The Quarry Girls – ARC Book Review

Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it’s not all fun and games.

Heather and Brenda have a secret. Something they saw in the dark. Something they can’t forget. They’ve decided to never tell a soul. But their vow is tested when their friend disappears—the second girl to vanish in a week. And yet the authorities are reluctant to investigate.

Heather is terrified that the missing girls are connected to what she and Brenda stumbled upon that night. Desperately searching for answers on her own, she learns that no one in her community is who they seem to be. Not the police, not the boys she met at the quarry, not even her parents. But she can’t stop digging because she knows those girls are in danger.

She also knows she’s next.

Jess Lourey’s stories are all based on true events that happened during 1970’s and 1980’s. The Quarry Girls is a novel based on true events that happened in 1977.

I have been following Jess Lourey on Instagram and she puts some blurbs on this book–particularly an interesting fact about serial killers–the fact that there were close to 200 serial killers during the 1970’s and 1980’s, the infamous ones including Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer…anyway I am always fascinated with serial killer thrillers and would be doubly interested if the story is based on true events.

In this story, Heather, Maureen and Brenda live in a small town called Pantown in Minnesota. A girl named Beth goes missing from the diner and Heather and Brenda catches Maureen doing some acts with men in a house, one of the men was a police sheriff. Then Maureen was murdered and although the police believe that it was suicide, Heather believed that Maureen might have been murdered by someone from that house. Could Beth’s disappearance connected to Maureen’s death?

This was actually really good. The writing was spot on and reading about Beth’s part was very chilling. The small town where the girls live hold so many secrets and Heather realizes that she has no one to trust including her own father. The story was engaging and thrilling and I actually felt like living in the 1970s as I get to experience what teenage life was like back in the 1970’s. Overall, I enjoyed this unputdownable thriller book which worth 4.5 stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.