Tag: horror

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

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The Sun Down Motel. 4.5/5 stars, thriller, 327 pages, 2020

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…

There is a creepy, sinister, and forgotten feeling you get when reading about Fell, NY and The Sun Down Hotel. There are ghosts, killers, and missing and murdered girls. The book is a whole vibe.

One storyline is about Viv in 1982 and the second is about her niece Carly in 2017. Lots of parallels and mystery that will keep you reading. There are even a few boys!

I didn’t love this one at first, but it didn’t take me long to be hooked. I listened to the audio and Brittany Pressley and Kirsten Potter took turns narrating.

I loved Broken Girls last year and loved this one too, so I guess I have another author to read!

“The person who could be truly alone, in the company of no one but oneself and one’s own thoughts—that person was stronger than anyone else.”

“I put my book down, finding a Post-it note to use as a bookmark, because folding the corner of a page—even in a thirty-year-old book—is sacrilege.”

The Taking, by Dean Koontz

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Taking by Dean Koontz: Book CoverFinished 10-8-09, rating 4/5, fiction, pub. 2004

Nevertheless, though this cross-section of humanity had shared the same experiences and had drawn the same conclusions – that their species was no longer the most intelligent on the planet and their dominion of Earth had been usurped – they could not come together to devise a mutually agreeable response to the threat.  Four philosophies divided the occupants of the tavern into four camps.

Chapter 19

Molly and Neil live in a small mountain town, secluded from the big cities and vacations spots.  One night it starts raining, only the rain is not rain and it is raining everywhere in the world at once.  Molly and Neil decide they need to join with others for safety and head to town, where they find four groups of people.  At the meeting place in the tavern they are cut off from the world, no television, internet, phones and there are those who think the world is ending and they plan to meet their maker drunk and happy, those who say to wait to talk to the invaders, those who want to stock up on gun power and take the fight to the occupiers, and those on the fence, undecided between three bad choices.

Molly, with some prodding by a dog named Virgil, decides she and Neil need to round up all the children and get them to safety, although they have no idea where that may be.  The world is being consumed by a fungus and ghostlike entities that can walk though walls.  As Molly and Neil head around town there is peril at every turn and the Earth’s final days seem like a foregone conclusion.

This book is a spooky nightmare full of despair and surprising faith.  It is an alien film come to life on the page and seen through the eyes of a young woman trying to do the right thing even if she doesn’t know what that is.  This book will scare you and it may depress you, but it will also make you think.  I wish I could tell you about the unexpected ending, because there is a lot to discuss, but I can’t without ruining the book. 

I really enjoyed it and it is perfect if you are in the mood for some spooky Halloween reading. 

This book was from my personal library.