Title: Pretty Dead Things
Author: Kelsey Cox
Publication Date: July 7, 2026
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Pretty Dead Things Synopsis:
Secrets emerge as a Texas beauty pageant turns deadly in this rich and addictive novel with a jaw-dropping twist from psychological suspense author Kelsey Cox.
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.
Pretty Dead Things Review:
Welcome to Texas! Where football, the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, and pageants aren’t just hobbies, they’re a way of life. But when Ingrid entered the same local pageant in 2000 that her mother once won, the glamour shattered. Her twin sister, Isabelle, went missing without a trace. Could it be a boyfriend? A jealous pageant rival who wanted to throw Ingrid off her game? Or something far more sinister?
Pretty Dead Things is told from multiple perspectives and two main timelines: the fallout of Isabelle’s disappearance in 2000 and the chilling reality of 2025. Author Kelsey Cox offers up an interconnected web of key players: Ingrid, the twin to missing Isabelle who’s desperate for answers; Sarah Lynn, the daughter of cutthroat beauty queen Kennedy Clair, who’s obsessed with all things pageant – including her daughter Sarah Lynn winning; Cat, a recovering alcoholic trying to rebuild her life and be there for her daughter; and Melanie, the sheriff’s daughter who was bullied in high school by Kennedy Clair and others.
Kelsey Cox has a remarkable ability to make absolutely every character seem like a viable suspect. Did I guess whodunit? Well, kind of – but to be fair, I thought every single character was the person who did it at least once, so I don’t think that counts. I usually pride myself on my amateur detective skills (by which I mean I watch way too much Dateline and 48 Hours), but when I finally settled on a suspect, I was dead wrong.
Pretty Dead Things keeps you guessing until the end and even when you thought you knew the answer, guess what? You most likely didn’t get it right. I enjoyed the different points of view and thought it was a nice touch to include the perspective of one of the daughters and not just the women who experienced what happened in 2000, because there were, after all, deaths happening in the present day. I enjoyed the story and although the pacing was a bit slow at times, it wasn’t enough to make my attention stray.
*Thank you, St. Martin’s Press, Kelsey Cox, and Netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.*
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