The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
on July 30, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Ghost, Fiction / Horror, Fiction / Thrillers / Supernatural, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense, Fiction / Women
Pages: 327
Format: Hardcover
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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 was a twisty flashback/flashforward narrative that balances two central and interlinked mysteries, shifting in ways that no decent reviewer should disclose. Although they don’t exist simultaneously, Carly and Viv’s stories run in eerie parallels. This illuminates the terrible gulf of years between twenty and fifty, but it also reminds us that this story has happened for generations, is happening right now, and will most certainly happen again. New grievances seem to always have a way of following old fault lines.
I rated this novel four stars. If I have to point out a flaw in this novel, it would be the ending, a jarring reveal that although fully justifies the obscuring of truth and arrangement of clues that leads up to it, feels abrupt to the point of coming across as rushed, and I felt somewhat cheated of a more dramatic showdown that would have resonated more deeply. That one quibble aside, I still highly recommend this novel!
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