Story for the Week
I grew up in a time when we didn’t have to worry that everything online lasts forever. We all knew “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” But we didn’t worry that those prizes would haunt us for the rest of our lives.
From the beginning, I cautioned Corinne about what she posts online. With her first cell phone, we talked about the types of things you do and don’t share or text. Because deleting something doesn’t make it go away. It may make it harder for a lot of people to find…unless someone takes a screen shot. Then all bets are off.
We live in a time of cancel culture, where everything we do is judged by strangers on the Internet. Sometimes it means losing out on an immunity idol on Survivor because everyone is able to rewind and see that someone left their foot down during a challenge. Other times, it means an actor getting blasted on every social media platform for days because he casually suggested that no one cares about ballet and opera anymore.
Book Threads has been particularly brutal lately. One author uses a pen name supposedly to hide the fact that he is a male author writing from a female point of view. Another author got raked over the coals and had book events cancelled because of how she described an entire genre of books. Still another was outed for creating fake profiles to bully her main profile to bring attention to her account. (You really can’t make this stuff up.)
At the end of the day, most of the posts that start the controversy get deleted. An apology gets issued. But the screen shots people take—the receipts, if you will—last forever.
Corinne wants to work in entertainment. She would love to be on stage where there’s probably less visibility than on the big screen, but she’s not opposed to movies either. She just wants to perform. So I try to remind her that everything online lasts forever, whether you delete it or not. And if you doubt that, just Google yourself.
Because of this blog, my social profiles are public. But I’m also very careful about what I post. If I’m writing something about Corinne that might be controversial or embarrassing, I ask her first. More often than not, the stories get posted, but there have definitely been stories that got axed.
In the book reviewed here, one of the main characters is a pageant girl, being raised by a pageant mom. They are all about appearances, and the girl panics a bit when she sees a video of herself.
“Mom’s warnings echo in my head: Don’t send boys racy pictures unless you want them printed out and taped to every locker. Don’t post anything online unless you’re okay with the entire pageant board watching it together in a room. I fumble for my phone like I can somehow erase it all myself. ‘If anything ever ends up on the internet, it’s there forever. Forever. That’s like…rule number one….This is how celebrity careers die.’ I’m up now, pacing a circle between the chairs. ‘One leaked picture. One stupid video. Next thing you know, your face is a meme.’”
Because everything online lasts forever. 😉
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐½
3.5 Stars for Pretty Dead Things by Kelsey Cox
336 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press | Minotaur Books
Publication Date: July 7, 2026
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press | Minotaur Books.
Publisher’s Description
2000: Isabelle Whitmore vanishes at Sherman Ranch in Anhalt, Texas, without a trace.
2025: The Lone Star Princess Pageant is about to begin, but this year it’s offering more than an annual dose of rhinestone heels and plunging necklines. Competition is stiffer than ever—and long-standing grudges are about to resurface. Ingrid fled Anhalt in the wake of her sister Isabelle’s disappearance and has now returned, just in time for a construction crew to start digging up Sherman Ranch; the pageant brings up past traumas that Melanie can’t forget; Cat, newly sober, starts to feel threatened in ways that bring back old demons; and Sarah Lynn, who comes from a long line of pageant winners, knows that losing is not an option.
When old resentments and new confrontations reach their boiling point, temperatures drop to deadly degrees as a record-setting storm brings down the state’s power grid. With everyone trapped under one roof, scores will be settled, and more than one person will end up dead.
Beauty dies. Secrets never do.
************
Main Characters:
- Sarah Lynn Preston – high school student, Kennedy Claire’s daughter, has been competing in pageants since she was little, her mom expects her to win the Miss Lone Star Princess crown just like she did 25 years ago, best friends with Hannah and Olivia, convinces them to compete in the pageant with her
- Hannah Campbell – high school student, Melanie’s daughter, a little on the heavier side and not inclined to compete in the pageant with Sarah Lynn and Olivia but Sarah Lynn convinces her
- Olivia Blake – high school student, daughter of Cat and her ex-husband Mark, her stepmom is Emily, best friends with Sarah Lynn and Hannah, Sarah Lynn convinces her and Hannah to compete in the Miss Lone Star Princess pageant
- Cat Dennis – early 40s, Olivia’s mom, previously had a drinking problem, she has been sober but still gets judgment from people in the town, lives in a model for new build homes and gives tours to prospective buyers, best friends with Melanie
- Ingrid Whitmore – early 40s, lives in Colorado and works as a client relations manager but always wanted to be a photographer, came home to Texas to help take care of her elderly mom who has cancer, her marriage is on the rocks, best friends with Kennedy Claire, her twin sister Izzy disappeared the year they were 17, her mother was the first to win the pageant title 50 years before
- Melanie Campbell – early 40s, Hannah’s mom, works as a nurse and Ingrid’s mom is one of her current patients, her father has been the sheriff in the town for decades, used to be picked on in high school by Kennedy Claire and Ingrid because she was overweight, isn’t sure about allowing Hannah to compete in the pageant
- Kennedy Claire Preston – early 40s, Sarah Lynn’s mom, won the Miss Lone Star Princess pageant 25 years ago and is determined that Sarah Lynn will win this year, parlayed her previous win into a Miss Texas crown and married into a wealthy oil family after high school
- Ben Sherman – early 40s, was dating Izzy when she vanished, has long been suspected as her killer, lives in a trailer with his alcoholic father since they lost their land to the housing development
- Travis Magnuson – 27 years old, communications teacher at the local high school, all the female students seem to have a crush on him, meets Ingrid at the local bar and pursues her, helping with the pageant
- Abel Sherman – Ben’s father, wouldn’t let the sheriff on his land after Izzy disappeared and stopped talking with other families in town, resents the fact that he lost his property
Much like in her debut novel Party of Liars (This is What Nightmares are Made Of), Kelsey Cox pulls out a whole host of characters—aka, suspects—in her new novel Pretty Dead Things. The book starts with a dead body at the Miss Lone Star Princess pageant and then switches to six days before the pageant.
“A multifeathered headpiece, once pristine white, is splattered with red ribbons of blood. Cans of hair spray and jars of body shimmer are misted in crimson. A large clump of brain matter, still warm, clings to the tulle layers of an emerald-colored gown…. From beyond the door come the sounds of screaming young girls. One’s high-pitched shriek of terror cuts sharper than the rest, pierces through the echoes of pounding feet across the hollow stage floor. A killer is among them, and panic spreads, stretches its fingers like the fractal shards of ice chilling their bones.”
The story rotates between a number of points of view. In the present day, we switch between Sarah Lynn (the only major teenager POV), Cat, Ingrid, and Melanie. In the year 2000, the year Izzy disappeared, we get a couple of chapters from Abel and Kennedy Claire. And there are a couple of mid-2010s chapters from Olivia Blake and her stepmom Emily along with Abel.
Suffice it to say, a lot happens here, and it did get (probably intentionally) confusing. I found myself having a hard time keeping the mother/daughter pairs straight. The author also adds a good number of secondary characters that add to the confusion and complexity. I mean, it’s a beauty pageant setting. There are bound to be a lot of people involved, but I had to constantly remind myself of who people were.
I’m not going to give anything away in this one. It’s a solid story. Cox paces the novel with short, quick-hit chapters that make the reader want to keep going. We don’t know when the book begins who the current victim is. We certainly don’t know until the very end what happened to Izzy.
I have to admit, about 85% of the way through, I felt like the resolution was going to be a little convenient. I really should have known better based on Cox’s previous novel. The actual resolution caught me by complete surprise…but it also seemed to come a little bit out of left field.
Regardless, I’ll read Kelsey Cox again. If you enjoy fast-paced, everyone-is-a-suspect thrillers, prepare to enjoy this one.
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