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After a tragedy, Reverend Jack Brooks is sent by her superiors to be the interim vicar at a small church in Sussex. Chapel Croft is known for being the place where a small group of villagers, including two young girls, were burned to death during Queen Mary’s purge of Protestants centuries before. Every year, locals remember their martyrdom by crafting twig figures of them and then burning the twig dolls on the anniversary of the purge. But Chapel Croft has another tragic story to its name, just in more recent history: Two teen girls disappeared from the town. In 30 years, no one has found a trace of them.
Neither Jack nor her 14-year-old daughter, Flo, is happy to be there, and as they try to settle in, strange things happen. Someone brings a box containing an exorcism kit to Jack, and she begins hearing disturbing details about the fate of the previous vicar. Flo makes a friend in one boy but is badly bullied by two other teens. And then she starts seeing the specters of burning girls in the chapel at night.
In just a short time, mother and daughter realize they are in serious danger, but it’s difficult to know whom to trust and what exactly is the truth amid varying stories they hear from locals. As The Burning Girls progresses, readers are introduced to pieces of information from the past that start coming together in an ever-clearer picture. It’s a solid mystery that held my attention until the very end.
Rated: High, for about 30 instances of strong profanity, around 50 uses of moderate profanity, about 30 instances of mild language, and about 40 uses of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes making out, references to statutory rape, several mentions of oral sex, and a lot of brief, crude references. Violence includes several stabbings, with a fair amount of blood; a body that’s badly decomposing; discoveries of skeletons; arson; a death by hanging, and discussion several times of people, including girls, burned and maimed because of their faith centuries before.
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