At a Glance

Title: The Sundown Motel

Author: Simone St. James

Expected Published: February 18, 2020 by Berkley

Page: 336

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Goodreads Rating: 4.24 out of 5

My Rating: ★★★★★

Synopsis

“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 ”

---

My Thoughts

Hi, yes, shocking I picked a thriller book up from Book of the Month for my January box! I’ve been hesitate to read this book though, because it has been super hyped for the past few months.  I don’t do good with extremely hyped books, I feel like I hate them just because everyone else loved them. But this was not the case for The Sundown Motel. I loved this book.

Viv Delaney, goes missing in the middle of the night in 1982 from the motel she’s been working nights out. The hotel has it’s fair share of rough characters but it’s the supernatural ghosts that have Viv freaked out. That is until she learns who the ghosts are and finally figures out the dark secret of one of here most frequent guests.

35 years later, Viv’s niece Carly, is determined to figure out what happened to her aunt Viv. She heads to Fell, NY and the Sundown Motel. She winds up getting the same job as the night clerk at the motel where her aunt Viv disappeared from 35 years earlier.

Both women are head strong and I love the way St. James created their characters. They’re both very flawed but are generally the same type of person, which tends to happen in families. Both women experience some very scary situation both from paranormal to dangerous situations with men, and they don’t handle them like the dumb main protagonist does in some thriller books.

The one thing I would say that I should warn readers about is that, as with most of St. James’ books, you need to just believe things can happen. She doesn’t explain the paranormal activities that occur in this particular book. There are a lot of things left without explanations, such as how the ghosts are haunting the hotel to begin with, but I personally thing it adds to the suspense of the book. Plus I love supernatural story so I don’t need answers there. And that’s my one teeny tiny complaint about this book.

Otherwise, I read this book in a single night. I was exhausted the next day but it was totally worth it! Now to find other Simone St. James books to read until her next one comes out!

This book comes out February 18th! If you think you’d like to read this book, pre-order your copy HERE!

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on The Sundown Motel. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof_books.  

About the Author

Simone St. James is the award-winning author of The Broken Girls and 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 outside Toronto, Canada with her husband and a spoiled cat.