Reviews with content warning for Death - The Sun Down Motel

Fell, a small town in Upstate New York, 1982 sees young Vivian Delaney take a room for the night at the Sun Down Motel to get away from the creepy man who picked her up hitchhiking. Viv plans on making it all the way to New York itself to become an actress but finds herself taking the job as the night clerk at the motel. The Sun Down is a strange place, originally built to take advantage of the foot traffic visiting an amusement park planned nearby, but the park was never built. There are few customers & Viv is there alone most nights. The lights go off & on, doors open & close by themselves, she smells cigarette smoke but no-one is there, & hears the voice of a young child near the pool but the pool has been closed for years & there are no children staying at the motel.

Thirty five years in 2017, Carly Kirk arrives in Fell to find out what happened to her aunt Viv, who disappeared from the Sun Down Motel in 1982 & was never heard from again. With a little bit of luck, Carly manages to move in with Heather for a few weeks, a girl who also has a fascination with cold cases & there seem to have been a lot of them in Fell over the years, all young women. The Sun Down motel is still open & history repeats itself as Carly gets a job on the night shift, thinking she can snoop around, but she has no idea just what she is going to find.

I enjoyed this more than The Book of Cold Cases. It has a dual time line with the narrative told from both Viv & Carly's points of view. I found Viv to be a much more interesting character than Carly, who is a bit bland. The plot itself is fantastic, it's a thriller with a paranormal edge & at times it sent a bit of shiver down my back. Running through this is the message that the world can be a dangerous place for girls & women due to the predators circling unseen in our communities. It was all very well done, so why wasn't this the full 5 stars? The ending - for me it was a little too cut & dry, too pat, & a bit too flat considering the brilliance of the rest of the book, so I had to knock half a star off for that, making it 4.5 stars.

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lydiavsbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.25

An enjoyable fun mystery that spans two timeliness, which I always like: leading up to the dissappearance of one woman, and years later another woman investigating the disappearance. A really fun combination of horror and thriller, it won't scare you but it does have a good amount of spooky ghosts alongside a thrilling mystery.

The main thing that I think prevented me from enjoying this more than I did was that I found the 2 perspectives really hard to differentiate between. We follow 2 main characters from 2 different timeliness but both had the same tone and way of thinking and talking which made it really confusing to keep up with who did what. To some extent I think that happened woth most of the characters, there was no distinguishable tone or voice for any of the characters. I also can't say I found either main character overly likeable, I don't know if its just me but there was definitely a 'not like other girls' vibe about both of them which I got a bit sick of reading. There was also a comment made about gay men, which I understand was written within the 1980s perspective but I'm not sure it was needed and it was a tad uncomfortable.

The plot, although it didn't shock me or blow me away definitely kept my attention, I was intrigued throughout and satisfied by the ending. The Stephen King references could've easily felt kinda gimmicky but I actually enjoyed the little nods to classics of the genre.

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msennflinn's review

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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lisaarnsdorf's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Truly one of the scariest books I’ve ever read. Definitely St. James’s best book yet. Takes me back to being a kid and reading Wait Til Helen Comes and how terrified I was and also how compelled I was to keep reading. In addition to be so incredibly atmospheric, it’s a great mystery. The amateur true-crime sleuths remind me of Only Murders in the Building. Now pease excuse me while I go read something e trembly funny and light.

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bookishbutch's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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