One of Refinery29's and POPSUGAR's Favorite New Books
A scary story becomes far too real in this “unsettling” supernatural thriller in the vein of A Head Full of Ghosts that “will keep you guessing to the very last page” (Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger) Red Lady, Red Lady, show us your face... In 1991, Heather Cole and her friends were members of the Dead Girls Club. Obsessed with the macabre, the girls exchanged stories about serial killers and imaginary monsters, like the Red Lady, the spirit of a vengeful witch killed centuries before. Heather knew the stories were just that, until her best friend Becca began insisting the Red Lady was real—and she could prove it.
That belief got Becca killed.
It’s been nearly thirty years, but Heather has never told anyone what really happened that night—that Becca was right and the Red Lady was real. She’s done her best to put that fateful summer, Becca, and the Red Lady, behind her. Until a familiar necklace arrives in the mail, a necklace Heather hasn’t seen since the night Becca died.
The night Heather killed her.
Now, someone else knows what she did . . . and they’re determined to make Heather pay.
Damien Angelica Walters is the author of
Cry Your Way Home, Paper Tigers, and
Sing Me Your Scars, winner of This is Horror's Short Story Collection of the Year. Her short fiction has been nominated twice for a Bram Stoker Award, reprinted in
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror and
The Year's Best Weird Fiction, and published in various anthologies and magazines, including the Shirley Jackson Award Finalists
Autumn Cthulhu and
The Madness of Dr. Caligari, World Fantasy Award Finalist Cassilda's Song, Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, and Apex Magazine. Until the magazine's closing in 2013, she was an Associate Editor of the Hugo Award-winning
Electric Velocipede. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two rescued pit bulls.
Praise for The Dead Girls Club:"With
The Dead Girls Club, Damien Angelica Walters gives us a disturbing, compelling, twisty, feminist, coming-of-age/horror hybrid that feeds off our obsessions and anxieties. The Red Lady abides."
—Paul Tremblay, bestselling author of A Head Full of Ghosts"Walters offers a rich and complex picture of childhood and the traumas found within it."
—Cultured Vultures
"Especially appealing to readers who grew up with R.L. Stine's Fear Street series, Walters' first novel will find fans among a wide range of horror readers."
—Booklist "A modern tale destined to pull thriller lovers through cold winter nights."
—Pittsburgh-Post Gazette"Ghosts, literal or not, haunt the core of this novel...Walters ramps up the tension and thrills (and twists) as the novel careens towards its conclusion."
—The Nerd Daily“[Damien’s] writing talent and horror roots are on display...A solid debut mystery.”
—Mystery Scene Magazine"Psychological and disturbing...In the frightening world of
The Dead Girls Club, women's lives are shaped by violence, but there may be a haunting way out."
—Foreword Reviews"[A] twisty supernatural thriller."
—Kirkus Reviews
"One of the most finely crafted works of the century so far...The author has a way with words that is inescapable and utterly unforgettable, deviously soothing and darkly ominous."
—Horror DNA
“This supernatural thriller will have readers crawling under the covers...All the creepy crawly feelings of a ghost story complete with goosebumps and one-eye-shut moments.”
—Manhattan Book Review"Damien Angelica Walters once again proves why she's a major voice in the horror and thriller genres...Put this on your reading list now, as it's sure to be among the top books of 2019."
—Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens“Unsettling...If you like twists, it will keep you guessing to the very last page.”
—Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger"Feeding on classic coming-of-age horror themes...
The Dead Girls Club becomes a stifling portrait of the adolescent trauma that hides behind suburban veneers, tracing the haunting ripples of guilt that never fade."
—Louis Greenberg, half of S.L. Grey, author-duo of The Apartment"
The Dead Girls Club effortlessly combines [Damien's] artistic, literary flair with a supernatural story that’s equally familiar and unexpected."
—Grit DailyPraise for Damien Angelica Walters:"Eloquent prose."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review for Cry Your Way Home"A writer who only seems to get better and better."
—This is Horror"If you have not yet heard of Damien Angelica Walters then you are missing out."
—Signal Horizon"The queen of deft, delightfully flowing, yet quietly unobtrusive words, and the wielder of one hell of a wicked blade aimed right at your weak spots."
—Cemetery Dance"Walters is impressive."
—Laird Barron, author of The Croning and The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All"Damien Angelica Walters writes prose as sharp as a scalpel. With surgical precision, she slices through her characters' veneers to lay bare the secret scars underneath, the knots of fear and desire twisting them...Walters is a writer to watch."
—John Langan, author of The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies"Walters' prose is vivid and gripping, luring you in, feeding you images that will leave you comforted by the light of your bedside nightstand."
—Rebecca Jones-Howe, author of Vile Men
