The Grimrose Girls

The Grimrose Girls, Book 1

By: Laura Pohl

Narrated by: Cindy Kay

Four friends, one murder, and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed....

After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Académie. The police ruled Ariane’s death as a suicide, but the trio is determined to find out what really happened.

When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events that no one could have predicted. As the girls retrace their friend’s final days, they discover a dark secret about Grimrose - Ariane wasn’t the first dead girl.

They soon learn that all the past murders are connected to ancient fairy-tale curses...and that their own fates are tied to the stories, dooming the girls to brutal and gruesome endings unless they can break the cycle for good.

©2021 Laura Pohl (P)2021 Recorded Books

Book Review: The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl

Imagine if Disney princesses decided they were tired of woodland creatures braiding their hair and instead enrolled in a murder mystery boarding school run by vibes and trauma. That’s The Grimrose Girls.

Reading it feels like walking through a thrift store where every porcelain doll is staring directly into your soul—haunting, a little sparkly, but you can’t stop touching things you probably shouldn’t.

The story itself is basically:
• “Hi, welcome to Grimrose Academy, where your electives include Cursed Fate 101 and Advanced Secrets You’ll Regret Finding Out.”
• Four girls (each with their own emotional baggage suitcases) start noticing their lives are suspiciously resembling fairy tales. Spoiler: it’s not the “happily ever after” part. It’s the blood, doom, and probably drowning in lakes part.
• Somewhere in the background, Snow White is sipping iced coffee and side-eyeing everyone.

What I loved: The vibes are immaculate—dark academia meets fairy-tale fatalism. Also, queer rep that doesn’t feel like a checklist but like actual, messy, wonderful teens existing.

What broke my brain: Every time I thought I knew who was about to die, the book just said “lol nope” and smacked me with another breadcrumb trail of destiny. I felt like one of those conspiracy theorists with the red string board, except my red string was just licorice.

Final thought: The Grimrose Girls is like if Pretty Little Liars, the Brothers Grimm, and a Tumblr moodboard had a chaotic sleepover. Do I trust any character to survive book two? Absolutely not. Did I enjoy the slow descent into magical dread? 10/10, would sell my soul to the Fates again.

It would be a good tb series

The performance of the narrator was great.

The story is interesting an easy to hear. A great twist from Disney fairytales

The twists of Grimrose

This book had great character development. I felt it was a little slow to start, but definitely worth finishing. Picking up book 2 right away!

I’m an adult and I like it

Hey originally read this seven months ago and really liked it and was really excited about the sequel coming out. And then the sequel came out and I had to re-read this because I had forgotten most of it. But it’s really intriguing and has mystery of course that’s why eight album but I’m an adult, I’m 40 years old but this is what I like to listen to it makes me happy and I like any story where I can remember characters from other things and this ties some of those classic fairytales in

murder but with fairy tales

loved every minute of it, I accidentally got the sequel first and got the first book as an audio book... been listening in the car back and forth... it's more for adults but has that teen whimsy and queer representation.