This week’s review is The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. One of my favorite ways to rest is by curling up with a good book. Like movies and music, all genres appeal to me, and I give all books a chance to be ‘heard’!
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The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
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The Sun Down Motel is a dark and thrilling read about murder and the supernatural! A great combination to read on a dark and stormy day while curled up under a blanket sipping on hot tea (which I did).
The story catches our attention with young Vivian Delaney outside the Sun Down Motel (where she works the night shift) in the middle of the night scared to death, hiding in her car. She has an overwhelming dread of going to work this particular night, rightly so. Because by three in the morning, Vivian has vanished.
The next chapter picks up thirty years later with Carly Kirk, the niece of the missing (presumably dead) night clerk. She is pulled to the town of Fell, New York, home of the motel and place where her aunt is last seen. Carly has no information about her mother’s sister because her mother never spoke about her missing sister. The subject was taboo, and what memories there were of Vivian went with the death of Carly’s mother leaving an even bigger mystery.
Being an amateur sleuth with all experience based on novels and a talent for research, Carly peels back the layers of her aunt’s disappearance. It all starts with stepping into her Vivian’s shoes by taking the night shift at the foreboding Sun Down Motel. Quickly, Carly realizes how many things are wrong at the motel and is visited by the ghosts still haunting there. She even goes so far as tracking down Vivian’s old apartment and residing there with the current tenant, Heather, while she unravels the story as best as she can.
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The story switches between Vivian’s last few months before her disappearance in late 1982 and Carly unearthing her disappearance in 2017. As she uncovers the past, she starts questioning her sanity and what’s real. There are two characters in particular that seem to know more than they let on – a retired cop and a former private investigator. Both women knew Vivian, but both are closed-lipped on what they know and how much they know. Will they help Carly? Or will she have to rely on her own resources?
This is the classic page-turning thriller I grew up with and love to read. It’s one of those ‘one more chapter’ kind of book in which I never stop with one more chapter. The story had numerous twists and turns with an ending that was unpredictably perfect. This was the second novel I’ve read by Simone St. James and it was just as good as the first I read (The Broken Girls).
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Book Ratings and Reviews
Each book I review is based on my opinion. This does not mean you will agree with the review or love/like/dislike the book, too. There’s a quote that says, “No two persons ever read the same book” by Edmund Wilson, and it’s quite true!
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