An unconventional vicar moves to a remote corner of the English countryside, only to discover a community haunted by death and disappearances both past and present--and intent on keeping its dark secrets--in this explosive, unsettling thriller from acclaimed author C. J. Tudor.

Welcome to Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, eight protestant martyrs were burned at the stake here. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And two months ago, the vicar of the local parish killed himself.

Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping to make a fresh start and find some peace. Instead, Jack finds a town mired in secrecy and a strange welcome package: an old exorcism kit and a note quoting scripture. "But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known."

The more Jack and her daughter Flo get acquainted with the town and its strange denizens, the deeper they are drawn into their rifts, mysteries, and suspicions. And when Flo is troubled by strange sightings in the old chapel, it becomes apparent that there are ghosts here that refuse to be laid to rest.

But uncovering the truth can be deadly in a village where everyone has something to protect, everyone has links with the village's bloody past, and no one trusts an outsider.

Tudor has gone deeper into horror and I’m loving it. There’s still plenty of mystery for those so inclined, but she does seem to be slowly moving toward the horror genre. The supernatural plays a larger part in the plot as Jack works to find out what happened in the supposedly quiet town of Chapel Croft, from the burning five hundred years ago, to the missing girls thirty years ago, and finally to the suicide two months earlier.

There are characters aplenty, from the supposed leaders of the village, the parishioners, and their misfit children. Almost no one is as they seem, and as the story progresses more of their secrets and revealed, to an amazing, and surprising ending.

The book is a quick and satisfying read. I can’t recommend it more highly.







Love a Good Mystery - The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor




I Read Horror Year-Round List

*Winter Theme, or winter appearance on the cover (snow, ice, etc.) - Ararat by Christopher Golden

*Ghosts or spirits - The Family Plot by Cherie Priest

*Psychological:
1. The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
2. The Hiding Place by C. J. Tudor

*Monster or Monsters:
1. Snowblind by Christopher Golden

*A body of water (featured in story, on cover, or in title) - Duma Key by Stephen King

*Really scary book cover - The Breach by M.T. Hill

*Woman on cover - Later by Stephen King

*Written by a woman:
1. The Mummy (Ramses the Damned #1) by Anne Rice
2. The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor

*Written by a best-selling horror author:
1. If It Bleeds by Stephen King
2. The Shining by Stephen King

*Written by an indie author - Echoes of Home by M.L. Rayner

*Historical horror (must be an historical novel written by a contemporary author) - Last Train From Perdition by Robert McCammon

*Folk horror - Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon

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.


I was completely surprised by this book. I thought it was a horror story, and it is, but a horror story that’s totally of the mind. There are so many twists and turns to this story; every time I thought I knew what was going on, something else would come up, and I’d be sent in another totally different direction.

The story is set in two different times: 1986 and 2016. And there’s plenty going on in each time. We see, not exactly innocence but the hopefulness of youth, turn into the disillusionment of adulthood as Eddie grapples with deaths to which he’s witness.

I don’t usually care for stories written in the first person; this one was the exception. The writer does an excellent job of building the character of Eddie, the speaker in the story. Do we know what he knows? How much is he hiding, even from himself?

I loved the story, and look forward to reading another of the author’s books.




( TBR Book Links 1-35 )

36. City of the Lost by Will Adams
37. The Summer Queen: A Medieval Tale of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France by Elizabeth Chadwick
38. Last Train from Perdition (I Travel by Night #2) by Robert R. McCammon
39. Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
40. The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor










I Read Horror Year-Round List

*Winter Theme, or winter appearance on the cover (snow, ice, etc.) - Ararat by Christopher Golden

*Ghosts or spirits - The Family Plot by Cherie Priest

*Psychological - The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor

*Monster or Monsters - Snowblind by Christopher Golden

*A body of water (featured in story, on cover, or in title) - Duma Key by Stephen King

*Really scary book cover - The Breach by M.T. Hill

*Woman on cover - Later by Stephen King

*Written by a woman - The Mummy (Ramses the Damned #1) by Anne Rice

*Written by a best-selling horror author - If It Bleeds by Stephen King

*Written by an indie author - Echoes of Home by M.L. Rayner

*Historical horror (must be an historical novel written by a contemporary author) - Last Train From Perdition by Robert McCammon

*Folk horror