#simone st. james

[bookaddict24-7]

RECO OF THE WEEK!

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

Synopsis:

"In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect--a rich, eccentric twenty-three-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.

Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases--a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea's surprise, Beth says yes.

They meet regularly at Beth's mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she's not looking, and she could swear she's seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn't right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?"

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Check out my very short review on Goodreads here.

Add this book to your TBR on Goodreads here.

Add this book to your TBR on The Storygraph here.

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Have you read this book? Would you recommend it?

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Happy reading!

[bangbangwhoa]

books I’ve read in 2024 📖 no. 033

Murder Road by Simone St. James

“I don’t want to do this anymore. I want more. Surviving to tomorrow wasn’t good enough. Not anymore.”

[deaneverafter]

The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

Katheryn Winnick starring as Shea Collins and Jensen Ackles starring as Michael De Vos

(fan art/poster and character posters)

Filling the "Front Page News" square for the @jacklesversebingo!

Image credits: x, x, x, x

[365knitsocks]

CRAFT NOTES

Greetings! I managed to knit a few inches on my baby sweater and then I started a new book. THE BROKEN GIRLS by SIMONE ST. JAMES. I seriously can not put the book down so I don’t foresee a lot of creative progress until I have finished it.

[vynpop]

The Sun Down Motel

By Simone St. James

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis

"Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isn't right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. Carly decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt."

Review

Simone St. James has been and continues to be one of my favorite authors. She has this way of captivating her readers and trapping them in the worlds she creates. The Sun Down Motel consumed me and had me holding my breath to the very end. My body physically relaxed at the end of this book, that is the BEST feeling by far. Everything is played out beautifully and leaves you wanting more. I was up till 1 a.m. determined to finish this book.

At the beginning of reading The Sun Down Motel, I was annotating and enjoying it until I wasn't. It had begun to feel like an assignment rather than for fun so it hindered my reading progress for this book. I need to figure out a way to properly annotate so I don't fall into another reading slump.

Any tips would be appreciated!

Anyways, back to the book review.

Simone St. James speaks of the reality of what it means to be a woman in society. How the world perceives and treats us. How predators are lingering in the shadows, waiting for the right opportunity. How women's voices go unheard and our lives so easily discarded. Simone doesn't sugarcoat our reality, she airs it out for all her readers. Her books hold powerful messages if you are willing to pay attention to them.

Viv and Carly are amazing in their own ways and have a special place in my heart. There was a part or two I didn't enjoy, but it wasn't bad enough for this book to lose a star over.

All around a great read!

Simone St. James started my reading journey with The Book of Cold Cases and continues to push me forward with The Sun Down Motel. I owe Simone St. James a lot.

Favorite Quotes

"I know you from somewhere. Where? There are so many. I know all of their faces. But I can't see you. Which one are you?

I'm the one you didn't kill."

[sheenoffeen]

Ghost story

Well written and plotted.

[delightful-to-be-read]

August Reading

Murder Road - Simone St. James

A sad, ghost thriller, first person past tense. Set in the 90s . The fact that the narrator is pretty is a really big deal. There are really cute pesky kids helping out.

There’s a very sad side plot regarding how a Black police officer had been treated in a small town police department.

Girl A - Abigail Dean

A woman with a childhood full of unimaginable abuse, from which she escaped, is notified that her mother has died. She tells the stories of each of her siblings on her way to some kind of resolution. Really compelling.

There’s a strange narrative around a disabled character but probably not unrealistic, especially considering the time in which it was set.

[bookaddict24-7]

RECO OF THE WEEK!

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Synopsis:

"Something hasn't been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt."

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Check out my mini review on Goodreads here.

Add this book to your TBR on Goodreads here.

Add this book to your TBR on The Storygraph here.

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Have you read this book? Would you recommend it?

___

Happy reading!

[litcest]

The Book of Cold Cases, by Simone St. James

A while back I reblogged a post that said "guy who only thinks about incest seeing anything else: getting a lot of incest vibes from this…". This me. I'm guy.

There was I reading the latest thriller I had bought, The Book of Cold Cases, which follows a true crime blogger (I'm a huge true crime fan) as she tries to solve a two murders that had happened years before in her home town. The novel, written by Simone St. James and published in 2022, turned out not to be what I expected (spoiler: there's a ghost who haunts it's killer), but as I read, I couldn't stop getting those ~incest vibes~ from Beth and her half-sister. So I decided to post about the book!

Like I mentioned, the story centers around Shea, but I'll put her on the backburned for this post. Instead, I'll take you to to November 1960, when the young Beth Greer, deuteragonist of The Book of Cold Cases but protagonist in my post, was only six years old.

Beth came from a rich family, daughter of Mariana and Julian Greer, and, other than familiar love, she had everything she wished for. Lonely in her big house, one day at night she hears a noise outside and when she goes to spy on it, there are footprints in the lawn and, in the frosty windows, carefully written in block letters, there's a message: I WAS HERE. Underneath it, Beth writes her response: COME IN.

A month pass and around Christmas, Beth receives a surprise, her 'cousin', Lilian has come to visit. Just two years older than Beth herself, Lily was beautiful, with pale blond hair like Mariana's, while Beth had inherited Julian's red hair.

"Beth stared in shock. She didn’t have a cousin Lillian; she didn’t have any cousins at all. Her father was an only child—hence the large inheritance —and her mother had a sister who was dead. Lillian was Beth’s middle name."

Despite not buying the 'cousin' story, Beth doesn't questions her mother, especially when Mariana tells her that Lily will be staying during Christmas break and Beth will "have a little playmate. Two sweet, matching girls". Having no friends at school, Beth latches eagerly at the idea of a friend.

"Beth’s heart was pumping hard in her chest. This was wonderful and terrible at the same time. It was going to be a nightmare, and it was also going to be the best thing that ever happened to her. She knew that already. Her life was starting."

The two begin to play and, upon Beth telling Lily how she was bullied in school, Lily decides she'll teach Beth on how to make others afraid of her, something Lily has already learned. In conversation, Beth also learns that Lily was the one who had been in the lawn a month prior:

"Sometimes I imagine things that aren’t real. But you saw me that night, and I saw you. You told me to come in. [...] And here I am. Now we can be sisters."

Julian, angry at Lily's presence, leaves the house. And then, Mariana, who is an alcoholic, also goes to spend time with friends, leaving Lily and Beth alone in the big manor. The girls play together, watch tv and eat cookies for three days, having the best time ever. When Julian returns, he immediately tells Lily to leave, and she returns to her foster family.

It becomes a routine. Every year, on Christmas, Lily comes to the Greer Manor, Julian (and sometimes Mariana) leaves, and Beth and Lily have all the fun they want to. They girls grow older and Beth starts to eagerly wait for the holidays, since Lily was her only friend ever. When Beth's ten, she finally asks Lily is they are sisters, which Lily confirms: they are half-sisters, through Mariana, with Lily the result of a pre-marital sexual encounter that Mariana had. (Although Lily believes that her conception was due to a rape, the book never clarifies whether that's true or not).

"She needed Lily. Just like she needed Julian and Mariana. Beth had to get through another day, and another year, and she needed all three of them to get there. But she needed Lily most of all."

During the girls' teenage years, Lily teaches Beth what sex is, and how to flirt (even with other girls, as the book makes notice). It's just a brief mention, but fact that Lily teaches Beth to identify sapphic girls and how to manipulate them to her favour had my ~incest senses~ flagging up. Later it'll become more explicit, but Lily has a deep-rooted hatred towards men. I believe Lily to be a lesbian. And whether she was attracted to Beth or not, I think she was trying to gauge Beth's reaction to it.

As Lily starts to age in the foster system, her live becomes harder, and in the Christmas of 1968, she arrives in the Greer household with visible bruises. And while Beth doesn't put it past her sister to fake those injuries, she thinks that they are the result of abuse in the foster house. That year also marks the year of the first of the many tragedies that will surround Beth: the disappearance of David, a groundskeeper. Instinctively, Beth knows Lily had something to do with it, but stays quiet.

In December 1969, Lily tells Beth that "bad things" have happened to the family that was fostering her, and Beth wonders if Lily had been the one to cause the bad things. They talk about their future, and Lily warns Beth that if she does nothing, Beth will end up marrying a rich guy and being as unhappy as Mariana. The girls fight as Lily tells Beth that soon she'll marry and forget her. Beth reassures Lily that it isn't true. This fight sounds so much like a lover's quarrel. In this conversation, Lily also mentions wanting to do something bad, and how women should go on clocktowers.

At the time, Beth thinks nothing of this, but later she learns that Lily had been referring to a mass shooter who had gone up a clocktower and took aim there.

Next year, Lily is not invited to Christmas, having turned 18 and no longer being a 'child in need'. Beth is forced to go to a party, where she meets Gray, the man the quickly learns that her parents wants her to marry. Realising Lily had been right about Beth's future being all set up, Beth panics.

"She wondered if she could find Lily. She could tell Lily this was happening to her . . . And then what? What did she think Lily would do? Swoop in and save her?"

After some searching, Beth finds out where Lily is living now and sends a letter to her sister, begging for help. Lily doesn't responds, but does send letters asking for money, which Beth obliges (unbeknown to Beth, Lily was also blackmailing Julian to send her money). Years later, while talking to Shea, Beth theorizes that Lily had left a trail of bodies whenever she went during those years.

Either way, the sisters don't see each other for three years. Then, in 1973, Julian is found dead in the kitchen. Shot in the face by an intruder. Beth has no doubts: it was Lily. She knew what her sister was capable off and had done nothing to stop her.

With Julian dead, the engagement to Gray falls apart, much to Beth's relief. Lily, desperate for money, tries to blackmail the family's lawyer, but he refuses to pay her out. With no other choice, Lily turns to Mariana.

For a while, Mariana, Lily and Beth live in the Greer manor together. But the three woman are all drunks and Lily and Mariana both take pills too. The result is a chaotic home life, full of fights. By 1975, Lily has left permanently, having found out the identity of her birth father and gone to kill him. One night, Mariana, still filled of remorse for abandoning Lily, tries to go find her, but crashes her car and die. Beth blames herself, for having watched Mariana stumbling out of the house with the car keys on hand and done nothing to stop her mother.

In 1977 Lily returns. She announces her arrival not by a phone call, but by killing a man in town and leaving a note which said: "Am I bitter or am I sweet? Ladies can be either", in reference to a story Mariana had told the girls during some Christmas. In an attempt to stop another killing, Beth starts driving around the down at night, looking for Lily. When she finds her sister, it's too late: Lily has killed another man while Beth was trailing her. Very unluckily, Beth is seen on the scene of the crime by a witness.

From there, things go downhill to Beth. She's interviewed by the cops, but denies any involvement in the killings. Still, she didn't have an alibi and is viewed with suspicion. Despite that, Beth refuses to say anything about Lily, and having no evidence against her, the cops let her go.

A while later, in her manor, Beth gets a taunting call from Lily, who tells Beth that the cops got an arrest warrant and are coming to get her.

"She knew what voice would be on the other end, even though she hadn’t heard it in two years. The voice she’d been searching for. The voice she hated. [...] 'I hate you,' Beth said, her throat choking and her eyes burning with unshed tears. 'No, you don’t,' Lily said. 'You really don’t.'"

Just Lily warned, the cops arrest Beth and take her to jail, where she is to wait trial. The whole time, she still refuses to talk, protecting her sister.

"Detective Black wanted to help her, yes. But he also wanted to solve this case. He wanted to be the one to uncover the truth. He wanted justice. He wanted Lily. No. No one got to have Lily. No one except Beth."

No one got to have Lily. No one except Beth. Could it be more homoerotic??? I'm sorry, but Lily literally framed Beth for murder and Beth is still protecting and lusting for her.

Beth receives a jail call from Lily, who asks if the jail is "full of dykes". Why Lily, are you jealous thinking of Beth with another woman? Lily and Beth make a deal that, once Beth is out of jail, she will Lily a good amount of money for her to away forever.

In her cell, alone with her thoughts, Beth eventually realises that there's just one way to stop Lily from killing again, and it was by killing Lily herself.

"Did Beth love Lily? Maybe. But her feelings for Lily were too much like her feelings toward herself. Hate, pity, fear—and anger. So much anger. And Lily . . . She wasn’t sure Lily knew how to love anyone."

The trial comes and Beth is declared not guilty doe to lack of evidence and she returns home. When she arrives in the Greer Manor, Lily is there waiting for her, having seemingly moved in while Beth was in jail. Lily than tells Beth that this is her price: the house. When Beth asks where she would live then, Lily replies that she wants Beth to continue living in the house with her, that it could be just like those Christmas alone.

"'We’re sisters,' Lily said. 'Two halves of the same person.'"

Beth pretend to agree to those terms and Lily goes to take a bath. When Lily is with her back turned to Beth, Beth hits her sister with a heavy ash tray. The blow doesn't kill Lily, so Beth drags her to the bathroom and draws her in the tub that Lily had been preparing.

With Lily now dead, Beth throws her body from the cliff the Manor sits on, letting her sister fall on the lake. Years later, in 2017, the body would finally be found and the identity would stay unknown until Shea brought to light all that she learned about Lily.

However, despite Lily dying in 1978, she remains a constant presence in Beth's life. Lily becomes a vengeful ghost who haunts the Greer Manor at night and prevents Beth for ever leaving.

Since Beth has no friends or ever attempts to date, she spends decades alone in her house with only her sister's ghost as company, until Shea comes in and decides to solve the Lady Killer case. Which I think is kinda romantic is a messed up way.

So that's the story of Beth and Lily. I didn't like that the book had a paranormal element to it, since I had not expected that and I hate when books that are not advertised as being supernatural turn out to be. The investigative part of the book is very weak but I think Beth's and Lily's relationship is wonderfully complex. I just wish Lily hadn't become a ghost, you know? (But, if it wasn't for the ghost, Shea would never have figured out the mystery. Not, literally. Lily's ghost tells Shea all that she needs to know to solve the Lady Killer case).

[quirkycatsfatstacks]

Review: Murder Road by Simone St. James

Author: Simone St. JamesPublisher: BerkleyReleased: March 5, 2024Received: Own (BOTM)Find it on Goodreads | BOTM | More BOTM Summary: April and Eddie are newlyweds – so new that they’re traveling to celebrate their honeymoon. Unfortunately, they got a bit lost along the way and accidentally wandered into a crime scene of sorts. At first, they were just seeing a hitchhiker, but it quickly became…

[tradingmysorrows]

If there was one thing I knew, it was the feeling of carrying someone's death on your hands. The knowledge that if you could rewind time, you could do something differently and that person would still be alive. Sometimes you regret it, and sometimes you don't. But you carry it either way.

Simone St. James, Murder road

[freshlybrewedbookreviews]

The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James

This was an enjoyable enough read for spooky season, though I'm glad it wasn't my first read from Simone St. James, because I'm not sure it would have resulted in me reading another book by her. I do think the other two books I've read by her are stronger, so if you're looking to read something from St. James, I'd start elsewhere, and maybe read this one when you've had a taste of some of her other work.

[sheenoffeen]

Quote from "The Haunting of Maddy Clare" by Simone St. James -

"“I don’t know if you’re naive, or just hopelessly foolish. There is no fair, Sarah.”"

[thehorrormaven]

Book Review: A Fascinating Premise That Doesn't Follow Through

Murder Road by Simone St. James A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel. July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to be a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to…

[mylifeinfiction]

Murder Road by Simone St. James

If you see her, you'll be the next one found at the side of the road.

I really like when the supernatural element of a supernatural thriller is actually supernatural. Looking back, I was a bit too harsh with my rating* of The Sun Down Motel, as that really is the best of the now three books I've read by Simone St. James. Murder Road is definitely a close second, though, as it has the wildly readable prose and great atmosphere of Sun Down with almost none of the major issues I had with The Book of Cold Cases.

Plus, unlike Cold Cases, this was a breeze of a read. Paired with that effective atmosphere and St. James' straight-forward prose, the pacing of her storytelling made for a thrilling, occasionally creepy (but never as creepy as those early haunted motel scenes in Sun Down), and wholly enjoyable reading experience. The 'twists' didn't even bother me this time around. This won't be the 'Best Book of 2024'. Hell, it's not even the best book I've read in March. But it is a fun and effective supernatural thriller that's especially guaranteed to be a massive hit with its core demographic. And that's exactly what I needed it to be.

7/10

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

*I've got it at a 6, when really it was more like a 7 or 7.5. I will not be updating it at this time.