I started reading The Broken Girls by Simone St. James on a grey and chilly Saturday morning. As usual, I was awake long before Husband, but hearing the rain outside my window made me want to snuggle back down into my cozy bed. I decided that a moody, atmospheric thriller would be the best way to start the day, so I got out of bed to fetch my book and make myself a warm cuppa. Then, I grabbed my cat and headed back to bed, settling into the soft covers and my next read.
I love a good “moody” book – anything that creates a deep ambiance is great, whether it’s that of a cheerful, sun-filled old house cooking up delicious B&B breakfasts, or a Christmas novel filled with cookies, hot chocolate, and snowflakes kissing your warm cheeks. But my favorite ambiance has to be that of a cozy Gothic thriller. I love starting creepy stories when it’s dreary outside and I am able to be curled up with hot tea and a warm blanket, safe from the elements. Wendy Webb novels are especially good for this – The Vanishing or The End of Temperance Dare are highly recommended. Webb is reliably able to create a cozy haven in the middle of a creepy-ass ghost story. It takes special skills to make you want to jump into the life of the main character even though she’s dealing with all sorts of ghosts pouring from the walls. Kind of like how we all want to go live at Hogwarts even though someone is always trying to kill Harry Potter and/or the entire student body.
But, back to The Broken Girls. It starts off with a creepy scenario and really sets an ominous tone – a run-down girls’ boarding school in rural Vermont in the 1950s, and a ghost hell bent on scaring the buhjeezus out of the students every chance she gets. Then the other timeline taking place in 2014 is quickly introduced, and while the ghost story does bleed into the “present day,” it doesn’t have quite the same power as it does in the girls’ storyline.
The last novel I read by Simone St. James (which was also the first one I read by this author) was The Haunting of Maddy Clare. It was an excellent novel, but what particularly appealed to me about it was that it’s a legit ghost story—there’s a haunting that’s very real, not just a figment of an overactive imagination or a symptom of some character gradually losing his mind. It was pretty darn scary, and while I did not lose any sleep over it like I did with The Bird Eater or Come Closer, I appreciated the way the author set the scenes and made the goosebumps rise along your arms as you read.
St. James invokes her same wonderful ability to create a spooky specter in The Broken Girls, but the passages containing the ghost story, while eerie, are disappointingly few. In fact, I actually wonder why the author included the ghost in the novel at all. It does weave into the storyline, but not perfectly; the main storyline is so rich and engrossing that the ghostly plotline feels almost superfluous. While the supernatural element doesn’t detract from the novel, I don’t feel it particularly adds anything, either. If you took it out of the book, you’d still have an excellent story that’s able to stand very well on its own.
So, yeah. I was a bit disappointed that this novel wasn’t a good ghost story.
But, for those of you who are hiding under the covers at the mere mention of “ghost” and just want a good, old-fashioned spot of murder – you’re in luck. The Broken Girls a great murder-in-a-small-town mystery/thriller.
There are several unsolved murder cases driving the story (TruTV fans, this one is for you), and the timeline is split between 2014 and the 1950s. It takes place in rural Vermont, which I find an unusual choice. Whenever I think about New England, particularly Vermont, I think of quaint and cozy; this novel is anything but. I was reminded often of Burntown, which was also set in Vermont and is a similarly unsettling tale. The town in which the story takes place is a complete juxtaposition to the common conception of what a quaint New England town should be – although, in many ways, the book hits the nail on the head with just how some things are done in small, close-knit communities.
An aspect of the story that really surprised me was its dependence on Nazi history, and, in particular, Ravensbruck. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had never heard about Ravensbruck until I read The Lilac Girls, which goes into grisly detail about the women and children’s concentration camp. (Lilac Girls is an excellently written story, but between that and The Women in the Castle, I’ve decided to stay away from WW2-based novels for awhile. It’s all just too heartbreaking.) It was actually pretty helpful to have read The Lilac Girls before The Broken Girls because I now know enough history about Ravensbruck to understand why one of St. James’ main characters is the way she is.
All of the “broken girls” in the book have tragic backstories, and these stories are what make up the heart of the novel. There may be a creepily dressed and whispering ghost haunting a large swath of the Vermont town, but the characters across both timelines are haunted by much more than this ghost, who really only represents a physical manifestation of the experiences and memories they cannot move past.
While The Haunting of Maddy Clare was a fun ghost story, The Broken Girls has a gravity about it I didn’t expect but nonetheless appreciate. I like novels that can entertain me and emotionally touch me at the same time. I think my preferred timeline in the story was that of 1950s, but the 2014 characters certainly made an impression. While the story wasn’t what I was initially looking for, I’m happy with what I ended up reading.
What’s your preferred read for a dark and stormy night (or morning)? Sound off below!
And, stay tuned for the recipe inspired by The Broken Girls — Rosemary Maple Dijon Salmon.
I really enjoyed this one. It was one of my very first Book of the Month picks. I have to say though, my most recent creepy read was Something In the Water by Catherine Steadman. Perhaps reading it late at night was not the best idea. LOL
Hi Ashley! Glad to hear you enjoyed this one, too. I just looked up Something in the Water on goodreads, and this one looks so good! I am really getting into the thrillers lately — Ruth Ware, Sarah Pinborough, Shari Lapena, Maile Meloy. Anything that gets the adrenaline going! But, yeah, that’s not always so good late at night, lol.