this book really delivers on both! It reached out and grabbed me at the start, and did not let go until I had finished the book in one sitting!

I recommend this book to all horror and thriller fans.

For some reason I foundbthis book really creepy, it was well written I enjoyed it very much. I actually searched if there was a legend of The Red Lady. Good job.

2.5 stars

Someone, please tell me how this is a supernatural thriller? So four 12-year-old girls form a Dead Girl's club and one tells a scary story about the "Red Lady" who is a witch in her story. Umm, that's a story. Did I miss anything supernatural happening besides story-telling?

That's my first beef with this book. My second beef is that I had a hard time connecting with or feeling for any of the characters in this book except for Ryan, the husband of Heather, a child psychologist. I mainly felt sorry for him. Heather has received a necklace in the mail. It is the other half of a necklace she had when she was twelve years old. The other half belonged to her best friend, Becca (Rebecca) who was murdered.

This book is told in Then and Now chapters and I have to say I only enjoyed the Then chapters. I enjoyed the Red Lady story and how Becca spooked her friends when she told the story to them. That was the best part of the book for me. I found that storytelling to be brilliant and engaging.

Otherwise, in the Now sections, Heather was mainly falling apart and becoming more paranoid. IS Becca still alive? Who mailed her the locket/necklace? Why is someone doing this to her? Plus, why isn't she telling her husband anything? Because she has a secret, a terrible dark secret...but still....As Heather begins to grow more desperate, those in her life begin to take notice, but can anyone save her from her past?

This one wasn't for me. But check out the other review. There are others who are really enjoying this book. I can't fault the writing, this just wasn't the book for me. Although this book did not work for me, I would be willing to read more of this Author's books in the future.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was an enjoyable read. This was a book filled with mystery and suspense and kept the reader interested. I have given it a three-star rating rather than five-star due to all of a sudden a new character appears at the end and becomes the main character of the book. When I read a mystery, I like to try to guess the ending. That is impossible when a surprise character is thrown in in the last few pages.

The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters

Crooked Lane Books
December 10, 2019
Fiction, supernatural thriller, NetGalley, digital

I received this digital arc from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

I think this book would be best catalogued with YA novels as it lacked the grit of an adult thriller. This is not for the person who enjoys deep psychological thrillers.

The story alternates from past to present but mostly focuses on Heather Cole and her paranoid fixation regarding events of the past. It is difficult to take the journey with the protagonist as it feels like she is going down the rabbit hole. Since it didn’t feel warranted I couldn’t follow her and thus watched from above in disbelief shaking my head.

Ironically, Heather Cole is a child psychologist who slowly unravels when she is taunted with reminders of her own unresolved childhood trauma. Unfortunately, she becomes angry and defensive with her husband Ryan who becomes worried about her suspicious behavior. Heather begins to revisit her childhood trauma recalling the events of The Dead Girls Club and their fascination with the gruesome crimes and The Red Lady.

The story felt anticlimactic and fell short of a thriller.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an egalley in exchange for an honest review.

Heather, Rachel, Gia, and Becca are just your average American girls. They love to laugh, hangout, and talk about serial killers. But most importantly of all is that the girls love when Becca tells them about the Red Lady. A woman who will do favors but always takes what she is owed. But it's just a story, right?

Alternating between the past and present, it becomes clear that Heather is haunted by childhood memories and someone out there wants her to confess.

This was a mesmerizing tale that consumed my attention on Sunday afternoon. A little bit Are you Afraid of the Dark? with a healthy tug of I Know What You Did Last Summer , this was a delicious read.

My 2019 nominee for gorgeous cover








Goodreads review published 04/11/19
Publication Date 10/12/19

Becca was obsessed with The Red Lady, and spent much of the summer telling the three other girls stories about her and the magical powers she had. Though Rachel and Gia were believers, Heather wasn’t, not really…until their last ritual ended in Becca’s death.

Nearly thirty years later, Heather has tried to put that horrific night out of her mind, and to concentrate on her marriage and on her career as a child psychologist. But when she receives Becca’s half of their Best Friends Forever necklace in the mail, Heather realizes someone knows the truth, and she is willing to do almost anything to find that person and to alleviate her guilt.

This story shifts between time periods, from 1991, when the four girls are twelve years old, to present day, and primarily follows Heather and her growing mania regarding the various clues delivered to her office. I felt the story started a bit slowly, and Heather’s behavior a little extreme, however, things picked up and things started getting interesting, and we watched Heather fall apart. This was a good read, with lots of psychological horror (one of my favorite things!), and is one I enjoyed.

A twisted tale that is hard to believe. Two children play a game that turns deadly. Secrets hidden for decades slowly begin to come to light and Heather’s life and marriage to Ryan begins to fall apart. The life she has carefully constructed is coming apart with each new bit of information revealed to her about the murder of her best friend Becca. The author uses a masterpiece of plotting to bring the characters to life and ensures that the reader stays glued to the pages. The end is unexpected but shows the depth of a parent’s love.

1.5-2 stars

This pains me - DNF.

I've tried 4 separate times to get into this ARC, and I think myself and the writing style are just not meant to be friends. The premise sounds great on paper: then/now timeline, girls who messed with darker things and ended up with a dead body, the works. But if you can't push through the writing itself to absorb the story, it's hard to enjoy what may or may not be there in the story.

I'm giving this 2 stars because I feel like this book might be okay for another reader. It just wasn't for me. Darn!

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books via NetGalley for an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

solid thriller. heather was just an absolute mess but i liked her messiness if that makes sense. i enjoyed the childhood sections much more but overall i liked it quite a bit.

Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for my advance copy of this book.

As soon as I saw this book and read the synopsis, I knew I had to read it. It's a fast read and I really wanted to get to the end, to see if the answer to the mystery - the delivery of the necklace was a ghost/red lady or a human. I had a hard time really liking Heather and honestly, child Heather was I could tolerate better than adult Heather - who honestly, for being a Child Psychologist makes really dumb decisions.

I wish the book would have stayed in 1991, but it kept going back and forth between the present and the past. It was however, still a good read. (I read it to coincide with Halloween).

I recommend this book and hope you like it.

A truly addictive mix of mystery and the supernatural, The Dead Girls Club hooked me from page 1. We know from the start that Heather murdered her best friend when she was a teenager, but why or how and who is terrorizing her in the present? The ending surprised me, but the clues were all there. Heather starts off as a very competent woman, a child psychologist with a good husband and a past she’s doing her best to forget. As her history comes back to haunt her-literally, she starts becoming more and more erratic. I was aggravated at times, yelling at her to stop and think, but Heather wouldn’t listen and I was so invested in the story that I was biting my cuticles in sympathy. The story is revealed in alternating chapters: some that tell the story of how Heather murdered her best friend Becca, and the others show what’s happening in the present. Being in my forties, Heather’s childhood reminded me a lot of mine (Be kind, rewind… I hadn’t thought about that in decades!) and her friendship with Becca was very familiar (though that may not be so much of a generational thing, but the same to all girls, everywhere). As the story becomes darker, a supernatural element is introduced. Is The Red Lady that Becca’s obsessed with real or just a story that she made up? I know what I’d say in real life but in the story, I wasn’t quite sure. I’m surprised that there aren’t more 5-star reviews here, because this is really a great read.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, Crooked Lane Books!

Thanks to Netgalley for providing an ARC! I really enjoyed this creepy coming of age story. It goes back and forth between two timelines: one follows Heather and her friends in 1991 when they are swept up in the story of the Red Lady, and the fear and suspicion that tears them apart. The other is in present day when something from the past has come back to haunt Heather. Is the Red Lady real? Or is Heather losing her mind? I really enjoy this type of story where you're not sure if something paranormal is going on, or if the real life delusions and anxieties that affect us are just making it seem so. I really wasn't sure where this was taking me & the ending provided a nice believable wrap up, with just a hint of dread and unease. I definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading more from this author!

I’ve been a huge fan of Damien Angelica Walters ever since I first discovered Paper Tigers, which left one hell of an impression. Damien takes a traditional horror set-up of hauntings and ghosts and reinvents it with an imaginative story that is captivating and one of my favorite novels in that particular subgenre. The less I describe of the plot the better, but I can’t recall another horror tale that takes the same angle as Paper Tigers. Also, Damien creates one of the genre’s most memorable protagonists in recent memory. Damien is a gifted writer and storyteller that I honestly feels way more recognition in horror circles. Her prose is so captivating that you’ll find it hard to pull away as Alison ventures down a path of terror and evil loaded with inventive scares. I also recommend diving into her short fiction. “The Floating Girls: A Documentary” and “On the Other Side of the Door, Everything Changes” are two of my all-time favorite short stories and you can check those out in her Apex collection Cry Your Way Home, which was on my “Best of” list last year. So, when I first heard about her second novel The Dead Girls Club, it shot straight to the top of my “Most Anticipated Reads of 2019.”

The Dead Girls Club opens with child psychologist Heather receiving a mysterious package that arrives at her office with no return address. She opens and it and sees there is no letter inside it, but she does notice something tucked into the corner of the envelope. It’s a small, weathered half-heart pendant that Heather hasn’t seen in nearly 30 years and seeing it, impossibly, in her office makes her panic. She begins reflecting on what the pendant represents and makes a shocking confession to the reader: She killed Becca. Before you curse me out for spoiling the story, it happens in the opening chapter and is even part of the synopsis. I promise, I would never knowingly spoil a book for you, but I digress. The arrival of Becca’s half of the best friend pendant is the inciting incident that kicks off The Dead Girls Club, a novel full of dark secrets, paranoia and a compelling mystery.

One of the many strengths of Walters’ work is her ability to create fully realized characters with personalities that leap off the page and that is true of The Dead Girls Club. The titular Dead Girls Club is comprised of Heather, Becca, Gia and Rachel, a group of tight-knit friends that formed the group the summer they turned 12-years-old around their fascination with serial killers. They would often get together and read books about them, discussing the brutal details of their crimes and looking at the pictures of crime scenes. Sometimes, they told scary stories. Well, Becca did. She was the de facto leader and storyteller of The Dead Girls Club. She often dictated the meetings, brought the group new details about the serial killers. The girls often didn’t care for Becca’s stories, instead preferring stories that originated in the world around them. That all changed the day Becca gathered them in their unofficial club house and began to share the story of the Red Lady. The rest of the girls were captivated by the dark history of the Red Lady, though Heather was a bit more skeptical. She was Becca’s best friend, but knew she had an active imagination and didn’t want to buy into the stories. Especially as the Red Lady began taking over every aspect of Becca’s life. She used her artistic gifts to draw vivid, terrifying portraits of the Red Lady. At first it was just a few, but over time, Heather began to notice them taking up more space on her friends walls. This obsession with the Red Lady is driving force in the development of Becca’s character and the overall narrative and leads to some unnerving scenes.

I also loved the way Walters handled Heather’s character. As her past comes back to haunt her through increasingly frequent references to that summer, she finds herself slowly descending into paranoia. She begins to distance herself from her loved ones and becomes obsessed with uncovering the source of the mysterious packages.Her role as a psychologist also gives her a level of self-awareness, as she often speaks about the malleability of our memories, which adds another layer of mystery to The Dead Girls Club. She’s also incredibly resourceful as proven multiple times throughout the course of the book in terms of her investigation tactics. It’s impressive, but also seems cold and calculated. I can’t get too deep into specifics, but it does raise some interesting questions about Heather, and I’m curious to see if other readers have similar reactions.

It’s an interesting tactic, but a lot of the narrative is driven by her inner thoughts, whether its adding context to the events that occur during the present day or her reflecting on the events of that fateful summer during her adolescence. At times, it’s like she’s speaking to the reader, sort of like the narrative approach of shows like Fleabag or Peep Show. I thought this was an interesting way to approach the narrative, because it creates a sort of fragmented approach where it assumes the reader has the same knowledge and memories as Heather. It easily could have been confusing and muddled the story, but Walters is able to avoid those pitfalls by using parallel narratives – one set in the present and the other from the summer when Becca died. The initial mysteries hook the reader and get them invested in the story, allowing their imagination to run wild about what happened between Heather and Becca. Then, throughout the different narratives, answers are slowly revealed as the reader joins Heather in revisiting the memories of that summer.

I loved the way Damien portrayed their friendship of The Dead Girls Club and the morbid basis for the group. The focus on the group in the flashback chapters creates a realistic portrayal of their friendship and a “coming of age” story-line that is both engaging and unique. This isn’t just a group of friends that stay tight knit throughout the hardships they face. They fight and the nature of their relationship is constantly in flux. Those shifting dynamics plays a large role in what ultimately leads to the girls becoming estranged. The Dead Girls Club is a fast-paced read and Walters does a masterful job of cultivating a growing sense of dread throughout the novel. Right from the opening chapter, Walters grabs the readers attention and makes it damn near impossible to put The Dead Girls Club down. Trust me, I know from experience.

I’ve mentioned numerous times that I love horror novels that bring elements of other genres in and Walters does that expertly. Make no mistake about it, The Dead Girls Club is a horror novel through and through and parts of it reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe. The depiction of the Red Lady and her backstory is pure nightmare fuel and her presence is felt throughout the entire narrative, even when the characters aren’t talking about her. That being said, it’s also a well-crafted thriller that toys with the reader’s expectations of whats real and what isn’t. How much of what happens is because of the Red Lady? Is the Red Lady even real? Part of the fun is trying to figure out those mysteries as the novel unfolds. There’s just enough ambiguity there to keep the reader off-kilter but without frustrating them. I have my own opinions on the Red Lady, but you’ll get no spoilers from me. You’ll have to read for yourself and see what you believe.

Strange story of best friends Heather and Becca who start a club with 2 other friends that talk about all kinds of macabre. Becca tells them the story of Red Lady who helps people but always asks for something in return. Heather notices the bruises that Becca cannot hide. Becca's mother drinks a lot and becomes an angry drunk. Becca spends a lot of time at Heather's house. The club members decide to call upon the Red Lady in the basement of an empty house. Something happens and the girls start having bad dreams. Then, Becca says that the Red Lady will help her, but Heather must help... This story is told in two time frames, when the girls are young, and when they are women.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Heather and Becca are best friends. Together with their other friends Rachel and Gia they start a club where they talk about serial killers and their victims. They call themselves The Dead Girls Club. One night Becca tells the girls a story about The Red Lady, a vengeful witch who will help you if you are willing to give up something you love. Becca's home life isn't that great so she needs Heather's help in order to get help from The Red Lady to escape her current life. When Heather agreed to help Becca she had no idea it would mean taking Becca's life. Heather has never ever told anyone the truth about what happened that night. Not ever. Now 30 years later someone knows what Heather did and they are determined to make her answer for it.

I really enjoyed this book from cover to cover. It wasn't that it was particularly creepy it was just interesting and well written. I really enjoyed the dual perspectives of when they were kids versus adults. The time jumps are clearly labeled with 'then' and 'now' making it really easy to follow along.

I really enjoyed the characters of the four little girls. The interactions between them was so interesting to see. Each girl had her own specific role in the circle of friends and their own personality. The girls childhood sections was by far the best part of the book for me.

I didn't particularly like Heather as an adult. I found her character to be annoying. She didn't seem to have remorse for what she did to Becca. She keeps using the excuse she thought the Red Lady would help Becca rather than showing remorse. Her main concern is not getting caught after all these years.

I really enjoyed this book. The writing was great. I love how the author was able to give me such strong emotions towards the characters. I can't wait to read more by Damien Angelica Walters in the future.