Pretty Dead Things: A Novel

Synopsis: Twenty-five years after Isabelle Whitmore vanished from a Texas ranch, her sister returns as the town prepares for its annual beauty pageant. When a deadly winter storm traps everyone together, old grudges and buried secrets resurface—with fatal consequences. Review: This story uses a complex narrative structure, shifting between nine different points of view and moving between the past and present. While the multiple perspectives reveal what each character is thinking, I ultimately found nine narrators to be too many. It made the story difficult to follow and kept me from forming a meaningful connection with any one character. Thankfully, the chapters are short and digestible, which makes it easier to keep track of who is speaking and what is happening. The pacing is also strong, and I consistently wanted to keep turning the pages to discover what would happen next. Unfortunately, the characters felt somewhat two-dimensional. With so many perspectives competing for attention, none of them truly stood out or showed much growth. The story builds toward the pageant introduced in the opening chapter, but after so much anticipation, the event itself felt surprisingly anticlimactic. At least two of the narrators are unreliable, making it nearly impossible for the reader to work out the truth independently. The final twist was not especially shocking and left me disappointed. There were also loose ends, particularly involving the killer’s fingerprints. The killer mentions avoiding a doorknob to prevent leaving prints, yet there is no explanation of how fingerprints were avoided on the murder weapons. This detail is simply ignored. Overall, this was an okay read that held my attention throughout, thanks largely to its short chapters and good pacing. However, the underdeveloped characters, anticlimactic pageant, and disappointing conclusion kept it from being a more satisfying mystery.

Pretty Dead Things by Kelsey Cox Pretty Dead Things by Kelsey Cox is the kind of thriller that doesn’t just keep you guessing—it rewires how you read every sentence. Five stars, no hesitation. Set in the tight-knit Texas town of Anhalt, where the Lone Star Princess Pageant is less a contest and more a generational religion, Cox threads together mothers and daughters, sisters and rivals, past and present with surgical precision. The multi-generational cast feels lived-in and specific: women who once competed under the same lights now watch their own daughters take the stage, old grudges simmering beneath rhinestones and perfect smiles. Every character carries the weight of the town’s unfinished history, especially the unsolved disappearance that still haunts Sherman Ranch twenty-five years later. What elevates this beyond standard small-town suspense is the pacing. Cox never rushes and never stalls. Short, sharp chapters click forward like a metronome while deeper currents of rivalry, grief, and buried guilt build beneath the surface. I spent the entire book certain I had the layers mapped—only to discover, page after page, that I was still standing on the outermost skin. The twists keep unfolding right to the final moments, each one earned and none of them telegraphed. By the time the power fails and everyone is trapped under one roof, the tension is almost physical. Beauty pageant glamour collides with something far colder and more personal. Cox understands that the prettiest surfaces often hide the deepest rot, and she peels them back with ruthless control. I finished the last page, sat still for a full minute, then flipped back to the beginning just to see how cleanly the traps had been set. That’s the highest compliment I can give. Pretty Dead Things is sharp, atmospheric, and wickedly clever. Highly recommended.

My Book Review: https://jerseygirlbookreviews.blogspot.com/2026/08/pretty-dead-things-by-kelsey-cox-book.html

Pretty Dead Things has small town Texas beauty queens, decades of secrets, murder, and a whole lot of women behaving badly. I should have been eating it up, but my attention was never caught. The Lone Star Princess Pageant has been part of Anhalt, Texas for generations. Isabelle Whitmore disappeared from Sherman Ranch during the pageant in 2000. Twenty five years later, construction at the ranch threatens to uncover old secrets right as another group of pageant contestants and their mothers prepare to compete. Rivalries, grudges, family secrets, and a deadly Texas winter storm quickly turn the pagent preperations from a celebration into a murder mystery. The 2025 setting caught my attention. Thrillers often feel deliberately detached from an exact year, so seeing a story intentionally placed in such a recent moment was interesting. The multiple timelines and buried secrets offer plenty if you enjoy YA suspense filled with messy families and small town grudges. The small town Texas setting caught my attention for a different reason. I grew up in the San Antonio area, and Anhalt is a a small town nearby. I knew towns like Anhalt. Very little of the setting sparked any recognition for me, so if you are hoping for a heavy dose of Texas nostalgia you might be disappointed. The pageant culture felt much more recognizable. I knew girls like these beauty queens. These girls are competitive, spoiled, immature, and surrounded by adults who have helped create their attitudes. The generational nature of the pageant explores how old rivalries and parental expectations can trickle down into the next group of contestants. The murder mystery itself never grabbed me. Jealousy drives most of the violence. I wanted something more interesting behind everything happening in Anhalt. Cat frustrated me more than she fascinated me. Accountability seems to be a foreign language in her world. The people surrounding her continue making excuses that allow her terrible behavior to grow. Another frustration came from the moral choices surrounding the investigation. The book raises an interesting question about how far a parent might go to protect their child after discovering something unforgivable. I kept hoping integrity would win. The decisions surrounding Abel left me angry instead. Pretty Dead Things is competently written and the beauty pageant setting gives the thriller its own personality. I felt that the writing was fine, the mystery was fine, and the characters were fine. Nothing in the story moved far beyond fine for me. Pick this up if you love pageant rivalries, teenage drama, family secrets, and small town mysteries.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Pretty Dead Things by Kelsey Cox is one I was excited for going into it. I liked the author’s previous book Party of Liars. This book treats us to Texas pageantry and rivalries from the past and present. It was just what I thought it would be - secrets, twists and turns, and drama.


Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Publication Date: July 07, 2026

#PrettyDeadThings #NetGalley