The Quarry Girls by Jess Lourey doesn’t ease you in. It grabs you by the collar and drops you into 1970s Pantown, a town where fear clings to every sidewalk and girls go missing without warning. On the surface, it’s all small-town charm and summer nights. But something’s rotting beneath that perfectly constructed facade, and Heather Cash is about to uncover it.
Heather isn’t your average teenage protagonist. She’s a drummer with a sharp mind and a relentless sense of loyalty. When two of her friends vanish, she doesn’t retreat into denial. She leans into the fear and digs into the cracks no one else wants to look at. Through Heather, the story becomes less about finding out what happened and more about what it means to know the truth in a world where no one wants it exposed.
Pantown feels complicit in every awful thing that happens. The adults are either turning a blind eye or actively covering up the danger. The sheriff, Jerome Nillson, is particularly disturbing in his quiet control. The way authority is portrayed here is chilling. Lourey captures that suffocating power imbalance perfectly. It isn’t the darkness that’s scariest. It’s the way it hides in daylight and calls itself safety.
Girls Who Refuse to Disappear
What makes The Quarry Girls stand out isn’t just the mystery. It’s the emotional punch packed into every scene. Heather’s relationships with her sister Junie and her best friend Beth feel so grounded and raw, relatable in some weird way, too. There’s love, pain, frustration, and a need to protect each other even when the world refuses to protect them.
Beth’s storyline is especially gripping. After surviving an abduction, she refuses to become a background figure. She isn’t fragile or broken; she’s furious and determined. And while she doesn’t need saving, she does need someone who believes her. That’s where Heather steps in.
Together, Beth and Heather carry the emotional weight of the story, and their bond feels like a lifeline. It’s an honest, imperfect, and real bond that comes from facing down monsters and refusing to be quiet about what they’ve seen.
The Truth No One Wants to Hear
As the story unspools, Lourey pulls no punches. Heather starts to piece together who the real threats are. The picture she uncovers is horrifying, not because it’s shocking but because it feels so plausible. The people she’s supposed to trust are the ones she needs to fear most.
There’s no safe adult here. No one coming to the rescue. The only path forward is the one Heather and Beth carve for themselves. When they decide to confront the men behind the disappearances, the tension skyrockets. This isn’t some neat little thriller where everything falls into place. The Quarry Girls is survival. This is rage turned into action.
And that final confrontation? It’s terrifying. Not because of what happens, but because of how high the stakes feel. Lourey doesn’t go for cheap twists or easy victories. She gives us something far more powerful. The quiet triumph of girls who were supposed to disappear but didn’t. Girls who were told to shut up but didn’t. Girls who understood that silence is what keeps the monsters fed.
Final Thoughts
The Quarry Girls is sharp, fearless, and impossible to forget. Lourey doesn’t write horror for shock value. She writes it to make you feel the weight of the world these girls live in and to show what it takes to fight back against it. This book is a reckoning.
With a keen sense of character and an unflinching look at the dangers that lurk behind familiar faces, this novel grips you from the first page and never lets go. If you’re looking for a story that isn’t afraid to face the darkness head-on, this is it. It will leave you haunted, angry, and deeply moved.
And it will remind you that sometimes, the bravest thing a girl can do is speak. And keep speaking. Even when no one wants to listen.
About the Author
Jess Lourey
writes about secrets. She’s the two-time Edgar-nominated, two-time Goodreads Choice Awards shortlisted, Amazon Charts bestselling, International Thriller Award, Anthony Award, and Minnesota Book Award-winning author of crime fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, YA adventure, and book club fiction. She has surpassed over a million readers and her books have been translated into a dozen languages..
She is also a retired professor of creative writing and sociology, a recipient of The Loft’s Excellence in Teaching fellowship, a Psychology Today blogger, and a TEDx presenter (check out her TEDx Talk below for the surprising inspiration behind her first published novel). When not reading, traveling, or fostering kittens, you can find her drafting her next story.
