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The Burning Girls: A Novel by C.J. Tudor

Ballantine Books, 2021

ISBN-13 : 978-1984825025

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

Some of the best books straddle genres and wind up splintering the boundaries in the process. Some of the best authors writing today have nailed this, refusing to be pigeonholed.

C.J. Tudor broke through with the phenomenal novel The Chalk Man and now takes her blend of horror, mystery, and thriller, churning it into one of the first hits of the new year.

Set in modern-day England, Reverend Jack Brooks appears to be running from her past when she is reassigned to a church in Chapel Croft, a town where the previous vicar committed suicide. Jack and her daughter Flo reluctantly leave Nottingham after a case that may have involved an exorcism left a young girl dead. Immediately, Jack discovers the small town is full of mysteries, conspiracies, and hidden shadows that make her past resemble heaven.

The legend of the burning girls harkens back to the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary in the sixteenth century, whose purge of Protestants resulted in the deaths of eight victims, including two young girls, through, of course, burning. Thirty years ago, another pair of girls disappeared from the town, apparently meeting with foul play. Toss in another missing vicar, and the stage is set for a creepy tale that might bring to mind the best of Shirley Jackson if channeled through Lauren Beukes.

The legend says that whoever sees the burning girls is destined for a horrific fate. On her first morning, Jack discovers effigies on her doorstep, while Flo catches a fiery specter on film when exploring a disturbing, abandoned house with a boy whose past carries its own hefty shadows.

As Jack discovers the terrors that Chapel Croft has spent centuries burying, she struggles to find who to trust, and who might be seeking to add her to the body count the church seems to invite.

Tudor brings a strong dose of horror that evokes folktale. mythology, and evil in human form, by way of small town mentality. What sets The Burning Girls apart from other novels is the writing. Tudor’s strong voice is both alluring and conversational, deceptively simple in its complex characterization, especially of the role of a female priest in a setting stuck on living in dangerous nostalgia. Humor is utilzed as a foil to the terror Tudor wraps around the twisting plot, succeeding in keeping the reader off guard until the final note is played. Both this novel and the author’s previous offerings are highly recommended.

Reviewed by David Simms