Thanks NetGalley for the early listen of this book for an honest review.

Unfortunately this book fell flat and way too all over the place. I could not keep up with the 3 storylines. I rarely have problems keeping up while listening on audio but I had to restart chapters and skip back to try to piece together what was going on. I still feel a bit lost even at the end.

I wanted to like this book but sadly it just fell flat for me. It is told from 3 different timelines - Charlie present day, Charlie when she was younger, and the story of Harry. One of my main issues with this book is this third timeline. We don't even really know who Harry is until way later in the story so that already made it a little confusing. By the time things really start coming together it just seemed like a pointless addition to the book. I get the connection but it seemed so unnecessary. Also, I think the Goodreads synopsis gives away a little too much of the story.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the free audio book in exchange for an honest review. This was narrated by Mhairi Morrison who did an excellent job! Highly recommend the audio version.

Charlie is an eleven year old living in a small seaside town when she meets Emily. They pair up to get rid of Emily's abusive father by summoning the spirit of Stitch Face Sue, a town local legend. When their summoning appear to be working, they bring along another girl who is killed in the process.

Today, Charlie returns home to research the local folklore. Almost immediately she is distracted by reports of local girls going missing. In addition, her former 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.

Overall, this one was slow and dragged too much to really hold my interest. I am not sure if it was the mystery not being that suspenseful, the characters not being well developed or the overall book.

2.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jen Williams and Dreamscape Media for an audio arc of Games for Dead Girls in exchange for an honest review. This review is wholly my own and may not be reproduced.

I want to start by saying that I HATE giving negative reviews because I know that authors put so much of themselves into their work and I have a deep respect for what any author does. However, I just can't sugarcoat this one and I apologize in advance.

This novel was just so all over the place. There were three separate plot/timelines and the convergence of all three was less than underwhelming. I still cannot figure out where the title came from and I'm still confused on Jenny/Katie - are they the same person?

The only positive I have to say is that the synopsis was interesting enough to draw me in and the cover was great - but what was between the covers was such a let down. I am just thankful that I had an audio arc so I could listen to in much more quickly than reading it, so I wasted less time on it.

To the author, Jen Williams, I'm deeply sorry that my review is not better and I do appreciate the work you put into your novel.

1/5 Stars

"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. 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."

My Thoughts:
Games for Dead Girls is told in dual timelines connecting Charlie's past and present. The pacing of the book is slow as we gather the pieces of Charlie's past and begin to understand how they have shaped her future.
Throughout the book there is another perspective sprinkled into the story; and for the majority of the time it just feels out of place. The dual perspectives do come together in the end but take it's sweet time getting there.
I liked Charlie's character, she felt like a real person trying to overcome her past. This story focuses more on character arc than a well paced, action packed plot. The premise was really good, but with no big twists and the slow pacing I felt a little bored at times.
Overall I did enjoy the way that the story came together in the end, and feel like those who prefer a character driven story will enjoy this one.

Thank you to @netgalley, @dreamscape_media, and @crookedlanebooks for the gifted copy of this book.

I tried to get into this but it was too slow for me. I enjoy a slow build to stories but this was overly slow and had so many different threads that it was difficult to follow and I found that I didn't want to. I gave up at 15%.

I received a copy from #NetGalley and @Dreamscape_Media for an honest review

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook.

This was an interesting ride. To be honest I was multitasking so I believe I missed a chuck in the beginning introducing the niece.
I like the writing style.... the creepy factor of the girls game... the setting.. All round great story. end ehhhhh _ but that's my MO. I rarely like endings.
Solid 3.5- voted up.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance audiobook copy of Games for Dead Girls by Jen Williams in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed this audiobook. I wasn't quite sure where it was going in the beginning as it flipped between three timelines, but it got really interesting as it started to fall into place. I think I need to find more books by Jen Williams.

This genre is right up my alley but I just couldn’t get into this story. It doesn’t mean it isn’t a good story, but just not for me. I will try more book from this author. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to rate and review.

Interesting and well written I just personally couldn’t get into the story. Just a little slow and unbelievable at some points. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

<i>Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the audio ARC. It hasn't affected the content of my review.</i>

I was really disappointed in this one until about 2/3 through, and then it hooked me, so this book was thus saved from a two star rating. (And I feel I have to note, even though it hooked my interest, I still sort of thought the plot was kind of dumb.)

I know Jen Williams as a fantasy author whose books have been on my TBR for SOOOO LONG and I have never read a single one. When I saw that she was releasing a thriller, and it was about two girls who mess around with local legends and something bad happens, I clicked 'Request' so fast. But honestly, while the first 2/3 of the book aren't BAD, they are SOOOO SLOOOOWWW. We spend so much time with characters doing very little, seemingly so the author could drop in slight clues that would make sense at the end of the book. Which did happen! Except the narrative she's dropping these clues into is not interesting. (Also, all of the "twists" are obvious.)

Also! This book has not one, not two, but THREE separate timelines. I'm sorry, but that is too much, and it doesn't work. One of the timelines was so tedious to get through, and it took away my focus and mental energy from the other two timelines. I think she could have introduced this guy's backstory in a much different way that would have been interesting instead of what we have here.

Also also! There was just A LOT going on here, and as can happen when a book has too much going on, none of it was really explored or expanded upon to my satisfaction.

The book is narrated by Mhairi Morrison, and as always she does a fantastic job. Her voice is so soothing.

Games For Dead Girls by Jen Williams was surprisingly slow considering how much was happening in the story. It was told from two different povs and three different timelines. The pacing in the first half was incredibly slow but there were enough small plot hooks to keep me invested in the story. I felt like there were a lot of inconsistencies in this one and it did make it difficult to get through it. Despite its flaws I ended up liking the characters and overall enjoying the book.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my goodness I really really liked this one! I think Williams did a fantastic job spinning a strange and fascinating tale with a number of twists that I did not see coming at all - although there were a few that I did manage to pick up on before they were revealed, this did nothing to affect my enjoyment. I enjoyed her characterizations and found her spin on the murdered / abducted girls trope novel enough to feel darkly compelling and unusual in a way I haven't encountered in a while. Her characterizations were well established and well-defined and the pacing and plot moved along at the perfect speeds to keep my attention and my curiosity well-honed.

I tried reading her last novel, Dark and Secret Places, and struggled with it. After this one, I'm not entirely sure why although I do wonder if it was the audio format that made this one work so well for me. I found the narrator to do an excellent job setting the tone and am definitely going to go back and try the last book as an audio now.

Thank you Dreamscape Media and netgalley for the audio book. I liked the mtiple timelines. Just this time was really to slow..I listen to books doing other things and I really wished the book was quicker. But I guess the dark loversand ghosts story would really not mind. A bonus is a seaside setings for me.

“If you want to stop her, find what you buried together.”

Charlie returns to the seaside town of Hithechurch, England after receiving this cryptic message. When she was eleven years old, she invented a story about Stitch-Faced Sue in order to entertain her friends. However, this spooky tale changed the course of their lives. She returns under the guise of researching the town’s folklore. Who knows about what she and her friends did all those years ago? And, why have so many girls gone missing in this town? Could Stitch-Faced Sue actually be real?

I listened to the audiobook while following along with the ebook. I really enjoyed the audio, which was narrated by Mary Woodvine. I highly recommend listening to this one.

This slow-burn thriller is part mystery, part ghost story, and sprinkled with a little bit of horror. It includes a gullible protagonist, a predictable plot with non-existent policing, and convenient reveals. Despite these issues, I did enjoy this book! If you go into this knowing what to expect, you won’t be disappointed.

However, please avoid reading the Goodreads synopsis, as it will spoil the book!

3.5/5 stars rounded down

Expected publication date: 4/18/23

Thank you to NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books, and Dreamscape Media for the ARC of Games for Dead Girls in exchange for an honest review.

here is a lot going on in this book, so you need to pay attention. Little things that seem unimportant become huge clues. Things are never really what they seem, and all characters are unreliable and sketchy. Keeping all this in mind, doesn’t that make you want to read the book more? Lol
The timeline hops from childhood to present day. So much is linked between the two narratives, but you don’t realize it until the middle of the book. The common thread is the missing girls, and an urban legend. I think the sense of the supernatural, of the urban legend being real, is what held my attention through the whole book. I wanted a ghost to be the killer, kidnapper, because a real person is so much more scarier. And OMG that reveal is down right dark.
It’s so hard to not see myself in this story. I love camping, and the excitement felt as a kid when making temporary friends in the campground. Making up games and stories to keep the friendship going, is exactly what I did. I love it when storylines seemed to be picked from my past.
Games For Dead Girls is a fantastic thriller, that goes dark just enough to make your hairs stand up. The story is told so well, and is captivating all the way through until the end. As an audiobook, the narrator helped keep the story moving. The emotion in the voice, brought you back in time and pulled you to the present. I bounced from audio to print with this book, and am very glad I did. I felt a deeper connection with the audio giving a voice to the characters.

This book is ok it just had too many things going on for me to truly enjoy it. This book is set in a tiny seaside village in England. It’s a story about Charlie and Emily.. Emily’s dad is abusive the girls plot to get rid of him.

This is told in a staggering timeline with the perfectly unreliable narrator.

This is a story that will keep you guessing until the end. It’s filled with heinous people and the heinous acts they commit, but also retribution and penance.

Our protagonist is searching for something… along with her young niece, she travels back to a town where terrible things had happened… and upon her search for truth about missing girls, she finds connections between current events and her own past.

This had this great eerie pace, characters in which you simply didn’t know what you were going to get and a decades old evil that’s been lurking in plain sight.

The audiobook narration was so well done. The narrator puts you at ease with her melodic voice, while still delivering a pulse pounding story!

Traveling from the 1950s to the present, this book revolves around a small seaside vacation compound and the young girls who have disappeared from the area. The primary storyteller is Charlie, who relives her childhood in the 1980s and a ghost story game gone terribly wrong and Charlie in the present, back in the town where things went so terribly wrong. Charlie’s childhood friendship with Emily, a girl who appears to be suffering terrible physical abuse at the hands of her father. Charlie tells a fictional story about a ghost that will avenge Emily if the girls perform a ritual, offering up gifts to the ghost. When a gift ends in murder, things spiral out of control. Now, years later, Emily is on the verge of publishing a tell-all book blaming Charlie for the murder. As Charlie struggles to connect the story of the missing girls and thwart Melanie’s book plans, she begins to remember things. Things that, until now, she would have sworn didn’t happen. I loved this book, I was trying to piece together the real story throughout most of the book.

Missing girls, dark secrets, the past and dangerous caves.

Charlie and her niece Katie go to Hithechurch, England where Charlie is researching a book on local folklore. For Charlie it will be like coming home. When Charlie was a girl she met Emily, a girl her age with an abusive father. The girls perform a ritual to summon "Stitch Face Sue" an urban legend believed to haunt the town seeking revenge for her murder. Their ritual goes horribly, horribly wrong. Now, Emily has written a memoir about what happened when they were young, blaming Charlie for everything. Charlie wants to clear her name and find proof that Emily was the one to blame. But soon the past will collide with her present. While doing her research, Charlie learns of missing girls and feels as if she is being watched...

I had both the book and the audiobook. I thought the narrator did a fine job. The synopsis was very intriguing, and I had high hopes for this book. I think my hopes were a little too high. For me this book was slow in parts, and it dragged my enjoyment down. This is a case of me struggling with slower books. I will say that the last third of the book really picked up and was quite good.

Overall, I enjoyed the book.