The Wild Girls by Phoebe Morgan is what I like to call a slow-burner.

The opening is shocking and mysterious as we do a fly over in Botswana and view a gruesome crime scene. How did we get here and what happened to a close-knit group of friends. Hannah, Alice, Felicity and Grace were once so close they could finish each other's sentences, but everything has changed and no one wants to talk about it.

To get to the inciting incident you have to trust the answer will come. About 52 % in you will begin to understand that everyone in this story is unreliable when they offer their individual truth to the reader in short bursts of historical backstory.

I had my suspicions about who the villain action was and it turns out that I was mostly right, but there's a whopper of a surprise at the end. I hesitate to call this a thriller, as it takes a while to get to the action. The pacing picked up speed in the last sixty pages. I was truly surprised at the end, and I went up from four to five stars in my rating, as I love to see the dominoes fall.

There were some scenes at the African lodge that felt hyper-dramatic and perhaps not very realistic, but when someone has been playing with your mind, and your emotions, I imagine it could get pretty strange and as in this story... it might end badly. Well-worth the read, and most especially if you reading enjoy psychological suspense.

My thanks to Netgalley and William Morrow Publishing for the opportunity to read an advanced copy.

This is my honest review.

Excellent story! Totally engrossing!. Looking forward to reading more by this author! Could not put this down!

I have spent a lot of time thinking about my review of Phoebe Morgan's thriller, The Wild Girls. As a thriller, The Wild Girls does not work that well. The plot is predictable, which negates the thriller genre. In addition, Phoebe Morgan's characters are not particularly interesting, and in some instances, they are unlikeable and disgusting. It was difficult to care very much about who gets killed. Morgan wants her readers to engage with these characters and so she makes the women in The Wild Girls flawed and unhappy, which is supposed to make readers sympathize, but since these characters never grow or make any attempt to alter their very static states of misery, these are four very unappealing characters. I appreciate the publisher giving me the opportunity to read and review this ARC of The Wild Girls. I am sorry that I just cannot recommend it.

I enjoyed this book but despite the many twists....it was predictable. I flew through the book rather quickly which is a good sign for me. Overall I give it a 3 star rating.

Thank you to William Morrow, Custom House and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

This group of women were just not that interesting. I didn't feel any real suspense or thrills here. The women were all just ok characters.

An unexpectedly twisted, wild ride!
Alice, Grace, Hannah and Felicity are four very intriguing, "drive you crazy" charismatic characters. Sometimes I wanted to shout in their faces, yell "go the other way" and other times I simply wanted to give them each a hug.

Each girl has their own struggles of different varieties; relationships, loneliness, kids, trauma, and one fateful night, that is yet to be revealed, pulls them apart form each other for more than 2 years.

Rejoined in the African wilderness with the promise of a smashing good birthday party, things quickly turn upside down, and then they take a sideways loopy-loop of epic proportions.

It became quickly apparent that something wasn't right straight from the get go, but what isn't right, you just cant pin point with any clarity. That is UNTIL we get a hop back in time to the night everyone wants to forget but can't seem to let go.

Any novel that makes me feel both annoyance, frustration, and love towards a character is worth a read for me. Each one of this ladies provides that myriad of emotion at any given time.

Special Thanks to NetGally and the publisher for the advanced copy.

Wild Girls was a riveting, fast-paced cat and mouse thriller. With multiple unreliable narrators all with secrets to hide - this story gets juicy.

This thriller gave me such Pretty Little Liars vibes but if it was about 30 year olds on a luxury retreat in Botswana. Four friends - they used to be the Wild Girls - Hannah, the sensible one, Grace the quiet one, Alice the rambunctious one, and Felicity the one that kept them together, the popular one.

The girls were inseparable until they weren’t, not after what happened 2 years ago. They haven’t talked, but when Felicity offers an olive branch in the shape of an all expenses paid trip to a luxury defeat in Botswana for her 30th they jump at the chance to be reunited again. But things aren’t what they seem when they arrive and Felicity is no where to be found.

This was definitely a thriller that kept me up until 2 am because I needed to know who the killer was and what was going to happen. After this cat and mouse game came to an end, that last sentence had me shook. It makes you wonder…and then what?

Felicity, Alice, Hannah, and Grace have been friends since they were schoolgirls. Inseparable and always in mischief, they earned the name “Wild Girls”. One night, emotions run high and a string of events pushes them apart. Two years go by without the girls speaking, until one day Felicity invites them all to an all expenses paid trip to a lodge in Africa for her 30th birthday. The three other girls can’t turn down a free vacation, and also want to use this as an opportunity to mend their friendships. As soon as they arrive at the picturesque lodge though, Felicity is nowhere to be found. And soon it feels as though they are being lured into one of Felicity’s strange games again.
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💭Thoughts💭
Author @phoebemorgan killed it (pun intended) with a heart racing murder mystery! It was one of the few thrillers that I have read that actually had me on my toes at every turn. The scenery and lodge descriptions were stunning to envision, especially admirable considering that she wrote this book during covid lockdown in 2020 and never even got to visit Botswana!
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⌛️Favorite Moment⌛️
My favorite moment was when you finally learned about what happened “that night” that they hint at all through the book. It clicked all the pieces together, but also set some groundwork for a few of the final plot twists at the end. I also loved the setting of a luxury lodge in Botswana. It was unlike any other book I’ve read in that aspect.
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🎉 Theme Ideas 🎉
Go all out with the African safari theme! Wear some animal print and pop the champagne, the girls were celebrating Felicity’s birthday after all. Make up a delicious charcuterie board with fancy meats, cheeses, and fresh fruits like they had at the lodge. Did you know that another name for a papaya is a pawpaw?!

I really enjoyed this book - it was engaging once I got drawn in, a little twisty and well put together. It was an interesting format - it takes a skillful hand to write present tense, backstories, and characters written in individual sections in first and third person. This was done pretty well, though a little distracting in the first bit of the book.
My advice would be to cut about 1/3 of the adjectives throughout the book and turn some of those commas into periods because paragraph-long sentences interrupt the flow in my opinion.
I would like to read more from this author and have already recommended it to a few friends.
Thanks netgalley for the complimentary copy!
Opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved this twisty, engrossing thriller. It was a super fast read, mostly because I had a hard time putting it down! I loved the time shift between the first half of the book and the last half. I thought it was a really creative way to split up the story. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author!

A special thank you to William Morrow and Custom House for the copy!

Grace, Hannah, Alice and Felicity have all grown up together. Years later when they are in their twenties, there is a falling out, which leads to a separation for a couple of years where each girl has tried to move on with their lives. When they receive a birthday invitation from Felicity to go to Botswana for a safari-themed party, they agree to go. While there, everything falls apart. This group of girls reminded me of Mean Girls, because one of them is the high-powered, tenacious, and spirited leader and the others follow along - hoping that the leader still likes them day after day. The followers also have extremely low self esteem, constantly wondering what the others think of them. There is a ton of character development, which is good. To top it off, each girl has had a trauma of some kind, which we are not made aware of until much later in the story. This is one of those stories where we don't know the horrible situation that led them to separate as friends until the end. But it works because it is a quick read.

Reasons for the 3 stars: Morgan has stated that she believes Grace is the main character - which is probably why we get her in first person, while the others are in third person (omniscient, so we know what they are all thinking). When we get in their heads, we are bombarded with troubling thoughts about their significant others (or lack thereof) and themselves. There was so much complaining - and yet, almost all of them seemed like they were capable of making new lives for themselves. There is also a character introduced early on that never develops into anything, which may have been an error.

Also, this felt like two different books to me. And it actually could have been two really good books that I would have read. You have one part that is about the girls in present time, going to Botswana to celebrate a birthday party and dealing with someone or something that wants them dead. And then you have another part that deals with the past and the relationships the girls have with each other. Maybe it should have been plotted differently, or presented in a way where part one and two could have been switched. And Botswana?? There should have been way more setting development. This could have been anywhere but because she included some animal themed description we are forced to believe they are there - I really wish there had been actual safari animals or even sounds made by them.

That being said, I did like the premise and the ending for sure. And I got a sense that Morgan wanted the weakest to make it - whereas, in Botswana that probably doesn't happen too often. And surprisingly, it didn't end with a nice red bow, which is refreshing.

A thriller with an interesting setting! Plenty of twists and turns, but in the end, I wasn't at all convinced by the story as it had too many gaps to make it feel totally realistic. But the fact that I finished it and was hooked until the very end is a good sign.

Four girls one remote vacation, what could go wrong? Turns out a lot. This multiple point of view thriller did not disappoint and kept me guessing until the end. The four girls had a falling out years ago, so the book jumps from past to present. The reader is then working to solve two mysteries at the same time - what caused the falling out and who is terrorizing the women on the resort. I flew through this one and it was a captivating read. Thanks to the author and NetGalley for the ARC.

A great fast-paced thriller I was hooked from beginning to end. Loved the twists and turns as well as the dynamics between the girls. Felt very realistic and while I didn't love any of them I found them very relatable.

A thriller that keeps you up late and haunts your dreams until the last page. All the characters are likeable, yet you feel cautious given their past. Each chapter end forces you to read “ just one more page” until you’re staying up late to find answers that haunt you from the beginning of the book.

Hannah, Felicity, Grace and Alice. Years ago they were known as "the wild girls" . Fast forward to today and these girls are anything but wild, except Felicity, Felicity is still a wild one. Hannah is a new mom, Grace never wants to leave her house and Alice is now a teacher.

Felicity wants to reunite them all and invited the girls for a weekend getaway in celebration of her birthday. She wants to rekindle the old vibe of the once proclaimed "wild girls" .

These girls have a secret. Two years ago something happened that tore these girls apart. All anyone wants to do is put that fateful night behind them.

Upon arrival to the luxurious lodge, something seems off. There is no party, cell service and something is definitely not right. Is the past ever really left in the past ?

The Wild Girls was incredible, filled with twists you will not see coming and a bunch of jaw dropping moments. I bonded with each one of these girls and truly formed a connection ( I swore I personally knew each of them)

I highly recommend the Wild Girls ! Easy 5 stars.

Felicity, Hannah, Grace, and Alice have been friends since school. But two years ago, during a long night of partying something happened to fracture their friendship. They’ve lost touch until Felicity sends each an invitation to an all-expense paid trip to celebrate her 30th birthday at a luxury lodge in Botswana. When the others arrive, they find the lodge deserted. Felicity who was supposed to have arrived a few days earlier is nowhere to be found, and the place is empty of staff. The girls each find strange welcome notes in their various rooms. They have limited cell reception, no internet, no transportation (they received a lift from the airport) and there are no locks on the doors.

What a great setup! I loved the first third of the book which revolves around events at the lodge. The remote location in the middle of nowhere coupled with the eerie emptiness and the knowledge that someone is lurking nearby (lavish meals and bottles of champagne are left out for them) kept me madly flipping pages. I also liked the dynamics between the women as the nuances of their friendships, past and present unfold in bits and pieces.

The second third of the book is devoted to the night when the friendship fell apart. I didn’t find this section nearly as riveting, especially as I could see the direction in which it was headed. By the third and final part, the narrative returns to the present with the danger element front and center.

Although I disliked the underlying motive running throughout, I found the ending chapters suspenseful. The final twist was wholly unexpected and clever.

Overall, this was a diverting read with excellent characterizations and a fantastic, exotic setting. I wish the action would have unfolded entirely at the lodge, and a different underlying motive was used. With that in mind, I’m rating this 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for review purposes (and because the first third of the book, deserves a glowing 5 stars).

Thank you to William Morrow, Custom House and NetGalley for my ARC.

The Wild Girls. Hmm. Maybe a more fitting title would have been ‘Girls in the Wild.’ Or maybe they were wild at one time but the story didn’t get into that. So ok.

The set up of the vacation and back story was good. The characters were believable and their separate lives felt normal and mundane enough to want to go on a girls vacation to Botswana. Although I wouldn’t have left my (still breastfeeding) baby. And when did this lactating mother pump btw?

Excitement picks up at the lodge. It’s deserted. Almost ghostly. But the happenings are too convenient. A hidden paper fortune teller with a cryptic message. Was there only one hidden in the whole lodge? Or was there a bunch of them. I mean what are the odds of the right person finding it?

The ending seems a stretch. But I guess stranger things have happened.

The book was a page turner.

Side note: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Thank you to William Morrow, Custom House and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

The Wild Girls, by Phoebe Morgan, reunites a group of old friends for an upscale foreign vacation, full of secrets, twists and danger. (Not to be confused with The Wilder Girls.) This reminded me of The Hunting Party, with the college friends and their secrets all together in a luxe resort. When this works, I really love it. (I was not a huge fan of The Guilt Trip or They Did Bad Things but there's a similar theme.)

Years ago, Felicity, Grace, Hannah and Alice were a tight group of school friends. But their friendships imploded after what was meant to be a fun night out revealed too many secrets. Now Felicity has reached out to the others with invitations to a blowout 30th birthday party in Botswana.

The reunion is tense at first, as the former friends look at each other nervously, but the gorgeous resort and the fun activities Felicity has set up change their minds.  There are realistic and gently emotional moments as old friends try to reconcile the girls they remember with the women they see now, which develops the characters and when the suspense starts, this only makes it more dramatic.

I liked the suspense and the exotic setting a great deal (although after the last year and half in my apartment, I'd probably have just chilled in my own plunge pool instead of investigating anything). There are twists and shocks in The Wild Girls, right up to the end.

This book was great! Loved the plot, the characters, and the setting. Loved reading the events from each friend’s perspective. And now I’d love to visit an African lodge - despite what happened there! Had no idea what happened until the end!