The Sundown Motel by Simone St. James My rating: 4 out of 5 Stars **** Published by: Berkeley; February 2020 Pages: 336 Genre: Thriller; Suspense Buy It:Amazon
This post may contain affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you purchase something – at no additional cost to you! See the Disclosures page for more information.
What it’s about:
Carly Kirk’s aunt went missing from her place of employment in 1982, years before Carly was even born. But her disappearance affected Carly deeply. She had to find out what happened to her aunt Viv. After Carly’s parents die, she decides to leave college, pack up her belongings and move to Fell, New York, a small town where her aunt worked as a clerk at the Sundown Motel. Carly rents the same apartment that her aunt rented and takes the same job at the Sundown; she even takes the same shift – the night shift.
Strange things begin to happen in the wee hours of the night. Lights go out; doors open and close on their own; she smells cigarette smoke when no one is there; she hears a small child when no one has booked a room. Did these strange happenings have anything to do with Viv’s disappearance? Or did something even more sinister happen to her? Carly is determined to find out.
Why I liked it:
I was very excited to read this title as I loved her earlier book, The Broken Girls – and this one didn’t disappoint either. The story alternated between 1982 and the present, so we got to know Carly and her obsession for finding out what happened to her aunt, all the while hearing Viv’s story first hand. The parallels between the two were interesting to note. They not only had similar personalities, but experienced many of the same things during their stay in Fell. They also both became obsessed with Fell’s history in which they learn that multiple women had died in or near the town, with most cases remaining unsolved. Viv and Carly were driven to find out what happened to these women.
The motel itself had a lot of history and that was another reason I liked this book… it had a touch of the supernatural in it. I like books to be just scary enough and this one fit that bill. As the reader progresses through the book, they get to know the characters that haunt the Sundown and learn their stories as well. And all of these stories culminate into the answer of what happened to Aunt Viv so many years ago.
