This book is getting all the hype at the moment and for all the right reasons. I’d been looking forward to this book for months because I couldn’t get enough of Simone St. James’ previous book, The Broken Girls. If possible, The Sun Down Motel was even better! It’s slightly reminiscent of The Shining, with the haunted motel, but I thought it was significantly more terrifying, especially in the beginning.
BLURB:
The secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before, in this new atmospheric suspense novel from the national bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.
Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn’t right at the Sun Down, and before long she’s determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden…
This started off as a book I only wanted to read in the day time, and honestly, I thought it was going to end up being the scariest book I’d ever read. But, as time went on I became kind of desensitized to the ghost story and only hoped to keep reading for my questions to be answered. For me, this was a good thing because I’m a chicken! Don’t get me wrong, it still was a “lay very still in bed and read as fast as you can” book, but the story was so excellent, I didn’t care how chilling it might be.
I especially loved the alternating perspectives between 1982 with Viv, and 2017 with Viv’s niece, Carly. This made the story lack any possible lulls and kept me fully engaged. The chapters were fairly short and ended with perfect mini cliffhangers that made me sad to put the book down every time.
Despite this whole book being eerie, with a crazy morbid town, and characters readers are reluctant to trust, the main theme that stuck out to me in The Sun Down Motel ended up being “girl power”! I absolutely loved the strong female characters and the fierce friendships that formed between them. This book made me feel like a badass after I closed the last page! Just, WOW! I’m speechless over how much I loved this book, especially since it’s not my typical genre, but Simone St. James is incredible. I only wish she wrote faster because I need more!
Rating: 5 stars
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Wow! And as you said this one gets all the hype!
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