Simone St. James has a real knack for writing ghost stories. Her manner of weaving the specters within the meat of her story gives it depth and reality. Her current novel combines a contemporary theme within the historical backdrop of a girls boarding school in a small town in Vermont. It has been 20 years since the body of Fiona’s sister was found in the field of the now derelict grounds of the school. Fiona hopes she can put the horror of the murder behind her when she chooses to write an article about the new owners and planned renovation of the school. As she is interviewing the son of the new owner she notices the work has stopped. The discovery of a body on the school grounds will propel Fiona on a quest to look beyond the death of her sister and into the history of Idlewild Hall.

St. James current novel is a gem and will be enjoyed by her fans and hopefully discovered by many new readers. Her descriptions of situations and characters are vivid. Read this on a cold gray day in front of the fire to get the complete feel of this novel. It will transport you to the gray, damp campus of Idlewild Hall. Possibly closer than you will want to be.

A better than average ghost story that traverses the 1950's and the 2014 investigation. One reason for the 4 of 5 is that it is SO SLOW at the beginning!!!!!

I give this one 4.5/5 stars! Rounded up for rating.
Full review to follow closer to release date

This is one of those books that gets more interesting as the story progresses. It's set at a currently crumbling girls' boarding school in Vermont undergoing renovation. The story is extremely layered mixing a present day protagonist with a partially unsolved murder in the near past, an unsolved murder from the far past, and a ghost story beginning with the death of a girl even further back in time. I was torn between thinking it was interesting and also wondering who would actually put so much effort into solving mysteries from so long ago. Part of me wanted a pure ghost story with set at the boarding school during its heyday when the ghost of Mary Hand was seen and feared by all. But another part enjoyed having the modern day elements mixed in as well, which gave more closure to the story.

"Mary Hand, Mary Hand, dead and buried under land.... Faster, faster. Don't let her catch you. She'll say she wants to be your friend...."

Author Simone St. James does a brilliant and seamless job at blending a mystery/thriller with a bit of paranormal/ghost story! That aspect alone kept my read chilling, mysterious, and hard to put down.

This book alternates time periods and main characters to tell the stories and myths surrounding the all girls boarding school of Idlewild Hall. Fiona is a journalist who's sister was murdered and placed in the old field on Idlewild's grounds. She learns that a rich benefactor has bought it to restore the school, she can't help but wonder who and why.

We also follow a group of girls who are roommates and attend the school in the 1950's. They are all girls who, in some way, have been discarded by both their families and the world. One goes missing on weekend, and the course of the remaining girls' lives change forever.

There is also a myth that a ghost named Mary wanders the grounds in a black dress and veil and has been around since the school was built. She has a supernatural way to get into people's minds to whisper exactly what people fear most about their lives.

Are all these stories connected? Who killed Fiona's sister? What happened to the missing roommate? Is Mary real or just a myth?

The one thing I can say about this book is READ IT!!!
It was my first read by the author, but I have already added his other books to my TBR pile!

The Broken Girls is due to be released here in the USA on March 20, 2018. Preorder it now because the second it is released you will want to stay up all night to finish it!

Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for allowing me an egalley to read and give my honest review.

Happy Reading!

Dark, haunting, and atmospheric-just how I like my ghost stories!!

But this is so much more than just a ghost story, as the author does an amazing job of bringing the past and present together to create a page turner of a mystery.

So why not a 5*?
This is my first time reading this author and with the high reviews already showing, my expectations were high. Unfortunately, it took me a bit to find my grove. The build up is incredibly slow, but thankfully started to pick up about halfway through. I also had a problem with all the 'filler' words used to describe people, places or things that had minimal impact on the story line.
I never know if I am explaining my issue with this correctly, so I always feel I need to provide an example of what I mean, so here you go:
"Jim Pfeiffer was fifty, fit and vigorous, unremarkable except for the black-framed glasses he wore that made him look more like an engineer from the 1960's NASA than a modern-day cop."

Jim's character was alive for a couple of pages, but after that, he was gone, never to return. The above description just seems a bit overkill to me for a bit character you are not supposed to remember. There are many more instances of this throughout the book, and while I found them to be distracting, the plot still held my interest and kept me moving forward.

There truly is a lot to like here. I enjoyed learning about each of the 'past' characters as well as the main protag Fiona. She is damaged, but she hasn't let it define her. There is mystery and suspense in both story lines, and they seamlessly come together for a strong ending with the perfect amount of creepiness and closure.

If you are looking for what I consider to be the best ghost story ever written, go grab yourself a copy of Peter Straub's [book:Ghost Story|19581], you won't be disappointed. But you can't go wrong reading this one as well, which definitely has made it in my top 5 best ghost story reads.

ARC provided by NetGalley

This was;my first book by Simone St James, it won't be the last. She builds her characters piece by piece, giving the reader just enough to believe with questions remaining. In The Broken Girls she alternates between 1950 and 2014 seamlessly carrying the reader along. Superb character building, I just couldn't put this one down.

*3.75 stars*

With chapters traveling between two years -1950 and 2014- The Broken Girls was a chilling story about memories, a ghost, several cold-case mysteries and murder .

A young girl vanished in 1950 but was never forgotten. Forty-fours later, a young woman died was killed in the same area. Her younger sister, now 37 years old, can’t let it go. Fiona Sheridan needed to understand what happened; it consumed her. To this day, the killer professed his innocence.

Idlewild Hall was a school for the unwanted. The young girls, for one reason or another, were misfits. Their families sent them to the institution because they no longer wanted responsibility. Both the building and immediate grounds were haunted. And Mary showed up when least expected.

If this story were made into a movie, I vision it in black and white. With gothic tones, a bone-chilling aloneness and some episodes of deep despair. I noticed other reviewers preferred the 1950 era; I favored reading what happened during the present time. There were enough sufficient twists to keep you wondering. I have read all but one story by this author and though it is not my favorite, I can recommend it to any of Mrs. St. James’ fans.

~A big thank you to Natalie from Berkley Publishing who offered me the arc and Netgalley for providing the free format to read The Broken Girls.~

I would like to thank netgalley for giving me the oppurtunity to read this book. This review does contain minor spoilers. I really enjoyed reading The Broken Girls. It was a good book with interesting characters and subplots. There were actually only a few minor things I didn't like. I think Mary's backstory should have been a bit more fleshed out seeing as I still don't understand the entire purpose of her being there or what she was doing. It was an interesting idea however. It added a nice creepy element to the book. I also enjoyed the various twists and turns. While not going at breakneck speed, they still managed to surprise and intrigue me. I will definitely be reccomendind this to others.

You will not be able to put this one down! A suspenseful read, alternating between a girls school in 1950 in an isolated small town in Vermont, with 2014 in the same town. In 1950, Idlewild was a school for the girls nobody wanted, and four of them develop a close relationship. The stories of Katie, CeCe, Roberta and Sonia give insight into what does happen. In 2014, Fiona is trying to move on from the 1976 murder of her sister on the then closed Idewild grounds. Answers to many questions come as the author keeps you guessing. A good one!

Journalist Fiona Sheridan suspects that there may be more to the story of her sister’s murder than what police determined. The killer was arrested and convicted, but Fiona still has an unsettled feeling about the circumstances.

Fiona’s sister’s body was found on the grounds of an abandoned girls’ boarding school. When a gruesome discovery is made there, Fiona decides to write about the school’s history. As she delves into the story, she becomes engrossed with the lives of several of the students who boarded there.

This novel alternates between the present day and the early 1950’s as Fiona’s investigation leads to long hidden secrets, supernatural occurrences, and a resolution to the circumstances of her sister’s murder.

Thank you to Net Galley, author Simone St. James, and Berkley Press -a division of Penguin Random House, for the opportunity to read the ARC of this unusual novel!

The girls referred to in the title of this book have been sent to Idlewild Hall, a creepy, second-rate boarding school in a small Vermont town. They are the girls no one knows what to do with – hard to handle, illegitimate, or simply unwanted. Built in 1919, the school is rumored to be haunted, and the girls who live in this dreadful place over the years pass along stories of Mary Hand, the resident ghost. Even after the school is closed in the 1970s, the abandoned buildings continue to throw a chilling pall over the town and its inhabitants.

In 2014 Fiona Sheridan, a local journalist, has her own reasons for hating Idlewild Hall. Twenty years ago, her older sister was murdered and her body was dumped in the abandoned school’s playing field. Now the place has been purchased and is about to be restored, and Fiona uses the potential story as cover to feed her obsession with the property and its history. She is on the grounds the day a shocking discovery is made, and soon she is delving into more than she bargained for.

The novel follows two different timelines – Fiona in 2014 and four Idlewild Hall girls in 1950. We get the points of view of all five characters in alternating chapters, and before long their stories begin to intertwine. Each 1950s Idlewild girl has a unique backstory, and when one of them goes missing, her friends must fight to have authorities take her disappearance seriously. That disappearance, along with sightings of Mary Hand, will affect Fiona, as well.

The author has created an eerie setting populated with characters we come to care about. I thoroughly enjoyed her writing style and found her dialogue to be exceptionally true to how people speak. The story itself is a gentle inclusion of paranormal with mystery, suspense, and historical fiction, and the ending satisfyingly answers the questions raised throughout the book.

This was a great thriller; not too scary for a wimp like me, but creepy enough to make me want to get to a less creepy part before going to sleep when reading before bed. This story is centered around the haunted Idlewild Hall, a one time girls boarding school for unwanted and troublesome girls. Enter Fiona Sheridan, a present day journalist and sister to Deb, a girl murdered in the 1970s and dumped in the field at Idlewild, then closed & deserted. Fiona's connection with the school is complicated & when she discovers someone has bought it and is planning on remodeling it she is driven to cover the story. Fiona is soon caught up in the mystery of uncovering the identity of the body of a young girl found on the property, murdered and dumped at least 50 years earlier. As she works to solve this mystery more questions and answers come up around unresolved issues in her sister's case from long ago. And then there is the ghost who haunts the grounds and the story of the four girls stuck at the boarding school in the 1950s, somehow connected to the girl found in the well. Plenty of suspense, creepiness & story.

I actually enjoyed reading The Broken Girls by Simone St James. Once I got into the storyline of both past & present I found I couldn't put the book down and never would of expected the ending.

A satisfying and unique take on the ever-so popular thriller, with wrenching details in the historical chapters and a captivating ghost story woven throughout.

The Broken Girls is the latest book by Simone St. James and the first I've read by this author. In The Broken Girls Ms St. James takes us back and forth in time starting the reader off in 1950. I was hooked and eagerly reading within the first few pages, finding it difficult to put down. I was given an early copy for a review. I'm looking forward to reading more by this author.

The Broken Girls is a departure for Simone St. James in time period and setting--however, it holds its own with her other titles. I read every St. James book as soon as I can get my hands on it and purchased all of her previous titles for the library. An Inquiry Into Love and Death is still my favorite, but there are some true scary moments here, as well as poignant ones. Highly recommend.

From the first page I couldn't stop reading this book! Loved the interplay between the characters. The past and present alternating was very effective and I felt like I got a good picture of what the author was going for. Murder, mystery and a ghost story. What could be better!

I don’t like ghost stories, well, except of they are by Stephen King. When I started this book and people were talking about the ghost of a girl haunting a girl’s boarding school, I considered abandoning it. But, the book was really well written and I kept reading. I am glad I did.

The book alternates between 2014, where journalist Fiona is researching plans that new owners have for the now abandoned school, and 1950, when a student disappeared. Fiona’s sister was killed on the school grounds in the 1990s. The book does a good job of covering the angst of the sister’s murder, which was solved but left a lot of questions for Fiona, and the mystery around the missing student.

I was surprised by some of the ending, which is always nice. I am glad I stuck it out and will be looking for more by this author.

This is a book I received via NetGalley and completed in one sitting today. I have taken quite a detour from this genre for the last couple of books and this one was a welcome return to the fold ( of suspense/thrillers). This story borders on the horror tagline but does not end up in that category all the way through.

The story weaves seamlessly between the two eras being narrated in the book. It has the 'broken girls' as advertised in the title , but the girls are more than just that. They embody the bonds that hold people to each other, trust , loyalty and all that those words signify, in a good and right world.In the current time, Fiona is still tied to her sister's murder twenty years earlier.In the process of walking the roads where it had happened, she stumbles on a new development that literally opens the gates to further revelations. Once the ball gets rolling, we are quickly ( but not too quickly) taken through the multiple lives entwined in the story. I remember hearing this dialogue in an old GhostBusters animated episode that "there is nothing to fear but fear itself"( true origins of the statement is unknown to me). This dialogue could be set as a background track to story as it unfolds. There is an extra element thrown in, of the shadowy unaccountable presence in the background which adds to the darkness of the book.

Each of the women is a full and realistic character, someone you could get behind and encourage on in the tale, making it  a very satisfying read.