Books › The Shining Girls
The Shining Girls
375 pages
A gritty, time-bending cat-and-mouse thriller that pulses with dark historical atmosphere and fierce feminist rage.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like stepping into a dark, disorienting labyrinth where the walls are plastered with newspaper clippings and the air is thick with impending violence. It is a relentlessly propulsive experience that marries the gritty, hardboiled texture of a true-crime investigation with the eerie, mind-bending mechanics of speculative fiction. The narrative pulls you through a dread-soaked tour of twentieth-century Chicago, immersing you in distinct historical eras that feel visceral and lived-in. Beneath the blood and the breathless pacing, it is a deeply emotional exploration of stolen potential and the fierce, jagged edges of survival. It will thrill readers who love their mysteries laced with the supernatural, offering a dark, satisfying rush of feminist vengeance that lingers long after the final page.
- Mood
- dread-soaked
- claustrophobic
- tense
- eerie
- Tone
- unflinching
- urgent
- gritty
- journalistic
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- trauma and survival · extinguishing female potential · reclaiming agency · the ripple effects of violence · obsession
- The writing
- Sharp, visceral, and cinematic, blending hardboiled noir grit with speculative eeriness.
- The arc
- Begins in disorienting terror and vulnerability, steadily building into a fierce, relentless drive for reclamation and vengeance.
- Who it's for
- Fans of high-concept, genre-bending thrillers who crave dark historical atmospheres and unapologetically fierce survivors.
Content notes
- graphic violence
- murder
- misogyny
- trauma
- animal death
About the book
"A time-traveling serial killer is impossible to trace-- until one of his victims survives. In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. He stalks them through their lives across different eras until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back. Working with an ex-homicide reporter who is falling for her, Kirby has to unravel an impossible mystery"--Publisher's web site.
Description from Open Library.
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