Catherine Dang Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Catherine Dang
Catherine Dang is a mystery author and a former legal assistant living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She graduated from the University of Minnesota and has written a debut novel titled Nice Girls.

Dang captures a story of a young college girl, Mary, who is lucky to get an Ivy League scholarship to Cornell College. All does not go well in school, and she is expelled in her senior year and is forced to return to her hometown.

Nice Girls
Mary was a chubby and awkward student in school, and no one was willing to be her friend since she never fit in with her peers. For a long time, she had wished to leave Liberty Lake and become very successful; she had good grades after all. Later she was lucky to be accepted to Cornell and was named the ‘Ivy League Mary because of her scholarship.’ She was sure that once she joined the college, everything would change.

The scholarship was her ticket out from Minnesota. She loses weight and spends the first years remodeling herself to fit in the college life of boyfriends and partying. She is so determined to do great things without looking back.

Growing up from a lonely girl with no single friend to joining University on an Ivy League scholarship, Mary’s bright and promising future vanishes after an episode with a freshman student. ‘Ivy League Mary’ is expelled from the university during her senior year and goes back home to stay with her father.
She is so depressed and embarrassed by what she did and can’t imagine what local people will say when they realize the reason she came back to Liberty Lake, Minnesota. She prefers to stay in her room than face people in her past. Since her dad’s income isn’t enough, she gets a job at the local grocery store, where she can never hide from people. She rarely talks with her dad, but one day he talks to her to let her know that her childhood friend, Olivia Willand, is nowhere to be found.

They have been friends since childhood, but they had not spoken in years. Everyone admired her, but Mary knows her better than everyone else that behind the famous Instagram persona is a manipulative girl.

Olivia is a social media celebrity who was gaining followers fast and comes from a wealthy family. Her disappearance is all over the news, and Mary can’t help but wonder what happened to her friend she once loved but began hating. FBI, police, and all media come together, and search parties are created to find Olivia.

Later, Mary finds out that another person said to be, a 19-year old DeMaria Jackson, also went missing in town a few months earlier. This disappearance was not fully reported and was thrown away some weeks later. Could the two instances be connected in any way? Is there a serial killer in their local town?
What happened to DeMaria? Who was the true Olivia Willand? As Mary goes deeper to get more details on the disappearances, her old wounds still feel fresh and painful secrets threaten to destroy everything. She’s more than determined to investigate and solve the mystery surrounding these disappearances.
The story is a compelling and intriguing mystery that will keep you hooked to the end. The suspense is slowly built as the author introduces the characters while delving into themes of mental health, racial inequality, depression, and anxiety.

Mary gets herself deeper while searching for information about the disappearance. The books talks about the pressure girls have while trying to become the best version of themselves. High school life can be hard for girls, and the author shows how pressure is not a good thing. The story also shows how friendships are not always for connection purposes but sometimes for convenience.

Catherine Dang is an excellent writer for woman’s suspense genre as she slowly and excellently develops the story. This exciting and mysterious story brings up critical points in society today. The story also points out racism in the police department and the media and unfairness in investigating crimes.
Nice Girls is a pulse-pounding and dark written with the psychological, intellectual acuity, and emotional punch to explore the hungry and dark side of being a girl showing the world what it needs to see. The complex characters’ conflicted feelings and questionable choices combine to create a compelling thriller.