The Dead Girls Club is a great, fast paced thriller that has some supernatural-type elements. This is very atmospheric and I felt like I was inside the book at times. Throughout the book, I could feel my heart pounding and I felt dread at turning the pages for fear of what might happen next!

Heather and Becca are best friends. They belong to a group known as 'The Dead Girls Club', along with their two other friends. Together, they tell stories of creepy happenings, serial killers and other horror filled stories. One day, things in the group change drastically when Becca begins her story of The Red Lady. Becca's obsession with The Red Lady soon overtook the group. Her belief was so strong, she ends up getting killed. Years later, Heather recieves a package. Inside the package is a necklace, one that Heather hasn't seen since that fateful night, the night she killed Becca.

Someone knows what she did and they are out to make sure she is punished.

Great twists and scary thriller! I didn't see the ending coming either. This book will keep you up!

(On a side note: The Dead Girls Club is so something I would've been in as a teenager!)

Thank you Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for this ARC.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for this ARC! It's been a long time since I've read a horror novel that has stayed with me like this one has. In between reading, it occupied my thoughts when I let my mind wander and has plagued my dreams at night. I rushed home after work to continue the story, trying as hard as I could to finish it even though I never wanted it to end. It was all too easy to see myself and my friend group from when I was a kid as the Dead Girls Club, and maybe that's why it effected me so, but either way, it was an expertly crafted scary story.

Heather is an adult who seems to be doing very well for herself. A good job working with kids, a happy marriage, stable friends her age-- but there's a secret she's been harboring that lies just beneath her spotless veneer. She murdered her best friend when she was a kid and got away with it. No one else knows; Becca's body was never found, and her mother, Lauren, was pinned with the crime. When Heather begins to personal items that belonged to Becca in the mail, she begins a steady decline into a sort of madness. This descent brings up long buried memories from her past, and chapters of Heather's present are interwoven with scenes from her past.

In these scenes, we meet the Dead Girls Club. Heather, Becca, and their two friends, Gia and Rachel, bonded over a shared love of the macabre, and when they had their club meetings they would take turns telling stories. They were mostly stories about serial killers, local murder victims, or the supernatural, but one day, Becca sits them down in an abandoned house her mom is selling to tell them about the Red Lady. She was a witch who was horrifically murdered centuries ago, but who lives on to make deadly bargains with those who ask for her help. Once Becca starts telling her stories, things quickly make a turn for the worse. The girls all start having nightmares and phantom pains, and Becca withdraws from Heather, ending in a night that changed Heather's life forever.

Heather's anxiety and fear pushes everyone she loves away from her. She was suspicious of everything and I got to a point where I wasn't sure if I should trust anything she said or saw, because she was truly one step away from losing it completely. I liked the unreliable narrator factor, and how we were given very plausible cause for every character we met to be who had finally found Heather out. Her life spins out of control, and I was left breathless trying to decide whether there really ever was a Red Lady, or if, like it goes so many times in life, the Dead Girls Club made up something to shield them from the glimpses of real life that they had come across far too young.

I really could go on and on about this book, but I'm trying not to reveal too much. It very well may be my favorite read of 2019, and it hasn't even been published yet! I was hooked on this original tale, and could have never guessed the ending. I know that I'll be thinking about this story for awhile now; maybe even seeing the Red Lady in my dreams for many nights to come. Thank you, Damien, for the haunting and intricately woven spider's web that you've weaved. I'm the fly, and I'll never be free.

I have to be honest, when I got approved for this ARC I had completely forgotten what this book was about, so I was going in blind. I didn’t realize that this book was kind of a horror and I wasn’t expecting that at all. I thought it was nothing more than a mystery/thriller and it was just so much more than that.

This book is told through two parts. There's Heather in the present and Heather when she was only twelve years old. I have to admit, it was definitely more interesting reading Heathers story when she was a child. Her and her friends had dubbed themselves The Dead Girls Club and they would get together and talk about serial killers. One day however, Heathers best friend came up with a story about The Red Lady, a sort of urban legend where if you gave a sacrifice, the Red Lady would do something for you. The stories were absolutely horrifying in my opinion and honestly made me so paranoid.

I didn’t enjoy the present chapters all that much. Mostly Heather is trying to deal with guilt that she has been carrying with her since she was twelve and someone is leaving her momentos from her past, making her believe that someone knows what happened all those years ago. She tries to investigate people from her past and see who it could possibly be. I think what I did enjoy about this book was that I didn’t see the twist coming. I was so focused on this urban legend, I didn’t even think about who could possibly be sending all these things to Heather. This book was definitely interesting and I really enjoyed the urban legend twist to it.

'In stories, blood smells of old coins. An apt description. What those stories fail to mention is that the smell lingers, not on your skin, but in your memory. You can't ever wash it away.'

And with that paragraph, I was instantly sucked into the story and this book was mine to fall in love with.

The Dead Girls Club is a tale after my own heart. A group of young girls obsessed with serial killers, urban legends, and creepy stories? A retelling of my own youth. Heather is now in her 30s and is a successful child psychologist with a dark past and that past has come back to haunt her. Literally. I was instantly gripped by the wild turns that this book took and at several points questioned our dear protagonist's own sanity. The author does an amazing job with her storytelling and I was not expecting the end at all. Can I also mention how beautiful this cover is? I'm looking forward to more of the author's works in the future. This was a fantastic read and my only negative is that I finished reading this at night and I'm kind of afraid of what kind of dreams I'll have. Please pray that I don't wake up with a mouth full of dirt.

Thank you very much to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. This review will be published on Goodreads indefinitely 06/26/2019 :)

This book was everything I love about a good thriller; relationships, murder, and a dash of 80's nostalgia to remind me of my childhood. This story delves into a missing person (I won’t ruin it and say who) and is divided between the main character, Heather’s childhood past and adult life. Someone is sending Heather haunting messages and, as the book progresses, you’re taken along the journey to figure out who it is and why they’re stalking Heather.

The past takes a look at Heather’s life with best friend Becca and two other girlfriends, Gia and Regina, who make up the Dead Girls Club. They talk about all-the-things teen girls do, being liked, friendship, and growing apart. It felt completely relatable to me, as a woman and the mom of a pre-teen girl. While the relationship between Becca and her mom is tough because it hints at child abuse and alcoholism, you’re so entwined in the story you just want to reach out and help her. I also found myself much more connected to Heather's relationships in the past versus her current relationships with her husband, best friend, and co-worker (two names which I kept confusing). The characters from Heather's childhood feel more developed and I was much more drawn to the past, versus Heather’s current life.

The present time follows Heather into what can only be described as madness and she wonders if she’s losing her mind as a series events lead her to ponder her past. Who is sending these relics from her childhood and why are they doing it? The story is fast-paced and definitely kept me guessing. I had my ideas about who might be involved, but as I got to the end, I found a huge relief to finally know the truth-there were so many possibilities. I was truly committed to this book from start to finish and found myself looking forward to picking up where I left off – in the car, in the kitchen, I had to know how it ended.

I highly recommend this book and give it 5 out of 5 stars. Check it out!

Good book.

Amazing pacing, had me at the edge of my seat the entire way! Although it took me a while to finish it, it was overall enjoyable, definitely a "ready by the beach" type of book.

This was a pretty good read. My first by this author. Heather and Becca were best friends and part of The Dead Girls club when they were young girls. Along with a couple of other girls, they told scary stories and fixated on famous killers like Ted Bundy. All pretty innocent fun until Becca tells the story of The Red Lady. Desperately wanting to get out from under her alcoholic mother, Becca tries to convince Heather that the Red Lady can and will help her. The story goes back and forth between then and now. I love stories that surprise me at the end and this one definitely did.

The Dead Girls Club was a solid mystery tinged with horror and crossed with coming of age. Well written, and emotionally evocative, with an ending I never could have predicted.

I received an ARC Kindle version from NetGalley. I was caught up in the story immediately and kept wanting to know more about The Red Lady, Becca, and Heather. It worked to go between Then and Now. Heather’s search for her friends almost seemed to easy to find and reconnect. Her husband became a minor character with deception on both sides. Lots of time spent leaving work and sneaking around. Heathers choice as a child psychologist works to give her strategies for coping with trauma. I had to reread the last few chapters to understand what happened. So many loose ends come together. Surprise ending. I would recommend Dead Girls Club to my book club. It would be fun to discuss the role of each character to the story!

So I read the whole thing because I really wanted to know what happened. The beginning has a lot of over description, and the actual end of the book is a real let down. I was clearly interested enough by the plot to keep reading, but the ending was just meh.

Dead girl club is very slow moving and did not hold my attention at all. I read three other books while trying to finish. I kept going back thinking it would grab me this time. I must say I did not finish

While I enjoyed this book, It didn’t hold my attention as much as I was hoping it would. I really enjoyed how it went between then and now moving forward in both aspects. The ending did bring me a little shock. I just hate how her life was essentially ruined at the end. I also was a little shocked about her mom’s part of the story.

LOVE!

This is a thriller novel that I can definitely get behind. I love the back and forth between timelines. It's usually difficult to pull that off, but this book was able to do it flawlessly. The characters and the mystery surrounding them were great, and we definitely got to be immersed in the situation.

#TheDeadGirlsClub #NetGalley
An interesting read about a group of women who discuss serial killers, urban legend, etc. What if they were real though? It is a creepy, mystery filled novel that has the read wondering what did I just read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for an ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

This had many elements to pull me in: a thriller, a supernatural twist, an urban legend. And all in all, much of this did work for me. However, I often found myself getting bogged down in the telling. The first person narration is a bit repetitive (in phrasing and plotting) and while I know I was reading an uncorrected proof, the pattern grammatical errors disrupted my reading as well. I felt like there was overall cohesion lacking for me in the execution of the novel. I didn't connect with the narrator for most of the novel and always felt like I was on the outside of this telling.

Having said that, it is a fast-paced story that will make make you think about how your past defines your future, how children find themselves in impossible situations, and how mental illness is treated--or ignored--in our society. I'll definitely give Walters another try and suggest trying this one if any of the above topics interests you.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. This was a really fun, creepy story. The girls reminded me of a club we had when we were younger teenagers and the creepy stuff we liked to get into.

2.5 rounded up 3 mysterious, witch-y, reddish, mouth full of dirt-ish, supernatural, bloody but still not quite satisfying stars!

As soon as I read the blurb, I thought `Oh yes this is it! Rituals for conjuring a witch, little girls’ secret murder club, a story moving back and forth between four girls who are a little obsessed about spooky things from serial killers, murderers , horror stories and Heather’s grown up version who became a psychiatrist helps the troubled children. But at the beginning of the book , we may realize Heather needs more help for her well-being because she has killed her childhood friend Becca, got away with murder. But now her secret is about to reveal because somebody KNOWS what she did!!!

What I liked about this book is the little girls’ relationship dynamic. Rebecca is a quite demanding leader with her amazing imagination about telling horror stories ( If she didn’t die- or did she? We don’t know till the end of the book- she might compete with Stephen King and Joe Hill with her quite riveting storytelling). Her story is so heart wrenching, her obsession about Red Lady, her relationship with her abusive mother, her confusing mind who did not know how to differentiate the real or delusion.

I wish this story wasn’t about only Heather. Because her future-self really irritated me. She is mostly acting like paranoid, hysterical with her weird giggles, making herself bleed, hitting her punches on steering wheel, suspicious moods about her husband and best friend. It’s hard to empathize her ! At some parts, I thought maybe she deserved what was happening to her.

Maybe three little girls might have involved in Becca’s story and later, when somebody found out and threaten them about what they have done could be a better story-line. Because it’s obvious, the author is inspired of Stephen King’s story. And most of his early King stories, children suffer from traumatic experiences with supernatural things and then we see their future selves how could they fight against their childhood nightmares ( Like “It”, “Body”)

I love the pace of the story. I wanted to know who was chasing Heather! Is Becca still alive or is somebody acting like her? Is Red Woman real? So I kept turning pages to fill my void about learning the truth.

Well, did ending and all the revelations satisfy me? Not, too much! There are still so many unanswered questions and I think author decided to leave like this! Let us question what if the urban legends are true, what
if our worst nightmares are real !

Writing is good, pacing and mystery is gripping, I couldn’t put it down! But the characters , their actions, way of talking , their development are the weakest parts they made me the cut the points and also I was expecting different ending maybe more surprise and twist. That’s what I felt!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for advance access to this book in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGallery for the Kindle Version of the ARC This book is to be published December 10th 2019.

To be honest, I wasn't sure about this book when I started reading. It didn't help that the ARC on the Kindle isn't formatted great. Though, once I was used to that it was a fantastic read.

For those that don't know what this book is about: Heather and her friend were a part of the Dead Girls Club. Obsessed with gore and true crime, there were stories about serial killers and imaginary monsters. This included the Red Lady, a witch killed centuries before. These were just stories to Heather until her best friend, Becca insisted the Red Lady was real. This lead to Becca's death.

So what happened to Becca?

*****
I loved the back and fourth between Heather's tween years in The Dead Girls Club and her current life with a husband and a career. It gave a great contrast between the changes you go through from tween to adulthood.

It had suspense and wonder, making me want to continue reading until I knew what was going on which led me to finishing the book in basically two days.

There are some dark topics, but it is written in a very real way. It feels like this could have been an actual story that has happened.

Thank you again to Crooked Lane Books and Net Gallery but a special thanks to Damien Angelica Walters for written such a great book.


****I will be posting again in December before The Dead Girls Club is officially published!****

"Red Lady, Red Lady, show us your face..."

In 1991, the Dead Girls Club was formed, four young girls obsessed with everything dark and twisted. Things started to get out of hand when Becca started to tell the girls about the Red Lady, to make matters worse Becca could prove she was real. That is, until she died. Flash forward thirty years to Heather, one of the original members of the club still haunted to this day by the events that happened the night Becca died. Someone out there knows what really happened that night, and will take whatever it takes to expose what really happened to Becca.

This supernatural thriller is so fast paced I couldn't put it down. The book jumps from 'then' to 'now' all told by the perspective of Heather. Not only is she part of the Dead Girls Club, she was the only one there the night her best friend Becca died. Or so we think. Heather starts receiving gifts in the mail, things that no one else should have since they were with Becca the night she died. Heather stops at no cost to find out who is doing this to her, and to end the Red Lady for once and for all.

This book was so scary, I loved the tie-ins to serial killers that were told by the girls. The portrayal of the Red Lady was so well done, I was getting chills just by reading the things that she can do to a person. I also loved watching Heather basically ruin her life just to get to the bottom of things, and the book does give her closure in the end.

The Dead Girls Club kept me guessing, I hadn't seen the twist coming even as it happened. The author really had me believing for the longest time that Becca had come back from the dead just to haunt her best friend.

"Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Received via NetGalley for review.

A wonderful examination of guilt, uncertainty, mental illness, and friendship. Heather and Becca are and always will be best friends, but when Becca starts to seem obsessed with the story of the Red Lady and show signs of abuse, Heather doesn't know what to feel or how to act. Eventually, she decides that their friendship is the most important thing, and does what she can to help Becca.

Years later, as an adult, someone begins to send Heather reminders of the incident, sending Heather into a spiral of paranoia and anxiety. Watching her sabotage herself trying to figure out who knows her secret is incredibly well-written, engaging, and hard to read. At times, it was hard to tell if there were was anything supernatural going on, or we were just witnessing Heather's descent into madness (which is a trope I always love).