Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.

This book is told over three different timelines.

Charlie and Emily meet up in the summer as kids. Having a tough time they decide to try and get ‘stitch face Sue’ a ghostly figure to act out revenge for them.

Sarah is on holiday in the same town but present day. She is trying to find something from her childhood, but is interested in the disappearance of present day girls and investigates under the pretence of writing a book.

Harry is a talented boy, with a promising future as a surgeon. Who is he in the present day?

I enjoyed this book but I did feel the mystery room too long to reveal.

Thank you Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read and review this book!
I gave this book a 3.5/5.
The writing was superb, the twists were great, and the ending was wild. My only criticism is that it did move a little slowly, and could definitely be described as a slow burn. While I am typically not a fan of slow burns, this novel had just enough details scattered around to keep me hooked and needing to know the ending. The dual timelines did a wonderful job at slowly unraveling the mystery and keeping me guessing until the end. Overall, very glad that I read it!

Games for Dead Girls by Jen Williams is a mystery/thriller with some folklore thrown in.

This novel has a lot going on in terms of story lines, and it’s just a bit too much. It’s very telling that my interest wavered quite a bit throughout this novel, but mostly in the first half. It takes just a bit too long for things to really get going. There’s a difference between tension and needing to cut some things out. The three different timelines didn’t help, and I’m normally a big fan of multiple timelines in books. It’s just didn’t work here because it slowed everything down too much.

The ending felt anticlimactic because my interest just wasn’t there anymore. I give it two stars for the effort. I’ll definitely try this author again because there’s a lot of promise here with a better editing strategy.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When Charlie was eleven, she created a monster…

For Charlie and her niece Katie, it’s supposed to be a quiet holiday in the peaceful, out of the way seaside town of Hithechurch, England. Charlie is researching a book on the folklore of the area, and the gloomy sea and dangerous caves seem to offer up plenty of material, while Katie is just there to run wild and get some fresh air. 

But Charlie’s research reveals a deeper, darker secret, one that uncovers her own, carefully hidden past. Because young women are going missing again: a teenage girl snatched from the beach in broad daylight, and before that, other girls through the decades have vanished from the area, their families left with no answers and no bodies to bury.

Charlie’s creation was a thing of felt, straw, fury, and a rusty pair of scissors in the dark. It couldn’t be her monster. Could it? Charlie is set on discovering the truth about the girls’ disappearances, but she’s about to encounter a force of pure, obsessive malevolence that threatens to destroy anything in its path.

Really enjoyable read totally recommend
Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books
I just reviewed Games for Dead Girls by Jen Williams. #GamesforDeadGirls #NetGalley

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC copy of this book to read and review. All of these thoughts are my own!

I’m a huge crime/thriller book junkie, so when I saw this I just had to request it.

The book wasn’t bad but I just…wanted more I guess. It sort of lost my attention when switching between 3 different time lines. It wasn’t hard to keep up with the timelines but I did find it a bit irritating. It did have a good creepy vibe to it, so that part I did enjoy a lot. It also didn’t drag on like most books do, so finishing it without getting bored also wasn’t an issue. I didn’t really get into it until halfway through but I would recommend this to others. Some people love multiple time lines; I don’t lol.

3 stars!

Reviewed for NetGalley:

Missing girls in a small town, my interest quickly piqued.

However, the multiple timelines lost me and my patience.

I loved this book- it was so creepy and well-written. The story centers on Charlie and goes back and forth from when she was a pre-teen to current time as an adult. In the prior timeline, Charlie meets a friend named Emily and they conspire to conjure up a ghost based on local folklore to rid Emily of her abusive father. In the latter timeline, Charlie is back in the same location digging into the past when a girl goes missing; she finds out at the same time that her former friend Emily is writing a tell-all book about how things went very bad that summer when they were kids.

This book was downright scary at parts- the author did a great job in creating the right atmosphere and getting the reader to immerse themselves in how Charlie was feeling. Charlie herself was a mostly likeable character and the things that she did when they were kids felt really authentic. I felt for her even when she was making terrible decisions and felt her fear and uncertainty like it was my own. There are also a few really big twists in the book that I didn't see coming at all (which is rare for me!), and I loved the way that the author explained all the various happenings and tied up the loose ends so all of the different pieces of the narrative fit together perfectly.

Overall, I was thrilled to have read this book and have already recommended it to others. Looking forward to seeing what this author comes up with next. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was just ok for me. The mystery kinda dragged on for a good majority of the book. There was three different timelines which I’m not a fan of and the ending was anticlimactic.

In a tiny seaside town in England eleven year old Charlie meets Emily. They pair team up to try to get rid of Emily’s abusive father by summoning the spirit of Stitch Face Sue. Stitch Face Sue was one of the towns local legends and Emily becomes obsessed with her. When their pleas to the spirit appear to be working, they bring along another girl but everything goes wrong and the girl is killed.

In the present Charlie returns to the small town to research the local folklore. Almost immediately she is distracted by reports of local girls going missing. In addition, her ex best friend Emily just released a memoir about what happened to them as kids. This enrages Charlie and she is determined to find the evidence that will back up her side of the story.

Games For Dead Girls is available April 18,2023


Thank you to netgalley and crookedlanebooks for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This was so well done.... it threw an absolute curveball about halfway in- something I absolutely wasn't expecting. I couldn't wait to get to the end, yet was sad to finish this one at the same time. Definitely worth reading.

Thank you Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Ok, wow, this book was amazing! Such a unique plot. I absolutely loved how the author incorporated urban legends and macabre secrets. This is a quick-paced novel, filled with twists, adventure, and imaginative plot lines.

The book involves three different timelines. However, it is easy to follow and these different timelines really make the book.

I recommend this one for anyone who is a fan of thrillers but is also looking for a little something extra, like spookiness and urban legends.

I wasn't sure about this one at first; it was so slow. But I'm glad I stuck with it. It turned out to be deliciously macabre. A haunted small town unravelling and the POV's decisions that led to it all. Great read.

Games for Dead Girls features multiple timelines, a creepy small town, and both human and inhuman monsters. This one takes a minute to get up to speed, but I thought the payoff was worth it and that all of the exposition enhanced the plot. And even after sitting on this review for a few days, I'm still thinking about Williams' characters and which choices ultimately led to the horrors that haunt the town. I love love love a host of complex characters making both good decisions and decisions that make me want to scream whyyyyy 😭

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for providing a digital copy of Games for Dead Girls in exchange for an honest review. Games for Dead Girls will hit shelves April 18, 2023!

Hmm… creepy creature folkloric stories, missing girls, a small town with dark secrets are the best themes I never get tired to dive into without thinking! But there are some executional issues about this book. There are 3 different timelines with three interesting storylines but those stories’ progressions are extremely slow and their convergence takes too much time. You already lose your patience and you also lose your interest! You don’t want to know what will happen next because as you reach to the half you realize nothing juicy, earth shattering, mind bending happens. The town’s history and folklore take unnecessarily too much part of the chapters so this book turns into something flat, boring. You push yourself too hard to reach the finish line. Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened to me!
The book opens with Charlie and 10 years old niece Katie’s storyline. They moved into trailer for a special holiday out-of-the-way seaside town of Hithechurch, England. Charlie is researching a book on the folklore of the area, and the gloomy sea and dangerous caves as her niece aimlessly enjoys the seaside. But we sense Charlie has other agenda, introducing herself with other name, dying her hair not to be recognized. And the storyline is Charlie’s past where she finds her dear friend, starting attending the rituals to summon the spirit of Stitch Face Sue: a folkloric creature! And third line is about the doctor whose cognitive skills got affected after an accident, ends up with a pretty woman who accidentally falls and damages her face which also affects her self esteem.

Eventually those storylines get intercepted but as I told before I already lost my concentration and I did my best to finish the execution.

Overall: it’s solid, flat three starred read for me. There’s so much potential and I wish the author didn’t open up so many storylines because it was like juggling too many balls and dropping them all. It wasn’t bad reading experience but I expected so much more. I’m still curious to read more works of the author.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

Games for Dead Girls sadly falls short of the ideas it is trying to create and feels more like a parody that drags on and never seems to find the plot or footing it needs for it to succeed.

Jen Williams has great ideas but never seems to execute on them in this book but the biggest strength I can give her is the way that she creates setting and how the town feels real but the people who live there never seem to fit in.

The characters are the biggest hurdle for me in this book because I never seemed to connect with them or feel that the decisions that they made were earned or real and that always hurts when I read a book with a great framework for the story but falls apart when it comes to characters. I never felt anything for Charlie or Katie because I felt that they were more blank slates then characters.

Overall I wish I had loved Games for Dead Girls but sadly I feel that Williams falls flat on this story

And now…..

Back to my regularly scheduled dramatic rants on my love for blood, guts, gore, twist, shrills and of course some sleepless nights.

Well, lookey on over here for a book that checks off every box on my twisty little soul sucking list.

Drumroll please…..

Games For Dead Girls

This book fed my soul . It’s beyond disturbing, twisted, dark and has given me nightmares since I read it. This is my go to book suggestion for anyone who asks for the most traumatic book I have ever read . This is one of those books everyone says they can handle and then the minute they conclude they find their hands shaking in fear . I won’t lie to you. There was no “walks around the neighborhood” after this one .

So although you may call yourself a psychological thriller lover please proceed with caution, this is not the book for anyone looking for a boy meets girl and maybe gets annoyed and disappears for a bit kind of thing .

Enjoy my little soul suckers….

5 stars

I will give this book a solid 3.5 stars out of 5. Good creep factor which set the tone for my Halloween weekend. I liked the characters, especially our main protagonist. Parts of the story dragged, especially in the beginning but once it picked up, I was hooked. Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane books for the opportunity to preview this uncorrected proof in exchange for my honest review.

I read an ARC copy of Games for Dead Girls from NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books. Thank you very much for this opportunity.

This book is set in three different timelines. One is "current day" where a woman has come to this sleepy, seaside town, saying she wants to write about it's folklore and dark stories, but it soon becomes clear that she's come to look for and find something more. The next is set a little further back about two girls, one of whom hears local legend that she embellishes for her new friend, and they start doing rituals to summon "Stitch Face Sue" to carry out deeds that the girl facing abuse at home is unable or afraid to do herself. Then there's even further back about the son of a doctor who is in an accident that renders him less able to move and concentrate, who eventually end up with a woman who was once beautiful, but fell and scarred her face, leaving her with a crippling insecurity that he feeds into.

All these three stories eventually converge. From basically the beginning we know that Charlie is the aunt and the little girl that started the exaggerated rumor about Stitch Face Sue, and you should basically know how the other two play into story as well, but this is in the "mystery" category, so I couldn't tell if I was actually supposed to be surprised or not when it was "revealed".

That said, I actively did not enjoy reading this book. I didn't realize that this book was set in three timelines. I thought that the book would slowly reveal her past, not have split almost equally between the three parts telling the history. Actually, the history takes up more in the beginning, because the author didn't seem to know how to setup the aunt sneakily getting information that she wants. Every other character seems to know who she is and her past despite her changing her name, and her past because illogical as soon as the interesting parts really start happening.

Honestly, I would have rather not heard about Henry's past at all, as it's mostly boring, and learning it through rumors and maybe local history books (which are popular in small towns, especially ones with dark histories) would have been more interesting. And I would have rather heard about Charlie and Emily's story through Emily's tell-all book, maybe with Charlie reading it later and making comments on her perspective on which parts were wrong and taken out of context.

Overall, this book just felt flat to me. A book about rumors that was told all through facts, and because of that lacked the ability to capture my attention. This is a good format for a tell-all book about a true story, but not one where I'm supposed to be engaged and sitting on the edge of my seat wondering how it all ties together and what will happen next.

This book was hard for me to get into unfortunately because the plot sounded so unique and interesting. Instead it was a very slow paced story which made it very hard for me to keep focused and engaged.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this book. I am not a fan of slow burn reads, and this book just couldn’t hold my interest. I finished the book, because I hate DNF books. The first half was super slow, but the second half picked up. There are some positive aspects of the book! The characters were well developed, the book alternates between three timelines (but it’s easy to navigate). The last half of the book was filled with a lot of twists and turns. Thank you for the ARC.

4 stars

Definitely an above average thriller! I love the different timelines, and I loved how everything came together in the end. A great fast paced page turner. I hope to see much more from Williams in the future.