Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 2/16/2021 + 1193 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

This was another good murder mystery/horror story from St. James. I recently read her The Sun Down Motel which I also enjoyed. St. James uses a similar story telling device in both novels in that she tells the story from two different time periods. In Broken Girls, the story is told from the perspective of four girls at a remote boarding school in Vermont in 1950 and also from a current perspective at the same location in 2014. The main protagonist of the story is Fiona Sheridan whose sister was murdered 20 years earlier in 1994. Her body was found in an overgrown field on the site of the abandoned girls' boarding school, Idlewild Hall. Her sister's killer and ex-boyfriend was arrested for the crime and has been in prison since then. But Fiona has some doubts about whether he was actually guilty of the crime. Back in 1950, four girls are fast friends at Idlewild but otherwise they all loathe the place with its strict rules and run-down conditions. Only girls that no one wants are sent there. And then there's this specter that haunts the grounds named Mary Hand who supposedly died before Idlewild was built and whose dead baby is buried in the garden there. One of the four friends is also a refugee from Europe who spent time in a Nazi concentration camp which makes for another interesting part of the storyline.

I really enjoyed this one. The Idlewild school could have come out of a gothic novel by one of the Bronte Sisters and made for a compelling backdrop to the story. The Nazi angle also added to it along with the frightening ghost of Mary Hand. This is the third novel I have read by St. James and I'll be on the lookout for more.

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