Tuesday, March 20, 2018

The Broken Girls - Review

Idgie Says:
This story goes back and forth in time, telling of events from the perspective of an adult woman and four 15 year olds.  All of the young girls agree that there is also a ghost around, each having heard or seen things on the grounds of their school. 

So the novel forms questions around two specific things - is there a ghost that haunts and possibly harms, and is there a murderer loose in the world?

The opening chapter, set in the 1950s, pulls you in with a ghost mystery and you quickly realize there is back story that needs to be told to explain the scene.  

Then the book switches to the present  day and you realize there's also a murder mystery in the present, revolving around the same location as a girl that went missing in the 1950s.

It's an interesting idea, to combine a mystery with a ghost story.  How do they relate to each other.... read the book and find out! 

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No one tells a ghost story better than Simone St. James. In each of her five previous novels, including the award-winning story, The Haunting of Maddy Clare, she has proven herself time and again an expert at crafting eerie and atmospheric tones. James crafts novels so chilling and propulsive that readers find themselves at the edge of their seats, ripping through the pages to connect the dots.

Now Simone St. James brings these elements to her breakout suspense novel and hardcover debut, THE BROKEN GIRLS (Berkley Hardcover; March 20, 2018; $26.00), a contemporary story unlike anything she’s written before. THE BROKEN GIRLS follows the lives of five women—past and present—connected by Idlewild Hall, a boarding school in Vermont for “broken” girls: illegitimate daughters, girls with tarnished reputations, and girls with no future.

The story moves between 1950’s and present day Vermont. The past is told through alternating perspectives of four roomates at Idlewild Hall—Sonia, Katie, Roberta and CeCe—each broken in their own way, but connected by something stronger than blood—a family all their own. But even their bond can’t protect them from the whispered rumors that the school is haunted. And then one of them mysteriously disappears…

Decades later in present day, a shocking discovery during renovations of Idlewild Hall puts journalist Fiona Sheridan at the scene, the same place where her sister’s dead body was found in the nearby overgrown fields twenty years ago.  Although the case has been put to rest and the killer convicted, Fiona has never been able to shake the feeling that something more happened that terrible night her sister was murdered.

In a mesmerizing blend of past and present, each perspective converges for a thrilling conclusion that will have you racing to the end to find out how the murder of Fiona’s sister is connected to secrets meant to stay buried. Based on the author’s extensive research, THE BROKEN GIRLS is a heartbreaking and compelling novel that explores the injustices we face and how through love, grief, fear, and revenge, humans will forever be connected across time.