There is nothing more intriguing for me than a story about broken girls, so naturally I was intrigued by The Broken Girls by Simone St. James the minute I saw that cover. It looked eery and seemed like something I was looking for.

Oh the love I have for this book! I was just so smitten with the entire story, the dark atmosphere, the girls, the mystery. There are a lot of players at work here and the tense shifts from present to past and is told from multiple points of view, but each narrator is a strong and fierce woman with their own vibrant personality that nothing seems muddled together.

I loved the concept of this abandoned old school coming to life in the past passages, the kindred bond between the wayward girls, their subtle understanding and shared fears. And at the heart of this is a murder and a ghost story, woven nicely together, without being too transparent or hokey. Everything just came together so perfectly well.

This ghost story is immediately creepy. St. James has a way with building a whole atmosphere that centres around an eery, creepy feeling and I couldn’t shake this for the entire book. I don’t usually find ghost stories scary, they remind me too much of cliche horror movies, but the way Mary Hand is described here and the reactions of the girls involved, it really put me on edge and had my hairs standing on end.

The ending came together pretty quickly, perhaps a bit too conveniently at some points, but it didn’t feel rushed or like a letdown. I was perfectly satisfied with the end result and thought it tied up all the tangents quite nicely. I really thought it was a great book, a great story, and I enjoyed every page of it. I didn’t realize St. James was a Canadian writer, located not far from where I live, which I’m thrilled about. I can’t wait to go back and read more of her work.

Satisfying mystery where the past has an effect on the present. The cast of characters held my interest and the mystery surrounded by a touch of the supernatural all come together.

Murder…boarding schools…cold cases…I’m all about that when I need a quick, fun read!
This one was no exception, and I enjoyed this storyline, though it was rather sad in the final resolution. I had pretty much figured out what was happening, just not the actual means, but I’d still recommend it to those who want a suspenseful read. These type of books keep me going through the long winter!
Thank you for my e-copy!

Haunting and full of suspense! Exactly what I had hoped for when I requested this title. The plot, the story, the tone, the pacing.. all spot on! This is by far the best book I've read this year! I highly recommend this to anyone who loves a good suspense-filled mystery! Five stars - at least!

Oh, Mary! There’s a rumor that she roams Idlewild, a boarding school that once served young women, providing these women their last opportunity. The school closes in 1979 but Mary still roams, the rumor becomes a reality. Mary preys upon her victims, touching their lives forever. Mary is connected to Idlewild, her connection runs deep and she is not leaving until her business is finished.

The story of Idlewood is told in two time periods. The past and the present day. I found both stories fascinating and I enjoyed following the characters. In the past, we are introduced to the characters as they are students at the boarding school and we get to know their personalities. The girls learn firsthand about Mary and they try to learn about her history. It’s not an instant friendship as each of the girls adjust to their new surroundings, as these girls have each come from different backgrounds. They form ties with each other, some more connected than others.

In the present day, we learn that Idlewood has been vacant for some time but that is about to change. The school is being restored which is causing quite a commotion. Why would someone decide to reopen the school now and what about Mary? There has also been a murder committed on the school grounds a while back that Deb cannot get over. Her sister was the victim but the evidence surrounding the case just didn’t add up to satisfy Deb. There is an individual serving time for the murder but Deb again, is still not satisfied with the results of the case.

I liked how the each of the stories dug deeper and deeper into the lives of the characters. I learned some of the history of each of the characters and as the story was being led out, I enjoyed seeing how things were being placed together and how some things just did not fit. I liked how Mary’s character pulled in a mysterious and creepy element to the story. This was a deep-rooted story, a twisted story that brought the past back to life.

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for sharing this title with me.

I think I may be in the minority here... but this book was just ‘meh’ for me. I really wanted to love it, with its gothic undertones, murder investigation, and haunting border school, but it felt disappointing. Don’t take my word for it though, as many of my favourite #bookstagrammers loved it. In my opinion, the characters were flat, and the story was all over the map. I felt like I was simultaneously reading 4 different books.

I was surprised by this book. The cover is neat, and the blurb didn't do it justice. Inside is an involved story, with a mystery, and a very suspicious boarding school. Now, that's not a unique set-up, but for this book, it worked well. It covers some creepy places, that are historical, horrific. A ghost, the past, and the preset are intermingled into a story that truly has suspense and a paranormal element. When the secret comes to light, it's a doozy. There's more of a supporting character feel to some of the main characters. That's the only major drawback.

My copy came from Net Galley, thank you! My review is my own, as are my thoughts and opinions and I have left this of my own free will.

I like stories that happen on two levels, or rather two periods, especially when the two periods are necessary to one another to better understand the plot or that one can solve the other. That's why I chose this book on NetGalley.

In this case, from the first pages, I also knew that there would be more to the reading, what with the bit of supernatural and it was not to displease me. So I was thrilled!

And did I find everything I expected from this book? Yes, in part. The two eras are not necessary to each other, except to give an excuse to Fiona to investigate this famous school for girls with multiple secrets and the two stories could have been written apart. And as for the supernatural side, although it serves to create a particular mood, it's also not useful to the story or the resolution of the two stories. But, aside from this little setback, I enjoyed every page of this book!

1950, Idlewild Hall is not really the school you want to go to. Families send their daughters there because they are turbulent or because they have experienced trauma they'd rather hide / shut up. The teachers are like kapos and a really dismal atmosphere reigns in the school. A group of four girls, with very different stories, share a room and create a united family... until one of them disappears into general indifference.

In 2014, Fiona hasn't still recover from the murder of her sister 20 years ago on Idlewild Hall grounds and discovers that the cursed school is to be renovated. She tries to find out why and by whom. Fortunately, between her father, a famous journalist who opens all the doors and her boyfriend, a policeman, she conducts her investigation masterfully. But then Fiona discovers secrets that some people would prefer to stay hidden.

Simone St. James immerses us in the atmosphere of those stifling little towns where everyone knows each other, where labels hinder the search of truth and where a former police chief and his good old method can reign supreme. This novel talks about the pain of losing a loved one and the silence that can sometimes govern the lives of those affected, of unspoken ones within a family, within a city and a police force that must find ways to do better. She speaks of courage, to find the truth, to confront ones demons, to survive, and the means that some people take to survive.

In a nutshell

A good book with well written and intelligent characters. Three stories that could have been written separately, but that allow the author to address interesting topics. It's a 4/5 for me.

"The Broken Girls" has some great aspects and others that I really struggled with. I found the characters to be unlikable and wasn't sure why some plot elements were included. There really is no need to have the paranormal ghost element, I kept thinking that it must be something besides a ghost but nope, it's just your run of the mill ghost hunting. This book alternates between the present and the early 1950's. I found that the present day parts dragged on and the characters were one dimensional. I could not relate to the obsessed journalist who has a one track mind or the cop who is only sees good. I did find the parts about the girls attending the boarding school in the 50's to be really interesting. The girls at the boarding school all have complex pasts and I wanted to know more about this. I wish the book was completely about the eerie boarding school in the 50's and the ghost, Mary Hand. Now I do realize that I am in the minority here, many people rave about this book. I say don't knock it until you try it!

While I did enjoy the story, there was something holding me back from loving it. It is creepy, gothic and well written but the overall story was not as engaging.

The story is told from both the past and the present POV. I didn't care about what was going on in the present. I found myself more intrigued about the four girls from the past. As the story goes along, you can see how the past shaped the future.

ARC provided to me for an honest review.

This was the perfect novel for me. I love the mix of ghost story and murder mystery that crossed through the years. I highly recommend The Broken Girls and will be telling friends and patrons about it.

At first it seems that only the location connects the disappearance of a boarding school girl in the 50s and the murder of a high school girl in the 90s, but journalist Fiona Sheridan begins to put together the pieces that lead to a much bigger and deeper mystery. This is one of St. James' best books yet, with moody, atmospheric prose creating a suspenseful atmosphere for readers. Highly recommended!

I couldn't put this down. There were so many twists and turns, ghost stories and real murderers. Loved it. Reminded me a lot of Tana French's In the Woods!

Most of Simone St. James’s spooky novels have been set in the early 20th century, so The Broken Girls is a bit of a departure. Some of it is set in 1950, but the bulk is set in 2014.

Fiona Sheridan’s sister, Deb, was murdered 20 years ago and her body found on the grounds of what had been Idlewild Hall, a school for girls. Although Deb’s boyfriend, Tim Christopher, has long been in prison for the murder and Fiona believes he is guilty, something about the case still bothers her. This issue tends to raise tension between her and her boyfriend, Jamie Creel, a cop whose father investigated the murder.

When Fiona drives by Idlewild Hall near the anniversary of her sister’s death, she sees that development work is going on. A reporter, she pitches an idea to cover the local story, including rumors of a ghost on the property. But the body of a girl dressed in the uniform of the old school turns up in an old well, and Fiona begins trying to identify her.

In 1950, four girls are roommates at Idlewild Hall, a school for throw-away girls. Katie was sent away when she was raped by a neighbor boy. Cece is the bastard daughter of a wealthy man. Roberta witnessed her uncle’s attempted suicide and temporarily stopped speaking. Sonia is a refugee from post-war France.

All the girls in the school have periodic glimpses of the ghost of Mary Hand, and there are stories about her written inside the school textbooks. Everyone at the school, including the teachers, is afraid.

The novel begins in the 1950’s with a girl fleeing someone on the school grounds. It takes us a while to figure out who and what from, and that’s a secret of the book.

The Broken Girls is another excellent spookfest from Simone St. James. She and Catriona McPherson are beginning to be my favorite authors for light, scary reading.

This is my second Simone St. James book, and I am definitely going to be checking out her other work. St. James excels at crafting a thick, creepy atmosphere in her work, and she can actually make ghosts kind of scary, which I think is difficult to do. The great thing about her ghost stories is that they’re not just ghost stories, but rich mysteries as well. In The Broken Girls, the story plays out in two timelines. The first, in the 1950s, features four girls living in Idlewild, a haunted boarding school for “troubled” girls. The second, in 2014, features journalist Fiona Sheridan, who is still dealing with her sister’s murder near Idlewild twenty years ago, and sets out to write a story on the restoration of Idlewild by a mysterious benefactor.

In her quest to discover more about Idlewild, Fiona plays detective in a way that makes the academic librarian in me so excited. She goes on a hunt for old school archives, she scours the internet looking for information, she contacts historians…basically she goes on a super cool hunt and she discovers secrets bit by bit until she solves not just one crime, but several. It’s really compelling and thrilling to follow along with Fiona as she attempts to get to the bottom of everything.

Personally I though the way one of the mysteries got resolved was super coincidental and stretched disbelief just a bit, but I think St. James handled it in such a way that made it believable. I can’t say much more without spoiling things, but suffice it to say that I was not expecting World War II and Nazis to play any part in this book. I was surprised by this inclusion, but I liked it; I think it was incorporated well into one of the characters’ backstories and added depth to the narrative. I also admire the research St. James dedicated to this, particularly with regards to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, which held women and children and is a particularly unsettling piece of history.

I definitely could have done without Fiona’s cop boyfriend, who just seemed extraneous, but I wasn’t that bothered by him or his relationship with Fiona. It was more of a take it or leave it situation. Despite the boyfriend I actually found the modern-day storyline to be more compelling than the 50s storyline, but in the end the two come together in a way that, while not altogether surprising, is ultimately quite satisfying.

While I appreciated the dual time line it took me nearly 15 days to complete this book. I think with a mystery/thriller you should want to come back and read more but I didn't always feel like that. The characters were ok, I enjoyed the parts from the past more. Nothing overly exciting or shocking about this read. I would still read more from this author, as this story was not for me.

What I Say.....Well, this was a completely new book experience for me. I've read historical fiction that has had an element of a ghost story, but this book seemed somehow completely unique. We read it for my book club and the verdict was pretty unanimous that we were intrigued but a bit confused.

Firstly, if you've read my blog for a while, you know I'm a huge fan of alternating timeline plots. However, in this book, it just didn't work as well. I was bored by the current day plot, and really had no interest in Fiona's story. I found myself rushing through the present day in order to read the past. It was hard to pinpoint what timeline Fiona's story even was. It could have been present day, could have been the 1990's, there just wasn't enough information, or maybe there was, but I rushed by it.

I"m still confused by the Mary Hand story and how it impacted the four girls at the boarding school. Although there were plenty of stories about Mary, it didn't make sense to me that she would be the only ghost there, especially when there were other girls murdered at the school.

The ending took a giant twist, that's for sure. And a very unrealistic one. At one point, I was thinking how the hell did Nazi's get involved in this story? But as weird as it seemed and as much as Mary Hand seemed to take a page from Pennywise the Clown, I was still engaged enough to finish it.

I don't want to give up too much, and I don't want to imply that the book wasn't good, because I immediately downloaded and read all of Simone St. James's other books. The Haunting of Maddy Clare was by far my favorite. It was more of a straight forward ghost story. I finished that in a day and a half.

This book was phenomenal!! It’s so twisted and suspenseful that you won’t be able to put it down. It’s dark and disturbing. A paranormal/ghost book that is highly addictive.

You go to the restroom, cook food, even when you get your kids ready for bedtime you take this book with you. I had to know what happened in that school. Fiona, Ce-Ce, Roberta, Sonia and Katie are reliable narrators. We switch from the past to the present trying to solve a murder and figure out exactly what happened.

Overall I’m extremely happy I was approved to read this book. This was my first book by Simone St. James and it won’t be my last.

This book sets an atmosphere in the first pages. A girl being chased trough the woods. Soon you start to question which girl as more seem to be missing in the various stories developing in this book.
There is the part with the girls living in the boarding house back in the 50's. As all four girls get to tell their part of the story and how they experienced it you get a lot of information on how that period was. The voice are not really distinct but their stories are. There were some really scary parts in their stories. All four are easy to like and connect too.
Then there is the part with Fiona. On the search for the truth about her sisters dead she discovered some things that were neglected in the investigation. Getting tangled up in an even older case the police wont work on she starts this interesting investigation about the history of Idlewild Hall and what happened in those years. I liked how as a reader I was able to puzzle along with her mystery. I really enjoyed the way both stories touched too.
As the story developed I did get scared about all the story lines and if the 336 pages would be enough to get all the answers. There were two mysteries that needed solving, there were some ghosts questions that needed some explaining and obviously as a reader I had to know what happened with all the people in the story. Thankfully everything was tied up really nice in the end and the only warning I can give is that you wont be able to put this one down when you start reading.

Actual Rating: 4.5 Stars

Oh boy, where do I even begin?

Have you ever watched a ghost movie and wanted more information from previous victims and the ghost itself? It wasn't enough to see how the current situation was handled, you wanted to know more about the haunting's mystery, about people who permitted these situations to go on, and the grieving process of families affected.

Well, I have and this book delivered.

This book held a constant eerie mood, a suspensefulness in the silence and doubtfulness of events. Both timelines presented were expertly written. These initially entirely distinctive timelines were able to intertwine and converge in a progressively smooth manner. Like, yessss. I'm a sucker for this kind of writing when it's done correctly.

As for the characters?
They were all realistic and actually had common sense (something I have yet to see in scary movies until it's essentially too late for them, and even then a lot of them are stupid af).

The characters were all intelligent in their own way, even the girls in Idlewild in 1950. They were able to adapt to their situation and make it work. The sisterhood bonding represented between Katie, CeCe, Roberta, and Sonia was genuinely one of the best I've read in a while. These are girls who are constantly supporting one another and making it apparent that their love and happiness for one another will always come first. Their connection was just so good.

Onto the protagonist: Yes - some of Fiona's actions were questionable at first but as you learn more about her character you begin to realize that her actions are not due to stupidity or lack of common sense. They're done as a result of her curiosity to finally get some closure surrounding her sister's death and murderer. A fact that becomes exceptionally clear when you realize she will never truly function until she finds out the truth about that one event. So fuck ghosts and their creepy grounds, Fiona's gotta uncover shit for her own sake.

As for Jaime? Jaime is making it into my list of favorite male characters. He's just a solid decent person. Nothing more, nothing less.

Needless to say, I enjoyed this book. So much, in fact, that although NetGalley gave me an ebook version for free in exchange for an honest review (thank you so much!!), I still went out and bought a physical copy. Yeah. I'm that person lol. There were a few sections I considered to be slow or boring, which is why I didn't give it a full five stars.

Oh! This novel also had quite a few historical fiction elements tied in, which was a delightful surprise seeing as I learned something new about the largest concentration camp for women - Ravensbruck.