The Broken Girls - Simone St. James

So... after two rather average books to start the year off with (The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern and Lagoon by Nnedi Okorofar) I finally hit on a really good book to wallow in. That book was The Broken Girls by Simone St. James.

Idlewood Hall, near Barrens in Vermont, is a school for unwanted girls. 'Unwanted' for various reasons, some are illegimate and therefore inconvenient, some are damaged, others have no one and belong nowhere and just end up there somehow. It's 1950 and four girls, Sonia, Rebecca, Cece and Katie share a dorm at this charmless school. They stick together, slowly sharing the intimate secrets of how they ended up in this God forsaken place and why no one is coming to rescue them from it. The place is haunted of course, no one disputes that, 'Mary Hand' is reputed to have had an illegitimate child before the place was a school and it's said her baby is buried somewhere in the grounds and Mary torments the girls because of it. The four girls are surviving, barely, until the weekend Sonia is invited to stay with an aunt and uncle who previously did not want her, and disappears off the face of the Earth,

In 2014 Fiona Sheridan is living in the town, working as a journalist on a small newspaper. She has a boyfriend who is a cop but otherwise not much of a life because twenty years ago her sister, Deb, was found murdered in the grounds of the then abandoned Idlewild Hall. Fiona has never got over the death of her big sister and although they caught the man who did it, is still picking at the wound, convinced there is more to discover about the place. Her opportunity arises when she discovers that someone has decided to renovate the derelict building. What she nor anyone else is prepared for is a grisly discovery in the grounds that will change everything. 

Oh my goodness, what a ride this one was! I was not expecting that. The Broken Girls is a supernatural crime story and it really is 'supernatural', not one of those where everything is explained away in the end as being the work of some nutter who can apparently be in three places at once or whatever. This is the genuine article where there really is a vindictive ghost and I'm glad it's a book and not a film because I would probably not be able to watch it on TV. 

The story has a dual-timeline plot where I actually enjoyed 'both' timelines. That's unusual for me, I nearly always prefer one over the other. The historical sections about the four girls in 1950 was really rivetting, their situation so dire that your heart bled because they were full of character and deserved better than to be incarcerated like that. Fiona's quest was also fascinating as she fought against everyone wanting her to just forget what happened to her sister and move on. I thought she was admirable for continuing with her search for answers regardless of the pressure that was heaped upon her. 

This is a very well written book, full of creepy atmosphere with a very strong sense not only of Vermont but of the school for abandoned girls, it felt like a character in its own right to be honest: chillingly awful. I don't want to say too much for fear of spoilers but I loved how satisfying the ending was in tidying up loose ends and explaining everything. One or two interesting surprises etc. This is my first book by Simone St. James but I have seen her books talked about on other blogs and and on Booktube, always in a positive light, so I had an idea I would like this one. My first 5 star read of the year and I'll be reading more by this author.

The Broken Girls is my first book for the Read Around the USA challenge I'm doing and covers the category of  a book set in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island or Vermont. I also have a delightful non-fiction on the go for it, The View From Mary's Farm by Edie Clark, which was sent to me by Nan from Letters From a Hill Farm a few years ago and is based in New Hampshire. To be honest, I could cheerfully spend the whole year reading books set in New England!