ARC Review: Hot Girl Murder Club by Ashley Winstead

Hot Girl Murder Club
Author: Ashley Winstead
Publication: Minotaur Books (July 14, 2026)

Description: From national bestselling author Ashley Winstead comes a buzzy, bloody new thriller about success, sisterhood, and demanding justice…by any means necessary.

What’s a girl got to do to get some fame, a few million record sales, and justice for murder?

Ten years ago, aspiring singer-actress Scout Sage lost the only thing that mattered: her sister, Georgia. Ever since Georgia’s mysterious death at a Hollywood party, Scout’s done her best to honor her memory, clawing her way through the industry and collecting a network of climbers along the way, fellow hot girls in stilettos with cutthroat ambition, a new Hollywood order.

But when a slew of targeted murders makes headlines across L.A., all pointing to Scout as the killer, she turns overnight from a mid-tier pop star into the world’s most famous (alleged) murderer. Now everything she’s worked to build―including the justice she wants for Georgia―will fall apart unless Scout can prove she’s not guilty.

Meanwhile, the young and unusual detective assigned to her case, herself no stranger to tragedy, begins to unearth secrets not even Scout knows, let alone her millions of new fans. Particularly about the ways Georgia’s death connects to an even older pattern of crimes long hushed over in Hollywood―an old reign of terror that, if brought to light, could be the fuel that ignites a reckoning the world over.

My Thoughts: HOT GIRL MURDER CLUB hits all the tropes in a fascinating and compelling story of women's power, ambition, and murder. It is told from multiple viewpoints including excerpts from a PhD dissertation about a group of young women known as Our Ladies of the Dark.

Grey Holloway is a LAPD detective whose father was fired for his obsession that someone at the LAPD sabotaged his investigation into his daughter's disappearance. Grey's older sister Alice disappeared ten years earlier while working one night at the Serpent Room, a club that was popular with the in-crowd then and still attracts the current in-crowd. Grey is determined to solve her sister's case and moonlights herself as a bottle girl at the Serpent Room. 

Grey's current case is investigating the murder of a woman who looks just like her. Elizabeth Drake had worked for a number of Hollywood movers and shakers. There is a quotation written on the wall in her blood which turns out to be an excerpt from the lyrics of a song written by Scout Sage.

Scout Sage and her best friend Isabel came from New Jersey to become stars. Scout's sister Georgia came a year later to attend UCLA. In a flashback from ten years ago, we see Scout, Isabel, and Georgia attending a party at an influential man's home. They were looking for contacts and maybe a break, but when Georgia was found murdered, Scout and Isabel have a new goal. They need to find her killer. 

Over the ten years, Scout gains some minor fame as a musician and Isabel becomes her assistant. But their real purpose is to find Georgia's killer and help other young women who are being done wrong by men. They have gathered a posse of influential women that they have helped over the years but have come no closer to finding Georgia's killer. 

However, in the present storyline things are finally breaking open. 

I enjoyed this twisty story with all its various themes. I liked all of the viewpoint characters and the way their lives intertwined. It was an intriguing story filled with memorable characters. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.