The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor (TW: Suicide)
LLBC Rating: 7/10
Book Synopsis: After an incident at her last church, Vicar Jack and her daughter Flo transfer to small town chapel croft to bring back a church that just lost its preacher. However, this fresh start turns into a chilling mystery. Town History, missing girls, and a strange village tradition creates a web of mysteries that Jack cannot seem to solve.
The Burning Girls was the perfect October read. It was just the right amount of creepy and impossible to put down!
Though we loved the book, we felt that there was a little too much of, well, everything. A few too many characters, a bit dialgue heavy, one too many points of view, and a little more plot than Tudor could quite handle. Because of this, it felt like some of the storylines were left unresolved. However, the big twists and reveals in this story are why we would recommend The Burning Girls to friends. Just don't ask us to summarize it without any spoilers.
THE FIRST MEETING: This month, our club acted as test subjects for our subscription box product launch! Their books came wrapped up to keep the title a surprise, as well as a chocolate Jack-o-Lantern lollipop, and a spooky bookmark with a ghost tassel! Everyone couldn't wait to tear into the book and get to reading.
Our Book Club in a Box is now live and available for purchase in our store! You can subscribe for auto-renew and get a box every month, or you can purchase individual boxes up to three months out. There is a Hardcover option for $29.99, or a Paperback option for only $19.99. With purchase of your box, you will be a member of our book club. Each month you will receive the book of the month, access to our forum to discuss the book, the writing prompt as well as the opportunity to be chosen for the Featured Writing piece, and more bookish goodies! We would be honored to have you as a part of the LLBC and cannot wait for you to join!
Once the book was revealed, we jumped right in. Usually, we wait until further into the meeting to read the beginning of the book, but we were all too excited to wait. As the first few chapters are quite short and end on cliffhangers, we decided to read through chapter 3 together this month. That was just enough to make us realize that we did not want to stop reading. However, we still had to discuss the rest of what October had in store.
As you might know by now, the first meeting of each month also includes a presentation by one of our CoFounders. These presentations will discuss the theme of the month, the genre of the book, and a little about the author as well.
Before the meeting, we were all asked to submit our favorite horror figure so we could explain to the group why we thought they were scary. Here are a few that were submitted:
IT Clown: Something about taking something that shouldn't be scary, such as a clown, and making it so. Clowns are supposed to be fun birthday party staples, but in this case, it is something out of a nightmare.
JAWS: Sharks are already scary to most people, but adding elements of music create an atmosphere that you cannot escape. You cannot escape the movie. You cannot escape the shark.
The Girl from the Ring: Again, taking something that is not supposed to be scary and making it so. Little girls are not meant to be scary, but in the right context, it is difficult to see them as anything but. The way she moves, the stringy hair obscuring her face, makes this character all around terrifying. We see a similar concept in The Shining. Twin girls, dressed the same, talking in perfect unison and luring you to "come play" with them in what is supposed to be a vacant hotel is not exactly something I would classify as a wholesome scene.
Once we talked about the things we thought made a successful horror character, it was time to understand how we, as writers, are able to create the same chilling monsters and stories. To complete this month's writing prompt, it is important that we know and understand some of the tools that other writers use to successful scare their readers. Here are a few of the main points we learned about:
Consider the atmosphere, setting, and time period
Consider the intent (Psychological Thriller? Slasher? Paranormal?)
Character develop that allows the reader to empathize
Subtle foreshadowing to create that uncanny feeling (Make sure the rules of the universe are known so the reader understands when something goes wrong)
Stay sensory focused
Effective and satisfactory ending (the reader has to think it was worth it)
One of the best things about the horror genre is that, even on the third time around, the reader is able to pick up even more subtle clues than they did the two times before. On these extra reads of a story, the reader tends to enjoy feeling 'in on it' and understanding the little clues hidden throughout. If you can leave a few of those behind, you're story could become a reader's favorite.
All of these tips are being used to help us with the October writing prompt. This month or assignment is as follows:
Use the following 13 spooky sentences to create something even spookier. You can do this any way you would like, but here are some possible options...
Write a story combining all of the sentences.
Come up with a second sentence for each that individually tell a thrilling two-sentence horror story.
Develop a short story based on one sentence that stood out to you.
The porch light turned on before I reached the door.
A pungent smell wafted up from the old well.
I was the last person alive.
The person standing in my grandma's hospital room was not the doctor.
There was a baby carriage on the side of the road, so I pulled over.
It didn't taste like beef.
I reached under my bed to pull out a flashlight.
Her hair was always perfect.
My dad regretted not letting his kids experience death.
I remember the snow.
I enjoyed hiking on my days off.
The camera flashed and I was blinded momentarily.
There were so many spiders.
After reading through the prompt and sentences together, we discussed a few ideas that we may like to try out. Some of us thought the short story sounded the most intriguing and others wanted to try their hand at a two-sentence horror. A few even thought about trying to incorporate multiple, or even all, of the sentences into a short story.
OUTING: What is spooky season without a haunted house, right? Well, we decided to take that one step further and enjoy a night at a Scream Park! We took a drive down to Niles, Michigan with tickets to the Niles Scream Park in hopes of being scared out of our minds. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint.
At this park, you purchase tickets for multiple attractions including different themed haunted houses, a spooky hayride, and the field of screams. They also have a few little gift shops near the exit where you can grab some spooky goodies to commemorate your time at the park. If you are not too into the spookiness of a place like this, they have some thigns for you too. They have a small theater in the middle where they play movies, and the crowd for this is considered a monster free zone. You won't have to worry about a monster coming up from behind while you enjoy a film and a snack from the food trucks. They have all sorts of snacks including corn dogs, pretzels, elephant ears, and fresh squeezed lemonade waiting for you at the back of the park.
We started our time at the Niles Scream Park with a walk through The Gruesome Gallery. This maze of scares begins with a warning that, if you decide to enter, you may not make it out! The Gallery was full of classic creepy characters that had us worried we may be the group that doesnt make it out the other side. Much to our surprise, we made it through the building, but the scare kept going. We had to navigate through an outdoor maze with a few too many dark corners for my liking. We made it out okay though, and decided to head over to the haunted hayride.
As the tractor pulled our group through many spooky scenes including the dark side of the yellow brick road, the fate of a sailor after falling for a siren, and the place where the Queen of Hearts keeps all of those heads she orders come off. The characters were excellent and the variety of scenes kept you wishing you could ride through for the rest of the night.
We also took a rather hasty stroll through the Nuclear Nightmare, after which, a few members tapped out and enjoyed Ghostbusters in the no monster zone. The rest went on to experience the original haunted house, the one that put the Niles Scream Park on the map. They came back with reports that it was easily the scariest of the houses we walked through with the greatest number of characters sneaking around, the longest journey through, and some areas that were just pitch black. After this, we decided it was time to head out as we had all had our fill of scares for the day.
This outing was so fun and festive that we think it may be difficult to top this time next year. When deciding on an outing for the month, we found that, like us, the Niles Scream Park is a nonprofit organization, and they have donated over $2,100,000 to local charities since 1996, so we figured at least the scaring was worth it!
THE FINAL MEETING: Everyone was so excited to talk about the twists of this story that we had trouble not starting the meeting early. As soon as the last member of our club made it to the last meeting for October, we jumped right in.
We started immediately by recapping our the story and a few things thatwe thought could have been changed and other things that we would never want to change. The change list was a bit longer than the keep list, but only because we felt like the book could use about one hundred more pages. The plot of this story is so dense that it needed more than 330 pages.
However, we loved the pace of the story and the way that C. J. Tudor writes about the church and Jack's position in it. There are many times where Jack discusses faith with people and the ability that people have to believe it in any way that makes them feel the comfort that a church community, and ultimately God, is supposed to provide. Tudor also provided such a clear picture of Chapel Croft through her description, so much so that we are advocating for The Burning Girls to be turned into a movie by 2023.
Though there were a few things that you were meant to assume as the novel wraps up, there are no loose ends in the story, making for a satisfying ending to The Burning Girls. We would definitely recommend this book for a spooky season read.
After discussing the book, moving on to writing, and then actually discussing the book for another five minutes, it was finally time to read some two - sentence horror stories. Let me tell you, these stories did not disappoint, everyone who came with a few sentences did an excellent job at creating a "shivers up the spine" feeling with such a small space to do it in. Some even turned there two - sentence story into a little scene, and we even had a movie pitch that I can already see as the next big film in the world of horror.
Overall, everyone did an excellent job and we are so excited to see what November will bring. Keep up with us next month here on the blog, on our Instagram, TikTok, and new Facebook page to follow along for November. If you want to join us for December YOU CAN! Just click here to get your monthly subscription to our Book Club in a Box, or click here to try the Book Club in a Box for December only to give it a try before you get an automatic subscription.
Thanks for following along this month and we will see you in November!
Instagram: @ladyliteracybc
TikTok: @ladyliteracybookclub
Facebook: @ladyliteracybookclub
Comments