Games for Dead Girls - Book Review

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When Charlie was 10 years old, she loved scary stories. In an effort to impress her new friend, Emily, Charlie invented a monster called Stitch Face Sue. Gradually the games she and Emily played together turned dark, and to Charlie's horror, Stitch Face Sue seemed to come to life.

Decades later, Charlie returns to Hithechurch, the small seaside town where things went wrong for her so long ago. She claims to be researching a book on local folklore, but has really come to dig up the past before Emily, who is about to publish a tell-all memoir, makes things even worse for her. Lots of girls have gone missing in and around Hithechurch over the years, and it's about time someone found out what happened to them.

Games for Dead Girls, by Jen Williams, is a creepy, slow burn mystery novel, set in a sleepy seaside town in the South of England. The plot is a little convoluted, set across three different timelines (the present day, the 80s, and the 40s), but it does eventually all tie together in a satisfying way. I found the ending a little anticlimactic, but the first three quarters of the book had me riveted.

The writing was very atmospheric, blending in some horror with the mystery. There are some gruesome elements, although the worst of it is implied rather than described.

The part about two women talking about writing books with different versions of a shared past reminded me a little of The Witch in the Well by Camilla Bruce, although this story has less of a supernatural theme to it.

Games for Dead Girls will appeal to readers who don't mind a slow-moving plot, and like their mysteries on the darker, more gruesome side.
Disclaimer: I was given a complimentary copy of this book by Crooked Lane books, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Published: April 2023

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