#BookReview The Broken Girls by Simone St. James @simone_stjames @BerkleyPub #NetGalley Title: The Broken Girls

Author: Simone St. James

Published by: Berkley Publishing on Mar. 20, 2018

Genres: Mystery/Thriller, Historical Fiction

Pages: 336

Format: eBook, ARC

Source: Berkley Publishing, NetGalley

Book Rating: 9/10

A suspense novel from the award-winning author of The Haunting of Maddy Clare…

Vermont, 1950. There’s a place for the girls whom no one wants–the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the too smart for their own good. It’s called Idlewild Hall. And in the small town where it’s located, there are rumors that the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their budding friendship blossoming–until one of them mysteriously disappears. . . .

Vermont, 2014. As much as she’s tried, journalist Fiona Sheridan cannot stop revisiting the events surrounding her older sister’s death. Twenty years ago, her body was found lying in the overgrown fields near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. And though her sister’s boyfriend was tried and convicted of murder, Fiona can’t shake the suspicion that something was never right about the case.

When Fiona discovers that Idlewild Hall is being restored by an anonymous benefactor, she decides to write a story about it. But a shocking discovery during the renovations will link the loss of her sister to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past–and a voice that won’t be silenced. . . .


Review:

Haunting, imaginative, and mystical!

In this latest novel by St. James, The Broken Girls, she transports us to Barrons, Vermont a small town where the restoration of an abandoned boarding school will unearth powerful emotions, tragic memories, and more long-buried secrets and skeletons than anyone could have imagined.

The prose is eerie and dark. The plot, told from alternating timelines, is gripping, suspenseful and filled with familial drama, neglect, hatred, abuse, desperation, violence, and murder all interwoven with a thread of the supernatural. And the characterization is spot on with a cast of characters that are damaged, fearless, and loyal, and a setting, Idlewild Hall, that is a character itself with its dereliction and isolation.

Overall, The Broken Girls is an intelligent, unique, skillfully crafted page-turner that will have you on the edge of your seat from the very first page and will ultimately leave you chilled, surprised, satisfied and thoroughly entertained.

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                                        

 

 

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Simone St. James

Simone St. James is the award-winning author of The Haunting of Maddy Clare, which won two RITA awards from Romance Writers of America and an Arthur Ellis Award from Crime Writers of Canada. She wrote her first ghost story, about a haunted library, when she was in high school, and spent twenty years behind the scenes in the television business before leaving to write full-time. She lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and a spoiled cat.