The burning girls

How do secrets and hidden identities affect the characters and their actions? When is keeping a secret better than telling it? Which character surprised you the most?

Religion is central to The Burning Girls, from Jack’s job as a vicar to the legend of the burned martyrs of Chapel Croft. How does religion and its past—both recent and far away—influence the future?

Jack is not the traditional vicar and says she secretly enjoys watching people realize that she is, in fact, Jack. In what ways did the characters challenge your expectations?

Fire can be a destructive or purifying thing, and there is an old saying, “baptized by fire,” to describe people learning and growing through very difficult experiences. How was fire used throughout the book?

Jack is haunted by the past, both literally and figuratively, throughout the book. Has there been a time or place in your own life where you have felt the weight of your own past?

Chapel Croft is a tiny, remote village with an insular community that does not want to challenge the way things have always been (especially where the Harper family is concerned). How does village’s burning martyrs legend and its small-town gossip work against Jack? How does it help her, if at all?

What components do you think are essential to writing a good thriller? In what ways did the author surprise you?

Jack’s choices as a young woman led her down a dangerous road before she found the church. Can you understand or empathize with her actions? Why or why not? What would you have done in her position?

What did you make of the shocking revelations about Jack’s past and Wrigley’s true self? What clues did the author leave to let us know not everything is as it seems?

What did you think about the ending? What do you think is next for Jack and Flo in Australia?