“Or perhaps all adults feel like that at times. Like we’re just playing at being grown-up, but inside we’re still children, shuffling around in oversized clothes, wishing someone would tell us that monsters don’t exist.”
Earlier this year, we did a book review of The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor. It was our first taste of her as an author, but it’s safe to say we became big fans. So much so, we went out and picked up her 2021 book, The Burning Girls. The Chalk Man put Tudor on the map both for us as well as the wider reading world, but did The Burning Girls succeed in keeping the hype up? Join us at What We Reading for our The Burning Girls book review to find out!
Date Published: 2021
Author: C.J. Tudor
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Pages: 333
GoodReads Rating: 4.03/5
Premise
Set in a small sleepy village in the Sussex countryside, The Burning Girls follows Reverend Jack Brooks and her daughter, Flo. However, this village, Chapel Croft, has a dark history. Five hundred years ago, eight martyrs were burned at the stake, thirty years ago two young girls disappeared without a trace, and Jack’s predecessor was recently found hung inside his church. From receiving a exorcism kit as a welcoming gift to strange visions of burning girls following them, it soon becomes clear Chapel Croft has ghosts from its past that refuse to be laid to rest.
The Burning Girls is a thrilling ride across Jack and Flo’s investigations into this eerie village and its inhabitants. Everyone has links to its dark past, and everyone has something to hide.
What Worked
C.J. Tudor just knows how to write a seriously enthralling dark tale, doesn’t she? Despite being 333 pages long, The Burning Girls is a thrilling page-turner. The pacing hardly gives you a second to breath, with revelation after revelation being uncovered with almost every chapter, peeling away at the truths lurking behind this creepy village.
And the imagery at play in the book is stunning. With chapels, graveyards and derelict houses aplenty, it’s textbook horror but utilised so well with everything the characters experience. And whilst this is definitely more ‘horror’ than something like The Chalk Man, suspense, thriller, crime and whodunnit elements are all captivatingly blended together.
Tudor ultimately has a lot to wrap up and reveal, but, for the most part, she absolutely nails it.
But, whilst the setting undoubtedly played a huge role in making this one of the most nail-biting books we’ve read this year, the characters are equally brilliant in how they’re written. Coming off It Ends At Midnight that was rammed with infuriating and incompetent players, The Burning Girls is made up of characters that are all believable as suspects.
Jack and Flo work so well as a parent-daughter relationship that feels authentic and real. They have their moments, but they are always supportive of one another, which really helps sell the theme of the two of them being against the world here. Flo is a smart, isolated girl but never drifts into the cliche territory, whilst Jack steals the show as the protagonist with her wise-cracking quips but also her empathy, intelligence, strength and competence throughout the story.
What Didn’t
In short, not a lot for us.
The Burning Girls is a seriously ambitious book with all the major mysteries it presents. And, whilst most of them are wrapped up fairly well, there are a few instances of things being revealed towards the end that are a bit: ‘oh yeah, I did it’ without too much reasoning behind them.
There were also a couple of instances where a flurry of characters were introduced in quick succession but who we soon found ourselves forgetting who they were in relation to the plot afterward. There’s every chance that it was us being dumb, and it never got to the point where we completely lost our way, but it was definitely a feel that came up a couple of times.
Verdict
The Burning Girls is what happens when The Vicar of Dibley meets The Exorcist. We didn’t know we needed that crossover, but boy are we glad it’s here.
As we mentioned above, C.J. Tudor is a master at creating these compelling dark tales, and it’s her second book now that we’ve been completely immersed in. The eerie English village steeped in secrecy works so well as a setting, and the horror imagery is both hypnotic and horrifying to picture. What’s more the main characters are smart, resourceful and at times funny, making them the perfect protagonists to sit through a read with.
We’re not going to say all of the twists line up to make perfect sense and close off the book in an unexpected-yet-totally-satisfying manner, but we think when it comes to a work of fiction we suspend our disbelief a little. And, once you do that, there’s so much fun to be had with The Burning Girls.
Our Rating: 5/5
Fan of C.J. Tudor? Check out our The Chalk Man book review!
“Oh my God, what a brilliant book. To say I couldn’t put it down is no exaggeration. Especially at the end with so many unexpected twists and reveals I was exhausted. One, in particular, I NEVER guessed – or maybe I wasn’t concentrating hard enough.
There is no let-up in this story. No time to relax. The excitement is incessant. I absolutely loved it. Murder, jealousy, supernatural hauntings – just up my street.”
Quote supplied by Bookchatter@Cookiebiscuit
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
