Thank you to the publishers for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

I wanted to like this book, unfortunately it didn't build enough interest for me to get past chapter 5.

Thanks again to the publishers for allowing me to read in advance!

Heather is a protagonist you will love to hate.  We see everything through her eyes and her eyes are flawed.  I promise this is not an unreliable narrator - if that's important to you.

While everything is falling apart you'll wonder if there is something supernatural going on or not.  As the story vacillates between NOW and THEN Heather's grip on reality seems to be slipping.

This title keeps you engaged and wanting to know what happens all the way through.

Twelve-year-old Heather and her three best friends have a fascination with serial killers and horror stories.  They get together to discuss all things creepy as members of the Dead Girls Club.  Heather's BFF Becca begins a series of spooky stories about the spirit of a witch known as the Red Lady who seeks revenge on her killers.  What starts as nothing more than an entertaining story for thrills soon becomes much more sinister when Heather realizes that Becca actually believes the Red Lady is real.
That strong belief leads to traumatic uncertainty for Heather when Becca is killed and her mother is sentenced to thirty years in prison for her murder.

Heather is now a happily married child psychologist.  She's been harboring a terrible secret since Becca's death and her anixety grows when she learns Becca's mother has been released from prison.
Then a necklace arrives in the mail... a friendship necklace that Becca was wearing the night that she died.  Heather knows this because she was there.  She knows what happened---and now someone else does, too.

This was a creepy read perfect for the Halloween season.  I enjoyed the alternating timeline between 1991 and the present, especially the authentic dynamic of friendship between pre-teen girls and the atmosphere of the early 90's.
Present day Heather started mostly calm and collected but quickly spiraled. Readers begin to understand the evidence of trauma that is triggered only when the necklace arrives in the mail.  

This book really kept me guessing, I honestly had no clue what the twist was going to be!  One part of the twist felt ridiculous while the other was a nice touch.  Overall, The Dead Girls Club is a fun read with some spooky vibes and a couple surprises!

Thanks to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.  The Dead Girls Club is scheduled for release on December 10, 2019.

A genuinely frightening mystery (the sections about The Red Woman really tap into the kinds of primal fears embodied by childhood campfire stories and legitimately spooked me, and I don't spook easily) with a disappointingly convoluted and silly twist ending. Like others have mentioned, I felt the real strengths of The Dead Girls Club rested in the "Then" sections, which were more richly drawn, naturalistic, and intriguing than the "Now" plot, to the point that I wish there were no "Now" framework at all and the novel took place entirely in '91 and focused on the girls' club and the murder. 

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for the complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is a serious page turner! It was unputdownable! It kept me up reading past my bedtime trying to find out what happened to Becca. What was the deal with the Red Lady?!

After loving Little Darlings by Melanie Golding, I was pumped to receive an email from Crooked Lane Books inviting me to take part in the Blog Tour for The Dead Girls Club. The Dead Girls Club was the perfectly creepy and compelling book for Spookathon.

 › Heather, Becca, Rachel and Gia were the The Dead Girls Club - a book club where they talked about true crime, serial killers, and supernatural scary stories. One night, Becca tells them the story of The Red Lady, a woman who was accused of being a witch and buried alive. Becca claims The Red Lady is real, and promises to prove it.
Almost thirty years later, Heather is a Child psychologist. She's married with a good life...until - the other half of a "Best Friends Forever" charm she once shared with Becca mysteriously arrives at her office in an envelope. Becca was killed during the summer after seventh grade. Heather claims The Red Lady made her do it. Afraid that someone knows what she did, Heather tracks down Becca's mom, and the other members of The Dead Girls Club to try and figure out who knows the truth.

    "You never knew who was secretly a monster."

• Told in first-person and two timelines, The Dead Girls Club seamlessly switches from 1991 to the present. I LOVE the writing style.
• Heather is a slightly-unreliable narrator and I'm so here for it. Sometimes I hated her, sometimes I cried for her...I felt every emotion possible. Her and Becca are the lead characters and jump off the page, however, the secondary characters did feel a little cookie-cutter.
• The juxtaposition between Heather's advice to her clients and what she does is fantastic and a clear indication that she hasn't dealt with her own childhood trauma.
• The pacing and plot are well-done, yet the ending felt a little rushed to me.

› Triggers
• self-harm, parental abuse, neglect, murder, anxiety, alcoholism

› Final Thoughts
• With a sinister atmosphere, The Dead Girls Club, is a supernatural page-turner about obsessions, secrets, friendship, mother-daughter relationships, loyalty and betrayal. If you liked Girl on the Train, Her Pretty Face, or Little Darlings, then I think you'll like The Dead Girls Club. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for the complimentary copy in exchange for my honest review.

*Quotes taken from an ARC copy and subject to change*

I received an advance digital copy of this book from the author, Crooked Lane Books and Netgalley.com. Thanks to all for the opportunity to read and review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The Dead Girls Club is a fast paced read that moves along like a film. Cinemagraphic in description and mood, the fear and confusion are palpable. I devoured this book in a day!!

5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended.

This book was a definite page turner.  I loved the story about four friends and their "Dead Girls Club" where they would discuss serial killers and the red lady. The red lady reminded me a lot of bloody Mary. Just reading about the red lady reminded me of all the spooky stories I use to talk about with my childhood friends. 
The end of the book had  some twists I did not see coming.  
I would definitely recommend this book! I can't wait to get my preordered copy!

I was drawn to this book initially because of two things; the title and the cover. Once I read the synopsis though I was further drawn in. The book is about a group of girls who shared stories of serial killers and tall tales including a vengeful witch, the Red Lady, until one night things went to far. One of the girls, Becca, was convinced the Red lady was real and would help her. She only needed her best friend Heather to help. This resulted in Becca dying at the hands of Heather. Now, nearly 30 years later the secret is coming back to haunt Heather when she's sent a necklace she hasn't seen since the night she killed Becca. 

Keep in mind, none of this is a spoiler so far as it's all in the synopsis. Where the book takes you, is on the path Heather goes when the secret is possibly unraveling and she isn't sure who's to blame or who knows what really happened that night. Heather's world crumbles as she becomes increasingly unhinged and paranoid. 

It took me a moment to get into the book, but once I did I needed to know what happened. Who sent the necklace? Why exactly did Heather do what she did? I was surprised by the ending and how it took a turn. It's a good look at how awful huge secrets can be and what damage they can do when one tries to hide them even when it becomes more and more difficult to do so. So much so, that at times you wanted to take Heather aside and tell her she just needs to come forward. Talk about things. Stop hiding it all. 

The pacing of the book was excellent. We stay in Heather's point of view from the current to the past. The drama of girls relationships at a young age was captured so well. It really made me think about some of the friendships I had growing up. It's incredibly easy to relate to some of the dynamics shown where the desire to be friends leads one to do things they wouldn't ever do normally. The building sense of desperation Heather felt as things progressed in the current day, was interested to read.

For fans of thrillers or those who like the genre but can't always take the scarier side of it, this is an excellent book.

I read the first two chapters of this book and all I can really say about it is that it desperately wants to be a Riley Sager book when it grows up. Maybe if it was shorter I would have pushed my way through it and who knows it might turn out really good at the end, but I just can't read a book that is over 90,000 words long when I hate the main character pretty much from page one. I'm sure this will be an enjoyable read for many people but I know that if I continue to read it I'll just be comparing it to Sager's books the whole time and that's not really going to be fun for anyone.

Remember when you were a kid and you used to play the silly, scary games - Bloody Mary, using a ouija board, holding a seance? Well, Walters brings us Red Lady and a group of girls, more precisely two, that took it just a little too far.

I enjoy the then and now perspectives in alternating chapters. Heather is the main character and her adult self is spiraling after she starts getting clues that maybe her best friend, who disappeared, may not really be gone - but no one knows her secret but her... right? Her child self takes me back to those days where friendships easily collapse but the loyalty is still real and the sneaking out and doing creepy things are a part of the after school rituals. No one is just sitting at home on social media. But then, we are back in a different era during her childhood and I AM HERE FOR IT (yes, I'm showing age). There is definitely a little bit of a creepy factor when we're getting involved with the story of the Red Lady and after all is said and done - I see where the author was taking us in why this was SO important to Heather's best friend, Becca, and I applaud this reasoning.

The back and forth in timeline does give this book more of a YA than adult fiction feel (which I am not mad about). I do wish there maybe was a little more on them as kids and seeing through more than just Heather's view. Heather as an adult is madness. Paranoia reigns supreme. Some of her actions are extremely questionable but I am always ok with suspending some reality when reading a fiction novel.

I did feel a little bit let down by the ending. I expected more after everything that was built up and was maybe hoping for something that made me go more than, "Oh." I flew through the first half of this book and then was a little slower in ending as the feeling of the book shifted a little bit. If we are going to keep this in a horror category, then I'd say it's definitely more on the lighter horror side.

Still a very entertaining read and I certainly will be picking up more from this author.

I really enjoyed this book! There was a great atmoshere, and I loved that this was about a girl looking back on her childhood memories including the complicated relationship she had with her childhood friend who went missing. I also appreciated that Walters didn't lead us along. I really felt that she as the author delivered on what was promised in the book!

Damien is a master of a writer. I loved the creepy story telling and myth of "The Red Lady". A story not to be missed.

Whew, this was a good read. If you want a good gothic mystery with an unreliable narrator, this is your book.

Get ready to revisit your childhood full of slumber parties and creepy shenanigans! Didn’t you all stay up late playing Light as a feather, Stiff as a board, Bloody Mary, The Candyman, and Cat Scratch? I sure did and loved every minute of it. Could I do that stuff now? Heck no! I’m such a wimp!

All that to say, these chicks in The Dead Girls Club put anything I did to shame. I lived out in the country, which was scary enough at night on its own, but these 12 yr olds sought out an old abandoned house, lit candles, and summoned our old Red Lady here for a good time. But, like most horror stories, someone always takes it a step too far, and ends up dead.

The book switches from the past to present day, and is told from Heather’s POV. She is a bit unreliable, and continues to unravel as the past catches up to her in present day. But let’s be honest, I probably would too, if I went through what she did. We slowly learn what happened that evening, and ima need y’all to be prepared, the author is not messing around here. I appreciated this, but it might be traumatic for some. You have been warned.

This was the perfect amount of horror for me, and I really enjoyed this book. I did start to figure out where this was going, and was ok with that, but wait, there was another twist that I did not see, and loved it.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books for the advanced copy to review. All opinions above are my own. This review is part of the blog tour for this book. The release date for this one is December 10, 2019.

For me, The Dead Girls wasn’t perfect, but it was a quick read that I easily finished in two sittings. The mystery behind Becca’s death kept me guessing, enough so that even when adult Heather in the present day chapters was annoying me, I kept reading because there wasn’t the hint of a possibility that I was putting this book down until I found out what happened that night, thirty years previously. I recommend this to readers who enjoy twisty mysteries and unreliable characters. I believe fans of authors like Gillian French, Paula Hawkins and Ruth Ware might particularly enjoy this.

I chose to read this book based on the publisher's blurb, which ended up being totally misleading. The book is marketed as similar to Paul Tremblay's *Head Full of Ghosts,* but it's not even the same genre. Tremblay's book is a horror story, but I'm not so sure I'd put Walters' book in that category. It's a thriller, to be sure, but the horror element here doesn't fully pan out. It would spoil the book to explain more, but suffice it to say that there are major elements of this story that end up being red herrings, things that felt more important for marketing the story than for advancing the plot. I was given an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, and I appreciate the opportunity to read the book. I'm just sorry that I didn't enjoy the story. Then again, I wouldn't have chosen to read it if it had been more accurately described.

As a kid remember when it was fun to flick the light and say Bloody Mary and look in the mirror? Well the girls of the Dead Girls Club take it a little bit further in this one. Becca tells stories about the Red Lady, but is it possible the Red Lady is real? Heather firmly believes that this is just a story but with her past coming back to haunt her could she possibly be questioning this?

Fast forward and Becca's mother is in jail for her murder and Heather is receiving strange things in packages such as the necklace that Becca had on the night she died. Is someone trying to trudge up the past and make Heather remember what happened on that fateful night so long ago. 

This one will keep you on the edge of your seat. Just when I thought I had it figured out it sent me in another direction.

I remember hanging around with my own girlfriends when I was twelve. The things we talked about were much more mundane, but the dynamics between the girls felt very believable to me. Some of Heather’s behavior as an adult didn’t so much, but more because that wasn’t how I think I would have reacted in her shoes, not necessarily because her actions were always unreasonable. Her quest to find out who knew about the incident in her past definitely kept my attention though. Once her tormentor let her know that they were aware of the past I was hooked.

There were enough clues, suspects, and red herrings to keep me on my toes and keep me second-guessing myself every time I thought I had everything figured out. When I made it to the end, I’m happy to say that it was not what I was expecting, and I love it when a book manages to surprise me like that.

Excellent story! Reminiscent of Laura Lippman both is setting (Baltimore) and in tone. This story illustrates just how much damage girls can do to each other, physically, mentally and emotionally. I was forced to continually question what was real versus imagination and I'm still not 100% sure of the ending. Excellent read, highly recommend!