Three girls went into the woods. Only two came back, covered in blood and with no memory of what happened. Or did they?

Being fifteen is tough, tougher when you live in a boring-ass small town like Little Hope, California (population 8,302) in 1996. Donna, Rae and Kat keep each other sane with the fervour of teen girl friendships, zine-making and some amateur sleuthing into the town’s most enduring mysteries: a lost gold mine, and why little Ronnie Gaskins burned his parents alive a decade ago.

Their hunt will lead them to a hidden cave from which only two of them return alive. Donna the troublemaker can’t remember anything. Rae seems to be trying to escape her memories of what happened, while her close-minded religious family presses her for answers. And Kat? Sweet, wannabe writer Kat who rebelled against her mom’s beauty pageant dreams by getting fat? She’s missing. Dead. Or terribly traumatised, out there in the woods, alone.

As the police circle and Kat’s frantic mother Marybeth starts doing some investigating of her own, Rae and Donna will have to return to the cave where they discover a secret so shattering that no-one who encounters it will ever be the same.

A chilling and eerie tale of monsters, teen angst and small-town America for fans of Stranger Things, The Thing, and the 1990s

I recieved a review copy from the publishers through Netgalley

Three girls went walking in the woods near Little Hope. Three friends, young teenagers, who face all the usual problems of teenage life and aren’t part of the school “cool” crowd. There’s not much of note happens in Little Hope but when the three girls don’t all return safely from their walk suddenly a small town has a lot going on.

Two of the girls return, covered in blood and with no memory of what happened on their walk – or so they say. Their third friend, Kat, remains somewhere in the woods and search parties are organised. People come out in big numbers to search for the missing girl but the searches are not successful and Kat’s mother, Marybeth, becomes increasingly frustrated at the perceived lack of endeavour and commitment from the police to continue the searches.

The great writing in this story comes from the dilemma which the two other girls face. Donna and Rae are not talking about what happened in the woods. They both know they are going through a personal trauma and internal turmoil but until they can get together and discuss what happened to them they are not saying anything. And who would believe them anyway? The other great part about this book is the way the authors capture the angst and frustrations of teenage drama. The blurb describes it as a story for Stranger Things fans and I can think of no better comparison.  Spooky instances, most people oblivious to an unseen danger and distinctly odd twists to the story.

What I initially didn’t take in was that the blurb does not just compare Girls of Little Hope to Stranger Things but also to The Thing. Yup – big clue there that this book was actually a horror tale. I’d been enjoying a well written mystery novel – the characters were entertaining, their problems had me hooked and the investigation into the “walk in the woods” story was starting to reveal some discrepancies in what Donna and Rae were telling the police. Why did the girls lie about where they were walking? Were they lurking near the home of a dangerous local criminal? Who else may know where Kat could be found?

Girls of Little Hope wasn’t the teen crime mystery I had been anticipating. It’s actually a mystery story which suddenly moves to creepy horror then raises the stakes further to move from creepy to outright carnage. Once things really kick off in Little Hope the town is never going to be the same again. As for Rae and Donna, they know what happened to Kat but it there anything which can be done to undo what’s gone before?

Despite being surprised by the slide from mystery to horror I was not disappointed – I love me a good horror story and Girls of Little Hope IS ad good horror story. The reader will care what happens to the three lead characters and will be more than a little shocked when they learn what really did happen in the woods.

Girls of Little Hope is published by Titan Books and is available in paperback and digital format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BFZXJYB7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0