Category Archives: CJ Tudor

January 29, 2021 · 12:01 am

Review: The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor

Title: The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 335 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

An unconventional vicar must exorcise the dark past of a remote village haunted by death and disappearances in this explosive and unsettling thriller from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man.

A dark history lingers in Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, Protestant martyrs were betrayed—then burned. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And a few weeks ago, the vicar of the local parish hanged himself in the nave of the church.

Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping for a fresh start. Instead, Jack finds a town rife with conspiracies and secrets, and is greeted with a strange welcome package: an exorcism kit and a note that warns, “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.”

The more Jack and daughter, Flo, explore the town and get to know its strange denizens, the deeper they are drawn into the age-old rifts, mysteries, and suspicions. And when Flo begins to see specters of girls ablaze, it becomes apparent there are ghosts here that refuse to be laid to rest.

Uncovering the truth can be deadly in a village with a bloody past, where everyone has something to hide and no one trusts an outsider.

Review:

The Burning Girls by C.J. Tudor is an eerie mystery that is full of suspense.

Neither Reverend Jack Brooks nor fifteen year old daughter Flo is overly thrilled about their new placement in the sparsely populated, isolated village of Chapel Croft.  The town has an infamous past that dates back to the witch-burning days and still reverberates to the present.  Although the Brooks’ family will only be in Chapel Croft temporarily, Flo immediately becomes friends with Lucas Wrigley. She also accidentally makes enemies soon upon her arrival in town. Jack tries to fly under the radar and hopes what happened before moving remains a secret from the residents.  Upon learning what happened to the previous vicar, Jack is curious enough to begin searching for answers about his death.

Jack is not the typical vicar which only makes it easier to empathize with current events. The family’s arrival is a little fraught but they soon try to settle into their new circumstances. The burning girl history is intriguing and Jack respects the impact it has on the town. Strange things soon begin occurring as Flo and Lucas explore the surrounding area. Jack makes a few discoveries that bring more questions than answers. What happened to the two girls who went missing thirty years ago?  Why has no one really made much of an effort to find them?

Unbeknownst to them, someone is intent on tracking Jack down. He allows nothing or anyone to stand in the way of reaching them. Who is this person? What unfinished business does he have with Jack?

The Burning Girls is a thoroughly riveting  mystery that is quite atmospheric.  Jack and Flo are wonderful characters whose  imperfections make them easy to like. The church and the town’s history are richly developed and add tension to the unfolding story. The storyline is well-developed and captures the readers’ attention right from the first page. With shocking twists and stunning turns, C.J. Tudor brings this captivating mystery to a breathtaking conclusion. I completely enjoyed and HIGHLY recommend this brilliant mystery to fans of the genre.

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Filed under Ballantine Books, CJ Tudor, Contemporary, Mystery, Rated B+, Review, Suspense, The Burning Girls

February 4, 2019 · 11:56 pm

Review: The Hiding Place by C. J. Tudor

Title: The Hiding Place by C. J. Tudor
Publisher: Crown
Genre: Contemporary, Suspense, Supernatural (Ghosts)
Length: 288 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

The thrilling second novel from the author of The Chalk Man, about a teacher with a hidden agenda who returns to settle scores at a school he once attended, only to uncover a darker secret than he could have imagined.

Joe never wanted to come back to Arnhill. After the way things ended with his old gang–the betrayal, the suicide, the murder–and after what happened when his sister went missing, the last thing he wanted to do was return to his hometown. But Joe doesn’t have a choice. Because judging by what was done to that poor Morton kid, what happened all those years ago to Joe’s sister is happening again. And only Joe knows who is really at fault.

Lying his way into a teaching job at his former high school is the easy part. Facing off with former friends who are none too happy to have him back in town–while avoiding the enemies he’s made in the years since–is tougher. But the hardest part of all will be returning to that abandoned mine where it all went wrong and his life changed forever, and finally confronting the shocking, horrifying truth about Arnhill, his sister, and himself. Because for Joe, the worst moment of his life wasn’t the day his sister went missing.

It was the day she came back.

With the same virtuosic command of character and pacing she displayed in The Chalk Man, C. J. Tudor has once again crafted an extraordinary novel that brilliantly blends harrowing psychological suspense, a devilishly puzzling mystery, and enough shocks and thrills to satisfy even the most seasoned reader.

Review:

The Hiding Place by C. J. Tudor is a suspense-laden mystery with supernatural and horror elements.

Joe Thorne’s return to his hometown of Arnhill is not exactly altruistic. He is going back to hopefully get a job teaching at his alma mater Arnhill Academy. And yes, he has received an eerie message that what happened to his sister, Annie, is happening again. However, the impetus for his decision is to escape a loan shark’s increasingly threatening efforts to force Joe to repay his debts.  Upon his return, a sense of dread overcomes him as he settles in at the cottage whose occupants met a horrific end. Joe is also quickly target by his former friends, Stephen Hurst and Nick Fletcher, who resort to violence as they attempt to convince him to leave town.  Despite his increasing discomfort and unease, Joe must revisit the worst time in his past in order to hopefully put an end to the malevolent force threatening the town’s children.

Joe does not make much effort to overcome the demons that he brings with him to Arnhill.  He drinks too much, sleeps too little and often goes to work with vicious hangovers. He has long avoided facing the tragedies that occurred during his teen years, but it does not take long for him to realize he will have to confront the events that forever altered his life. Joe harbors many regrets about what happened to Annie and his friend, Chris Manning. Once he realizes that history is repeating itself, Joe reluctantly returns to the place that was essentially the beginning and the end of the horrific events that have forever changed him.

At one time, Arnhill was a prosperous town with the local coal mine providing jobs for the community.  The town barely survived the mine’s closure and years later, the abandoned mine still looms in the distance. It is also a source of fascination for the teenagers due to the unsubstantiated rumors that swirl around it. In 1992, Joe and his friends were unable to resist exploring an entrance to the mine. Their explorations lead them to a terrifying discovery that sets them on a path of unending heartache and pain. After the heartbreaking events that occur in the aftermath, Joe is certain he has made it impossible for anyone to enter the mine. Or has he?

The Hiding Place is a very atmospheric and increasingly spooky novel. Joe is a surprisingly reliable narrator whose growing unease forces him to revisit his heartrending past. He also manages to elicit readers’ sympathy in spite of his all too human flaws. With otherworldly elements and an gradual sense of overwhelming dread, C. J. Tudor brings the novel to a twist-filled conclusion. Fans of horror novels will enjoy this spine-tingling novel.

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Filed under CJ Tudor, Contemporary, Crown, Ghosts, Rated B, Review, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, The Hiding Place

December 31, 2017 · 11:55 pm

Review: The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor

Title: The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor
Publisher: Crown
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 288 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Penguin’s First to Read Program

Summary:

A riveting and relentlessly compelling psychological suspense debut that weaves a mystery about a childhood game gone dangerously awry, and will keep readers guessing right up to the shocking ending

In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he’s put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank . . . until one of them turns up dead.

That’s when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

Expertly alternating between flashbacks and the present day, The Chalk Man is the very best kind of suspense novel, one where every character is wonderfully fleshed out and compelling, where every mystery has a satisfying payoff, and where the twists will shock even the savviest reader.

Review:

Weaving back and forth in time between 1986 and 2016, The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor is a suspense-laden, twist-filled tale of murder.

In 1986, Eddie Adams and his band of friends, Fat Gav, Metal Mickey Cooper, David “Hoppo” Hopkins and the lone girl in the group, Nicky Martin, are enjoying the last vestiges of summer before school resumes. Their days are filled with innocent pursuits as they ride their bikes, explore the nearby woods and write cryptic messages to one another in chalk.  Interspersed with their idyllic fun are a few tragedies and bullying from an older peer but a grisly discovery in the woods becomes the defining moment that haunts them for years to come.

Now thirty years later,  three of the gang still live in the same small town. Ed is a school teacher, Gav owns a pub and Hoppo is a plumber caring for his elderly mother. Ed remains deeply troubled by those long ago events and when Mickey comes back planning to write a book about that seminal summer, trouble quickly follows. Someone is sending them ominous letters and after one of them is murdered, Ed becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth about the current death and the troubling discovery from their youth.

Ed is a bit of an unreliable narrator as the novel flips back and forth between the past and present. Suffering from nightmares, fearing his father’s early onset Alzheimer’s will strike him and a propensity to drink too much, he tries to make sense of what he remembers from their childhood and how these long ago events might be connected to what is occurring now. Ed also regrets that he might have inadvertently influenced the investigation in the past and he would like nothing more than to find evidence that someone he greatly admired is, in fact, innocent of the crime many believe he committed. But after so much time has passed, will Ed find the proof he needs to unmask a clever killer?

The Chalk Man is an intricately plotted and riveting mystery. Each of the chapters ends on cliffhanger which ratchets up the tension in this clever debut by  C. J. Tudor. The characters are remarkably well developed and incredibly life-like with all too relatable strengths and weaknesses. The novel moves at a brisk pace and comes to a jaw-dropping, twisty-turny conclusion. An absolutely brilliant mystery that I highly recommend to fans of the genre.

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Filed under CJ Tudor, Contemporary, Crown, Mystery, Rated B+, Review, Suspense, The Chalk Man