The Church of Dead Girls cover

The Church of Dead Girls

by Stephen Dobyns

One by one, three young girls vanish in Aurelius, a small town in upstate New York. With the first disappearance, the townspeople begin to mistrust outsiders. When the second girl goes missing, neighbors and childhood friends start to eye one another warily. And with the third disappearance, the sleepy little town awakens to a full-blown nightmare. In The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns probes the ruinous effects of suspicion. No one is immune, not the respected editor of the local paper, nor the demure cashier at the pharmacy, nor even the narrator, a high school biology teacher, observed baking cookies with young girls and helping them with their homework. As the panic mounts and the citizens take the law into their own hands, old rumors, old angers, and old hungers come to the surface to reveal the secret history of this seemingly genteel town and the dark impulses of its inhabitants. Written with an uncanny awareness of the intricacies of human nature, The Church of Dead Girls is both a gripping story about the corrosive effects of fear and a chilling psychological thriller.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?