Ren Taylor accepts a job working on the faculty of the high school she graduated from ten years ago. The school is situated amidst a small town- one in which Ren's older sister, Margo, is remembered forever as the beautiful teen whose short life was robbed traumatically in a drowning accident. As soon as Ms. Taylor joins the staff, she encounters some familiar faces who give her a small dose of normalcy. I fear giving too much away will spoil the premise, so let me get right into it! The pros: the promise of a big secret reveal makes the path to get there feel fun and juicy as we learn the ins and outs of the town, the writing is good (not too dense, but just metaphorically loaded and flowery enough), and the pacing was decent. For the things I didn't love, I kept getting lost within our FMC's convos with her sister, and the certain parts mentioned were more of a slow burn, but for what reason? I will pinpoint that my absolute favorite aspect here is the reality of how women are treated- hysterical, fragile, in charge of our own fate until we aren't anymore etc. Big props to Marlee Bush for a solid sophomore Nobel, and I can't wait to read more by her. Thanks so much to the publisher and the author for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

This was very predictable. On my scaling system for thrillers this one ranked low due to its predictability and very YA-ish vibes.

Whispers of Dead Girls by Marlee Bush is a haunting and suspenseful psychological thriller that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Ren Taylor returns to her old high school ten years after the murder of her teenage sister, hoping to find peace. But the past refuses to stay buried as Ren is haunted by memories of her sister and the scandal that rocked her childhood. When Ren meets Bryson Lewis, a charming and charismatic physics teacher, she becomes suspicious of his intentions, especially after noticing his close relationship with a student who reminds her of her sister. As Ren's suspicions grow, she is determined not to let history repeat itself, even if it means confronting her own darkest secrets. With its compelling characters, intricate plot, and eerie atmosphere, Whispers of Dead Girls is a gripping tale of suspense, obsession, and redemption. This book is a must-read for fans of psychological thrillers and dark mysteries.

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Whispers of Dead Girls by Marlee Bush
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Thriller
𝐏𝐮𝐛 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: May 27, 2025
366 pages

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📓 Unreliable Narrator
📔 Inappropriate Teacher/Student Dynamic
📓 Nonlinear Timeline
📔 Suspicious Deaths
📓 Unexpected Twists

Synopsis: Ten years after the death of her older sister, Ren Taylor returns to her hometown for a teaching position with the hope of mending her relationship with her parents. However, the moment she meets the handsome and charismatic physics teacher, she knows she's getting a second chance to right her past.

Review: I always enjoy an unreliable narrator and I think Ren is an excellent example. Even after the tragic death of her older sister, she continues to see and speak to Margo. I felt certain that I knew what was going to happen, but I was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected turns the story took.

If you're looking for a thriller that will keep you on your toes, you'd probably enjoy Whispers of Dead Girls!

Thank you so much Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the digital review copy!

This book is a definite unfolding of a slow-burn unravel of secrets, of memory and of the main character, Ren. Although a very immature protagonist, Ren is unpredictable, damaged and driven. She's equal parts rage and vulnerability, making her the perfect unreliable narrator - an aspect I personally enjoy in books of this genre.

The mystery reveals itself like a set of nesting dolls, one twist tucked inside the next. Not all of them carry the same impact and not all of them are extremely surprising, but they will make you sad, perhaps cry, and definitely mad for the female characters.

One of my favorite characteristics of Whispers of Dead Girls is its portrayal of feminine rage and grief. The ways that trauma can reshape a person's life and the people that surround them.

I finished this book last night and I’m trying to process how I feel about it.

I think the book itself is very well written, it kept me guessing as I was never quite sure where it was going to go, and I didn’t see the twist coming until just before it happened.

However, I did not like the way the story played out.

- This is probably more of a me thing, than a problem with the book itself. As a SA survivor, I don’t like books where women fake or lie about SA. Women doing things like that are one of the reasons why the rest of us who are telling the truth aren’t believed.

- Basically every person in this book is terrible and I don’t need reminding that people suck.

- I didn’t like that the issue of Ren’s mental illness was never addressed. It would have been one thing if she had actually been seeing the ghost of her sister but it’s obviously a manifestation she is creating in her own mind and that’s never really solved or fixed. And her then seeing her teacher at the end was kind of stupid and pointless.

-This book tries to do feminine rage but it didn’t really work for me. Allowing a teenager who is obviously psychotic, who killed two innocent girls and her own step-brother go free is ridiculous.

- I kind of hate that Ren took the blame for her sister for all those years but also kind of respect and understand it.


Overall the book was okay and was a good read but maybe just wasn’t for me.

I am going to be completely honest when I first received the ARC of this book I set it aside after a few chapters. I just wasn't really vibing with the story. I was having a hard time staying focused on the book and was easily distracted while reading it and it just was not keeping my attention. So I set it aside. I can be a mood reader though so I never DNF a book without attempting to reading it at least twice so after a month or so I picked it back up and gave it another go, and I am glad i did. The second time I tried reading it I finished the book within 48 hours. There were a couple of twists I figured out but a couple that I definitely did not see coming. I still found the first few chapters to mover a little slow but once the story starts to pick up it moves at a very steady pace, and I did not want to put the book down because I wanted to know how it ended.

MARLEE what drugs did you put into this book?! I genuinely finished this book in 24 hours. I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. Ren is such a deeply layered character with so many different sides to her. She has had some very tragic things happen in her life, coincidentally?? She has brought herself back to her hometown to be closer to her family, but also to serve justice. However, is her sense of justice skewed? Throughout this story, you put the pieces of her past together while also putting the pieces of Ren together. Positive intent or ravenous revenge? These characters will keep you guessing throughout the whole story. Who is responsible for these missing dead girls, who is hiding big secrets, and who is harboring decades worth of guilt? READ THIS!

Thank you NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Whispers of dead girls truly lingers in the back of your mind after you close it.

The story is about Ren who returns to her hometown where she will be teaching at the very same high school where her sister Margo had possibly been murdered by a teacher.
With Ren's past interwoven with her future, when the ghost of her sister starts haunting her.
Things shift when Ren suspects something a little off about Bryce Lewis the physics teacher across the hall and when the bodies of two teenage girls are found, her unease growing.
Is history repeating itself and more importantly can Ren help the students?

It's amazing how you could feel Ren's perspective from time to time.
However, certain subplots feel like they could have been explored more deeply but over all this was a fantastic read.
It's a slow burning thriller that explores trauma, grief and a strive for redemption.
If you love eerie mysteries, then this is definitely the book for you.

Thank you Marlee Bush and Netgalley for this ARC!

thank you to Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

this book was SO good!

a woman unhinged from reality, the indiscriminate murder of men, sociopathic teenager girls and a CHILLING ending? what’s not to love!

i’ve said it before, but i’ll always eat up a story about a woman who isn’t completely connected to her reality. ren was out of this world and i loved every second of it. she was extremely flawed and nuanced and buried in grief and anger and i think that’s beautiful. she was so well written and even when she was making wild decisions i was in her corner.

in addition to a well-rounded story and characters that actually feel real, this book had a really important message about grief and how it permeates your entire life and influences everything you do, even years after the event takes place

i’d definitely recommend this to anyone who loves a good thriller

My first book by this author! I absolutely loved it!! Keep you wanting to read more !! Highly suggest reading this one !! Five stars !!

I received an ARC of this book from Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley in exchange for my honest feedback. A bit of mixed feelings on this one. The author does a good job with the atmosphere - creepy, suspenseful, insular town. And the cast of characters is quite varied and pretty believable.

There was a part fairly early on where suddenly something has happened, and I completely though I skipped a chapter. I actually went back a few times to check if I did. Ad far as I could tell, I didn't, which means the incident was really confusing.

Though I am not at all a fan of the supernatural, the parts where Ren talks to Margo didn't bother me. I took them more as a vivid manifestation of her feelings rather than literally seeing a ghost.

I was starting to get a bit frustrated with the big secret about what happened to Margo, but then the reveal made sense, so this ended up OK for me.

I didn't really see the point about Ren's parents' health, or her relationship with them.

There were a lot of typos which will hopefully be fixed before publication.

My main issue was the ending which was absolutely not OK!!! Don't read this book if you like things to be tied up.

An easy read with short chapters and fast paced writing.

I enjoyed the 'justice' aspect of the plot and the main character (Ren)'s conscience represented as her late sister - it made for interesting reading into how Ren felt and reacted to certain situations.

The story concluded neatly but I was a little disappointed by the twist.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced reader copy! I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from this author.

When Ren gets a job at her old high school, she knows people will talk about her murdered sister. When history seems to be repeating itself with physics teacher Bryson showing an interest in a female student, Ren knows she needs to step in to stop the damage that she wasn't able to stop for her sister.

This fast paced thriller was a solid read. I was invested in the story from page one and found myself gasping at all the twists. This has been one of the better thrillers I've read of late and I don't hesitate in recommending picking this one up.

(3.75/5 stars)
Whispers of Dead Girls is a slow-burning, emotionally fraught psychological thriller that leans hard into trauma, obsession, and the way the past can haunt a place—and a person—long after it’s buried.

Ren is a compelling narrator: haunted, paranoid, and constantly walking the line between justified suspicion and total unraveling. Her grief and guilt over her sister’s death give the story a raw undercurrent that I found affecting, even when the plot dipped into familiar territory. The setting—returning to your hometown only to confront every ghost you tried to leave behind—was incredibly effective.

Bryson Lewis is exactly the kind of slippery character that keeps you guessing. Charming but off, a little too perfect. It’s easy to understand Ren’s distrust, but her increasing fixation walks the fine line between vigilance and personal collapse, and that tension is the heart of the book.

My biggest gripe? It got a little repetitive. The suspense works well early on, but it started to feel like Ren was stuck in a loop of suspicion without the story quite evolving quickly enough. Still, the ending paid off, and I appreciated the emotional resolution as much as the thriller one.

A moody, unsettling story that asks what happens when your past never lets you go—and what you’ll risk to stop someone else from meeting the same fate. Not perfect, but it lingered.

This was an easy, but well-written suspense novel with major “me too” undertones. The story is told in dual timelines but the timelines aren’t explicitly stated, so it can be a bit confusing and didn’t feel like it flowed well enough to pull that off. This is a great book for folks who like dark suspense novels with unreliable narrators with lots of unresolved trauma and questionable morals. I really disliked the FMC even though I realize she was unstable; maybe the point was to not be sure about her. Overall, this book was just okay and I flew through it.. I cant exactly put my finger on it but it felt like something was missing.
I know it’s implied by the synopsis but can we also add TWs for books like this, please????
TW: grooming, statutory rape, murder

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press & Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Marlee Bush’s sophomore novel, "Whispers of Dead Girls," is a dark, psychological thriller that focuses on grief, memory, and the lasting impact of trauma.

The story follows Ren Taylor as she returns to her hometown to work as a biology teacher at her former high school. Ren is still haunted by her sister’s unsolved death ten years earlier. When Bryson Lewis, a well-liked teacher, comes under suspicion for questionable behavior, Ren begins to unravel emotionally—and possibly mentally.

The book’s biggest strength is its atmosphere. Bush creates a tense, eerie small-town setting that will keep readers on edge. Ren’s growing paranoia, along with the possible supernatural presence of her sister, makes the story emotionally intense and psychologically layered. The beginning of the novel is quick to captivate readers, but the pacing begins to drag a bit in the middle, with too much introspection slowing the plot. While there are some surprises, parts of the story are fairly predictable, and the supporting characters, especially Bryson, feel underdeveloped. This novel also sets up a few plot points that could be interesting and impactful, but doesn’t follow through. Most notably, there is a police investigation subplot that ultimately leads nowhere and could have been omitted entirely without affecting the overall narrative.

In "Whispers of Dead Girls," Bush offers a compelling premise, but doesn’t fully capitalize on its potential. It is still a solid read with a strong sense of place and mood, and fans of psychological suspense may certainly find enjoyment in its haunting themes.

👀 F R E A K Y F R I D A Y review 👀 featuring “Whispers of Dead Girls” by Marlee Bush!

MY RATING: 🖤🖤🖤.5/5

Ren Taylor has returned to her small home town as the newest faculty member at her old highschool. 10 years ago her sister was killed and Ren believes that a teacher from the school could have been responsible. Ren is back at this haunting place to not only confront the past, but also come to terms with her overwhelming feelings of trauma, grief and guilt.

Ren soon suspects that a fellow teacher is having inappropriate relations with one of his students. Memories of her sister’s unsolved scandal come rushing back to her and Ren is determined to protect others before history begins to repeat itself!

This book had A LOT going on and covered many themes: sibling loss, the power imbalance between students and their teachers, the fear of speaking out and coming forward when your a teenager and the destroying effects of gossip and rumours within a school setting. This haunting roller coaster ride of secrets, trauma and emotions will hit you hard with every twist and turn. Pay close attention to the bread crumbs the author sprinkles for readers and the dynamics of a small town riddled with secrets 🤫!

Thank you kindly to @marleebushwriter @poisonedpenpress @netgalley for my #gifted advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review. This book releases on May 27, 2025!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion!

This is my second time receiving a Marlee Bush ARC and it did not disappoint! The main character, Ren, was a little bit of a sociopath and definitely an unreliable narrator, but I really admired her continuous love for her sister and dedication to her memory. This book was filled with twists and turns, and an ending I definitely didn't see coming. I think I enjoyed Marlee Bush's debut novel a bit more, but this story still had me on the edge of my seat during the whole read. If you enjoyed her first book, especially the way she shows familial bonds, I would encourage you to give this one a read as well!