Two Adult Chillers

Two Adult Chillers

The Burning Girls
"The bed was stained with blood and bodily fluids. Restraints
had been tied to each bedpost, but they hung loose. In the middle of
the matress a large leather case lay open. Sturdy straps held the
contents in place: a heavy crucifix, a Bible, holy water, muslin
cloths."
If you like your chillers imbued with the supernatural you'll
love C. J. Tudor's The Burning Girls.
Chapel Croft is not just any old village. Residents are still
fixated on an event that happened in the religious wars five centuries
earlier. A group of Protestants, including two young girls, was
betrayed and burned to death. The alpha family in town claims direct
descent from the martyrs. Every year villagers burn twig dolls to
commemorate the massacre.
When Jack Brooks becomes vicar of the town's chapel she quickly
learns that it isn't just any assignment. She's replacing a man who
committed suicide. As she explores the chapel her daughter, Flo,
meets up with a child covered in blood. An anonymous donor leaves her
an exorcism kit, its knife coated in dried blood. An attached note
says, "But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and
hidden that will not be known."
What does that all mean? Could it have anything to do with the
long ago massacre and/or a thirty-year-old case involving the
disappearance of two local girls, best friends?
Flo begins to see girls on fire. It's believed that if anyone
sees the burning girls evil is about to take place. Sure enough some
gruesome secrets are about to reveal themselves.
The villagers may not be the only people harboring disturbing
secrets. Perhaps their new vicar has something to hide.
So if your reading taste runs to occult horror, especially if
you're a Stephen King fan, you owe it to yourself to check out The
Burning Girls.

Girl A
"You don't know me, but you'll have seen my face. In the
earlier pictures, they bludgeoned our features with pixels, right down
to our waists; even our hair was too distinctive to disclose. But the
story and its protectors grew weary, and in the darker corners of the
Internet we became easy to find..."
Ever so often a horrifying news story about a family will break
out. Usually no one will have caught on to parenting aberations until
the children, if not deceased, are abused, neglected, and often living
in depths of squalor to which we wouldn't consign our cats and dogs.
These stories fascinate people to a degree most other news
genres don't. They're click bait. Ratings conscious media entities
pursue survivors relentlessly, eager for any scrap of insider
information with which to gain an edge over the competition.
The survivors continue to grow up in a world still thirsty for
and feeling entitled to gruesome details and unwilling for them to
move on, to become more than the worst thing that ever happened to
them. Memories complicate developmental tasks and relationships.
That's the story behind Abigail Dean's Girl A.
Lex, Girl A, has been trying valiently to put the past behind
her. She was the one who had been able to escape her family's house
of horrors and connect with help. She and her siblings had been
chained to their beds and starved. She had seen the little sister
with whom she shared a bed growing frailer. The children, after
hospital treatment, were adopted into different families. Their
father had committed suicide when he had realized that his secrets
were about to be revealed. Their mother had been sent to prison.
Now Lex has been summoned to the prison following her mother's
death. She has been named executor of her will. The estate consists
of twenty thousand pounds and the house she and her siblings grew up
in. They all have to agree on how the assets will be used. It will
be quite the challenge. The family is quite spread out
geographically. Their needs and wants differ greatly.
In a text that segues smoothly between past and present, Dean
presents readers with a vivid, poignant portrayal of a family of
survivors striving to move beyond media victim portrayals. There are
quite a few surprises. Once you get caught up in the narrative you'll
find it hard, if not impossible, to set it aside.
On a purrrsonal note, between homework and doing my post verdict three
book review (not to mention dishes, cooking, laundry etc.) it was
mostly a work weekend. But I did get a few breaks. Saturday night
Eugene and I watched Home Alone. That's an annual holiday tradition.
Sunday morning I baked a funny looking (but delicious) apple pie.
Sunday afternoon I had several unexpected hours when it was sunny and
warm enough for outside reading. I took out a YA novel, totally
unrelated to the review I was working on. (Jules)
I loved that sunshine. Today is rainy and blah. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to you, our readers, with best wishes
for a safe and happy Thanksgiving wherever you intend to spend it.
Please don't let up on COVID precautions, especially if you're in a
place with lax rules and/or high infection rates.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway





Sent from my iPod