Rev Jack Brooks and her teenage daughter, Flo, move to the small village of Chapel Croft in Sussex from Nottingham, after a scandal has forced Brooks from her last diocese. She's only the temporary vicar in Chapel Croft but it will take a few months for the church to assign a new vicar and for now she's the stand in. Chapel Croft is a small, close knot community, and central to community life is that five hundred years a number of villagers were burnt at the stake in Queen Mary's persecution of Protestants. Ever since this has been commemorated by the burning of small effigies fashioned out of sticks and these are left at a monument outside the church.
Soon after arriving at the village, Jack discovers the local community, and the local church establishment, is a hive of secrets. Two young women disappeared from the village thirty years before and have never been seen since. One of the girls' families disappeared not soon after. The vicar before Jack arrived committed suicide, while someone keeps sending her threatening messages and even an exorcist kit.
The Burning Girls is the author's fourth novel, and it doesn't disappoint. All of C.J. Tudor's novels have been strong, and this continues The Burning Girls. When her debut novel, The Chalk Man, was released, Tudor was compared to Stephen King. The comparison is apt, but the truth is she's carved out her own niche now for supernatural crime thrillers set in small English communities.
This is a fantastic novel and having read all of C.J. Tudor's work, I look forward to book 5.
4 out of 5 stars
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