Girls on Fire/Robin Wasserman/356 pgs.

This is a disturbing novel. This is Wasserman's first foray into adult fiction; evidently, she has written young adult fiction. It begins in 1991 with the apparent death of high school jock, Craig Ellison, basketball star in Battle Creek, Pennsylvania. It happens on Halloween which starts rumors of devil worship in the community. Enter into the picture new girl Lacey Champlain--a Kurt Cobain groupie--who befriends Hannah Dexter, a lonely teenager just ripe for being led astray. Secrets abound, and are revealed through the various characters' voices. At the conclusion of the novel, the reader is thankful that it's a work of fiction.

The Girls/Emma Cline/355 pgs.

In her debut novel, Emma Cline creates a novel reminiscent of the Charles Manson cult in the late 1960s. Evie Boyd, 14 years old,  bored, and with minimal parental supervision, becomes part of a culture of young men and women living on a ranch in northern California. The head of the ranch, Russell, basically brainwashes the girls to do his bidding. It's a time of free love, hippies, drugs, and anything anti-establishment. Anyone familiar with the Charles Manson cult will see the similarities almost from the start of the novel. Recommended.