The Sun Down Motel; Simone St. James

I love a good family mystery that spans generations. Throw in the creepy, small-town vibes where everyone knows each other and keeps mum on the darker aspects of this small town locked in time, and you already have the makings of a very spooky, and atmospheric thriller. But then add some ghosts and unsolved murders on top of that? Perfection. Or, mostly perfection. In “The Sun Down Motel” the story goes between a flashback and flashforward narrative between Carly (the present) and Vivian (the past) to uncover the spooky goings on of Fell, New York, and the Sun Down Motel as a whole. Both Viv and Carly have fairly tragic lives, but the one thing Carly clings too after the loss of her mother, is finding out what happened to her aunt who disappeared in 1982. While, Vivian, desperate to find herself after her parents’ divorce, lands in Fell where she immediately gets sucked into the mystery of several murdered women, and the run-down motel she works at connection to all the dead girls.

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I love a good ghost story, so I loved that the motel where the majority of the book takes place is so obviously haunted. But it was perhaps too obvious at times, where the spooky factor was lost because some of the ghosts haunting the motel were… unnecessary. They were there for atmosphere, but didn’t make sense as to why they were so strongly prominent in the motel compared to the female ghost. I can’t say more without spoilers, but how she haunts and why makes sense and I love the spooky factor she brings, but even she could be a bit too obvious in her haunting sometimes. Which does, oddly enough, tie into the other issue I had with this book: the ending. I genuinely enjoyed the twists the end took, and can appreciate obscuring the truth for so long for that ending payout. However, it felt very abrupt, almost rushed, so I felt a bit deprived of a more dramatic finale that would have also suited the story really well, and would have resonated more strongly than what I was given.

Those elements aside, the other twists that came along the way were superb. I loved so many of the characters, even if some of their backstories felt unnecessary, even as a red herring (won’t say who so there are no spoilers). The author really captures the bone deep fear a lot of women have about being out at night, even when they don’t live in a place with such a sordid history as Fell. There are so many eerie parallels between Carly and Viv that the reader truly does feel just as stuck in the past, haunted by generational grievances, as Carly. Plus, any time you have women seeking justice for other women and becoming the hunter instead of the hunted, well, I’m always here for that twist on the cat and mouse game! I just wish the story didn’t feel like it took such a long time to get going (things get really intense at about the 75% mark but the pacing before then is a little hit and miss). I also wish the ghost story aspect had been a bit more focused, and that I got that more dramatic ending, hence the 4 stars. Still, I really liked this book and will be checking out more from this author!