I read some very good books this month, but the best of them was The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. The story is a dual timeline ghost story/murder mystery. A while back, I read and reviewed another book by St. James—The Haunting of Maddy Clare—and this one is so much better. It’s clear that St. James has grown as a writer and honed her craft.
The Sun Down Motel tells the story of two young women, Vivian Delaney in 1982 and her niece, Carly Kirk, in 2017. Viv disappeared in 1982 while working the night shift at the Sun Down Motel in a small town called Fell, NY. Thirty-five years later, Carly is determined to find out what happened to her.
Not much happens in the first six pages—it’s just Viv sitting in her car—but it was some of the spookiest writing I’ve ever read. I’ve been working on a spooky story myself, and I reread those first six pages multiple times as a master class. The rest of the book isn’t as spooky, even with the ghosts that populate it, but it is gripping and a very solid mystery. (Two mysteries, actually, but I don’t want to spoil anything.)
With this book, Simone St. James became one of my favorite writers, and I’ve added two more of her books to my TBR (to be read) list.