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A review by outsmartyourshelf
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence and Death
Moderate: Infidelity and Child death