Dead Girls

“Abigail Tarttelin is a fearless writer.”―Emily St. John MandelFrom the award-winning author of Golden Boy, a riveting novel that traces one girl’s journey to understand what happened to her best friend, and what it might mean to be a girl.Eastcastle, England in the late 1990s is a peaceful, rural community where children disappear into wheat fields to play until nightfall. There are no mobile phones and no cause to worry. For families, it’s a place that allows the ultimate freedom, and this is the way eleven-year-old Thera Wilde and her friends are brought up: free.So when Thera’s best friend goes missing, Thera assumes Billie is off on another adventure. Then detectives come to question Thera at school, and she realises the worst has happened. Thera starts to ask, what is a pervert? Why are girls particularly at risk? And why do the men around her think she’s theirs to touch? Questions the adults around her don’t want to answer.Meanwhile, Billie has entered the realm of the dead girls; the girls that go missing and who no one finds. Does Thera really see her ghost, or is she hallucinating, mentally marked by the horror of losing her friend? The investigation continues. The rural police are slow, and overwhelmed by the unexpected nature of the case.Urged on by what she believes to be Billie’s ghost, Thera decides to find out what happened to her friend. It’s the 90s. Girls can do anything. Thera will hunt down the killer herself.An authentic, tender portrayal of a young girl’s grief and determination in the face of unbearable loss, as well as a smart, suspenseful exploration of how we talk to young girls about the men who would hurt them. Dead Girls is Tarttelin’s riveting, fiercely feminist follow up to critically-acclaimed LAMBDA Finalist and ALEX Award winner, Golden Boy.

Matt Haig, author of How to Stop Time

"Tarttelin is a natural storyteller."

Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths

"Harriet the Spy is all grown up―and readying herself to take on the darkness of the adult world. This somehow manages to combine mystery, thriller, horror, and a lovely elegy to lost friendship . . . Completely unforgettable."

Shelley Harris, author of Jubilee and Vigilante Praise for Golden Boy

"Feminist, bold, shocking, packed with little epiphanies."

Booklist, Starred Review

"...the novel is a dramatic, thoroughgoing investigation of the complexities of sexuality and gender. Never overly clinical, this is not a case study, but rather, at its heart, a warmly human coming-of-age story..."

Emily St. John Mandel, National Book Award nominated author of Station Eleven

“Abigail Tarttelin is a fearless writer. In Golden Boy, she balances a harrowing coming of age with a deeply compassionate portrait of a family in crisis, and the result is sometimes brutal, often tender, and always compelling. This is a gripping and fully-realized novel.”

Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Sleepers and Wolf

“Abigail Tarttelin has written an unforgettable novel. Golden Boy pulls you in from the very first page and holds you tight, gripping you by the throat and not letting go until it reaches its brilliant and masterful conclusion. Max Walker is the golden boy, and you will root for him, cry for him, fear for him, at times get angry at him but guaranteed you will never forget him. Not ever. The characters who make up Max's universe, from determined Karen, to distant Steve, to a deceitful Hunter, are all written in a perfect pitch. The dialogue is real, the pace is stealth bomber fast, and the plot never lets up. Tarttelin has blasted it out of the park in her first at bat here in the States. She has written a novel that goes beyond the page and reaches into a reader's heart and stays there, never to leave, never to be forgotten. Golden Boy is that good of a novel, and Tarttelin is that gifted of a writer. This book simply deserves to be read and treasured.”

Dean Bakopoulos, author of My American Unhappiness

“Golden Boy is at once meditative and swift, a coming-of-age tale about the difficulties of growing up amid shame and secrets and success. Abigail Tarttelin writes with a sharp-eyed grace in this fascinating, heartfelt gem of a novel.”

S.J. Watson, author of Before I Go To Sleep

“Golden Boy is terrific. A poignant, brave and important book.”

Rachel Shukert, author of Starstruck and Everything Is Going To Be Great

“Gritty yet humane, startlingly modern yet utterly timeless, Golden Boy hits all the deepest, biggest novelistic notes―family, identity, tragedy and hope―without the merest hint of strain. In Abigail Tarttelin's American debut, she has already proven herself to be a writer of extraordinary empathy and incredible wisdom... and she makes it look so easy. Tarttelin is the real deal.”

Sahar Delijani, author of Children of the Jacaranda Tree

“Gripping and beautifully-written, Abigail Tarttelin's Golden Boy is a courageous and profound exploration of social and sexual identity and its world of manifold complexities and challenges."

Cosmopolitan

“...gripping...”

Entertainment Weekly

“Tarttelin writes sensitively about how an intersex child might cope with the heightened emotions of adolescence.”

Publishers Weekly

“...intense and fearless.... With empathy and imagination, Tarttelin describes an adolescent search for identity made monstrous by Max's uncertainty over that self-identifier most of us take for granted: am I a man or a woman?”

School Library Journal, A Best Book of 2013

“Teens will love kindhearted Max, whose journey through adolescence is a nightmare few will experience.”

About the Author

Abigail Tarttelin is the author of feminist crime thriller Dead Girls Abigail’s second novel, Golden Boy, about intersex teen Max Walker, won an American Library Association ALEX Award and was shortlisted for LAMDBA’s Best LGBT Debut.She loves talking to readers and regularly speaks at schools, reading groups and book clubs. Find out more at www.abigailtarttelin.com. Tweet her @ajktarttelin or follow on Instagram @abigailtarttelin_

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