Little Girls
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2.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The Bram Stoker Award finalist delivers a chilling horror novel of a childhood revisited, memories resurrected, and fears reborn.
Years ago, Laurie escaped the troubled house where she was raised. Now she is returning, with her husband and ten-year-old daughter, to claim the estate. But even though her father exorcised his demons in a final act of desperation, the past refuses to die. Laurie can feel it lurking in the broken moldings and empty picture frames. She even hears it laughing in the moldy greenhouse deep in the woods . . .
At first, Laurie thinks she’s imagining things. But when she meets her daughter’s new playmate, she notices her uncanny resemblance to another little girl who used to live next door—and died next door. As Laurie’s uneasiness grows stronger, her thoughts get more disturbing. Is she slowly losing her mind like her father did? Or is something truly unspeakable happening?</
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this pallid horror novel set in present-day Maryland, trauma survivor Laurie and her spouse and daughter are drawn back to her estranged father's house after his sudden death. Soon Laurie must deal with awful memories and hidden secrets in a horror story that never feels particularly terrifying. Malfi methodically goes down the list of genre tropes (returning to a place of trauma, remaining in the house against all wisdom, a malevolent spirit, possible insanity, a cheating and money-grubbing spouse, etc.) without bringing anything new. By the time the secret is revealed (itself a clich d moment), there's no terror, just revulsion as readers learn how awful Laurie's father was. The characters are stock figures, making it hard to care about the threat of Laurie's cruel childhood friend, who has seemingly been resurrected in a new body. It's a collection of familiar set pieces instead of a story, without enough freshness or development to engage the reader.
