The Broken Girls

***SPOILERS HIDDEN***

The Broken Girls is a paranormal mystery where a lot happens but nothing is fully developed. Author Simone St. James structured this as a dual storyline, with chapters flipping back and forth between 2014 and 1950. The 2014 chapters star Fiona Sheridan, a journalist for a humble local publication. Years ago, her older sister was found murdered on the grounds of an abandoned all-girls boarding school that’s known to be haunted. The crime was solved quickly, but Fiona can’t shake the feeling that there’s still some unsolved element, and she’s determined to figure it out. Flashbacks to 1950 tell the story of four friends at the boarding school who experience the hauntings. Now a wealthy widow has bought the show more property, with plans to restore the ruined building--but why? Fiona wants to answer that question in a big, splashy news piece, some of the biggest news her little Vermont town will have seen in a long time. Early in her endeavor, however, a new murder mystery suddenly complicates matters, and she wants answers to that too.

This isn’t all. There are actually three big mysteries that need solving. Two are the murder mysteries, one about Fiona’s sister and another concerning a former student at the school. The third mystery, about the school’s ghost--called “Mary Hand”--is implied: Did this ghost possibly play a role in the murders?

The plot unfolds evenly in the dual-timeline format, but I found the 2014 timeline more absorbing because it feels realistic and natural (possibly for the simple reason that the author was alive in 2014 but not in 1950). The happenings in Fiona’s life are also compelling. She isn’t, however, distinctly characterized. No characters in this book are; they’re merely physical descriptions and banal personality traits, not deeply human. The 1950 timeline, by contrast, is weak and strained. The ghostly encounters are oddly infrequent. The four teen girls are too different from each other for it to be obvious why they’re friends, and stiff dialogue only draws more attention to that. These two timelines intersect as the student murder Fiona is investigating is of one of these four.

The Broken Girls is supposed to be a paranormal mystery, but although an eerie prologue teases a full-fledged ghost story, this book is actually a ghost story least of all. Encounters with Mary Hand are too few, and, when they do happen, are surprisingly lame. I was reminded immediately of [b:The Haunting of Hill House|89717|The Haunting of Hill House|Shirley Jackson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327871336l/89717._SY75_.jpg|3627]’s frustratingly ambiguous terror: The hauntings have creep factor but are too mild to be dread-inducing or to make the reader worry. The identity of Mary Hand is revealed and explained, but disappointingly, why she haunts in the particular way she does and the question of whether she’s truly malevolent, goes unanswered. Opening as it does, The Broken Girls signals that St. James was set to write a ghost story; however, she then overwhelmed herself by adding more mysteries and more themes, forcing the haunting aspect into the background.

This book has some layers and surprises, but it doesn’t deliver on all that it promises because it can’t. There’s one mystery too many here. Only the mystery of the dead student gets full attention. The mystery of the sister’s murder has no connection to the 1950 storyline and should have been cut to make room for rich development of the ghost story. St. James even made its irrelevance obvious to herself by ignoring it for several chapters, then resurrecting it toward the end for a quick and straightforward resolution.

As if these two murder mysteries and a ghost weren’t already more than enough, St. James also touched on police corruption, anti-Semitism, the power of wealth and influence, and intimate-partner violence. However, she did so in the briefest way, rendering these important topics meaningless. The only thing she firmly established is sad tone, but the atmosphere is stiflingly dreary. The students live joyless and emotionally neglected lives in a prison-like school. They’re throw-away kids that no one, including the staff, thinks about. Fiona’s life is better, but still, a cloud hovers over her wherever she goes. Even the literal atmosphere is dreary: The sky is always gray and the weather windy and cold. The tone and setting are meant to have a gothic-tinged foreboding, but this is just gloom done to a fault.

The Broken Girls could have easily been tighter and more richly developed with a single adjustment: focusing on only one storyline. The dual-narrative structure is popular, but rather than resulting in full development, it can have the opposite effect depending on the plot. Such is the case with The Broken Girls. The 2014 setting may be interesting, but it doesn’t add anything to the 1950 setting that couldn’t have been integrated into a tidy plot focusing solely on that 1950 storyline. What happens in 2014 is merely more plot happenings for St. James to unsuccessfully manage. She should have axed all of it and turned it into its own book. Readers who like this genre would be happier with the more organized and developed works of skilled writers like [a:Sarah Waters|25334|Sarah Waters|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1409248454p2/25334.jpg] and [a:Laura Purcell|6550658|Laura Purcell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1559646503p2/6550658.jpg]. show less

Idlewild Hall is a very gloomy place, haunted by the ghosts of young Mary Hand and her baby. It’s a school for girls, those girls who no one wants, those broken girls. It’s 1950 and one of the girls from a close knit group has gone missing. Not much effort is made by the police to find her. But her friends are sure they know what happened to her.

Jump to 2014, when journalist Fiona Sheridan is still battling the demons set loose by her sister’s death twenty years ago. The man who did it is in prison but Fiona can’t help but believe there were things about her sister’s death that have never come to light and she compulsively continues to look into it. When she learns that Idlewild Hall is going to be renovated, she knows she show more must find out why.

This is a compelling, complex ghost story. The ghost of Mary Hand is quite malicious and often sent chills up my spine. But this book is much more than a mere ghost story, spellbinding as it is. It’s also a complex crime story of two separate crimes, a heart wrenching romance between two very likeable characters and a coming of age story of young girls who have known much hardship in their young lives. This is a well-written novel and the tragedies of each of these girls is handled sensitively. I was completely memorized by this book and thought the author pulled it all together at the end just beautifully. It was such a sad story and one that I will long remember.

Recommended.

This book was given to me by the publisher in return for an honest review. show less

THE BROKEN GIRLS was an amazing book, combining many elements I love: mystery, ghost story, historical fiction, dual time periods, and crime drama. I loved it – yes, it was dark and unsettling, but I was glued to the pages.

The story alternates between the early 1950s and 2014 in a tiny Vermont town. In the past, four teenage girls attend a local boarding school for troubled girls called Idlewild Hall when one goes missing; in the present, a journalist named Fiona investigates the death of her sister whose body was found on Idlewild’s abandoned property two decades earlier. Fiona agrees to write an article on the restoration of Idlewild when it’s purchased by a mysterious buyer. During renovations, a shocking discovery pulls Fiona show more into the unsolved case of the missing girl. Will it also lead her to answers about her own sister’s death?

This was an atmospheric and creepy read, with some definite chilling moments. Like many Gothic novels, the house, Idlewild, was a haunted, complex character itself, and the tale of its resident ghost was heartbreaking. The mystery was complicated, and I enjoyed how the well-researched historical elements were woven into it. I love Simone St. James’ storytelling, and I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes a spooky story full of emotion and depth.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. show less

Some thrillers start out with a bang. The action kicks off in the opening chapter with the suspense building to a fever pitch from the first sentence. Other thrillers are more subtle, taking their time to create the mystery and build the suspense. Neither is better than the other; both are quite effective storytelling methods in the right hands. Yet, some readers will prefer one versus the other. For those readers, The Broken Girls falls into the latter category.

In The Broken Girls Ms. St. James allows the story to build organically, allowing readers the chance to immerse themselves into the boarding school world of Idlewild during its heyday and in the present day before upping the ante. She does so by flipping back and forth in time show more and in narrator, providing readers with not only a well-rounded view of the school, its rules, and its inhabitants but also Fiona’s world of love and loss. Therefore, before readers understand that there is a mystery, they are already sympathetically inclined towards all of the girls, which in turn creates the necessary tension that makes a thriller a good one.

One other thing to note is the fact that The Broken Girls is a quintessential Gothic novel. We have the gloomy setting complete with decaying school buildings and grounds that may or may not be haunted. There is the fact that Idlewild is purported to be cursed. There are girls needing to be rescued, and there is romance. But this is not a traditional Gothic novel in that the hero is not a knight in shining armor or even a man coming to rescue the damsels in distress. This is, to some extent, a feminist Gothic novel, making it timely as well as entertaining.

The Broken Girls is highly entertaining on several levels. The otherworldly aspects are extremely effective, lending itself to more than one frisson of fear. There is a historical fiction element that reminds readers not only of history’s greatest tragedies but also of a certain societal mindset that made it allowable to hide young women in a rundown boarding school in the guise of help. Plus, there is Fiona’s story as she comes to grips not only with her past but with her future. Blended into all of that is a mystery that keeps you guessing with the many surprises thrown into the narrative’s path. show less

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James is a 2018 Berkley publication.

Now THIS is my kind of book!!

Set in Vermont, alternating between 1950 and 2014, this well rounded thriller, centers around a girl’s only school named Idlewood Hall. During the fifties, this school was where troubled girls were sent, and where a group of girls forge an unlikely and formidable friendship which would cause a rippling effect for decades to come.

Over the years, the abandoned school was nothing more than an eyesore, protecting its memories and ghosts from the outside world, its most recent claim to fame being the general location of where Fiona Sheridan’s sister was found dead over twenty years ago.

Now, in present day, 2014, someone has taken an show more interest in Idlewood, determined to restore the old boarding house, which only intensifies Fiona’s obsession over her sister’s death. She convinces her boss to allow her to do a story about the school's restoration for the magazine she works for. While she barely manages to conceal her ulterior motives, the restoration efforts inadvertently led to a shocking discovery, and sends her down a rabbit hole, as she searches, not only for peace of mind concerning her sister’s death, but for the answers to a decades old mystery.

This gloomy, atmospheric thriller enveloped me in its Gothic fog, keeping me utterly riveted and on the edge of my seat from the beginning to end.

The creepy aura surrounding Fiona’s investigation into her sister’s death is nail biting suspense at its finest. This is a crime drama, thriller, and chiller all rolled into one. While the haunting of Idlewood adds a deliciously spooky element to the story, what is truly haunting is the heavy toll that losing a daughter and sister had on Fiona and her family, as well as the ever present feeling of impending doom.

But, the mystery of the disappearance of one of Idlewood’s boarders during the fifties was a story that goes beyond the ghostly rumors. It is poignantly sad and infuriating tale, that slowly morphs into an inspirational and touching story of friendship and long overdue closure.

I have always been a sucker for a good ghost story, mainly because contrary to the creepy, spooky, chilling aspects of hauntings, more often than not, ghosts are quite often helpful, or asking for help from the living, to give them long sought after peace, which is a not at all frightening when you look at it from that angle. This story is no exception, but I have to tell you, this ghost story packs a powerful punch and is incredibly edgy!!

But, mostly, this story is about solving all the mysteries surrounding two very different types of crimes, with two entirely separate circumstances. The author manages to connect the past to the present fluidly, despite the stark differences in themes and urgency. While the location and Idlewood provide a physical link, it is really the power of familial love and the enduring bonds of friendship, with a little help from beyond, that brings everyone and everything together in the end.

This story is evenly paced, giving the well timed twists a great deal of power. It is very well written, and embodies everything I love about a good thriller. Overall, this was an immensely satisfying read.

Pulling out all the stars for this one! 5 stars!!
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An abandonned boarding school, a ghost and a couple of murders decades apart: these are the ingredients of a great tale in which the reader time travels over generations, into the secrets of World War II and the lies of a small town where power speaks louder than justice.
Even though I found that the ending dragged a bit - unrelated stories cobbled together to tie up loose ends, I enjoyed walking on the grounds of Idlewild Hall, the school which draws all these terrible actions and brings the worst out of people. The spooky atmosphere, eerie apparitions and unresolved terrors - while at the same time not losing touch of real-life events - make this book a compelling horror story (with no gore which is to my taste). It's a fine way to show more spend long winter's cold nights. show less

Loved it, loved it—SO amazing!

This moody and atmospheric tale weaves a story of hope and heartbreak across two timelines. Four unwanted children languish in boarding school in the 1950s, and a modern woman comes to terms with the murder of her sister years before. The connection between them is a single spooky location, a haunted boarding school that is so well-described in this novel that it’s practically another character. This is a ghost story, but it’s also a mystery with flesh-and-blood characters following concrete evidence—in fact, it’s an almost-perfect blend of the realistic and the supernatural. There is some romance, some intrigue, some terrifying villains, some amazing character development, and some strong show more protagonists, both male and female. The characters are memorable, and I found myself thinking of them long after the story’s end. Fabulous! show less