The Broken Girls

Title: The Broken Girls
Author: Simone St. James
Genre: Thriller
Source: Ebook - Netgalley
Rating: 3 out of 5 paws




The body of a young woman was found dead at a placed called Idlewild Hall, a boarding school for troubled young women.  Rumors are that the school is haunted.  Twenty years later Fiona cannot stop thinking about the events that surround her sister's death at Idlewild Hall.  Her sister's boyfriend was convicted of murdering her, but Fiona has the feeling that something isn't right about the situation and something else had happened.  During renovations to the old school, secrets arise that may shed some light on the rumors that surround the school.  Secrets that someone meant to keep hidden.  What lies behind the walls of Idlewild Hall.

When I picked up this book, I was excited to read it.  I have never read Simone St. James' work before and this one sounded so interesting, so I dove right it.  I admit I struggled to get into the story at first, it seemed to take a while to lead up to the climactic portion of the story. I wanted to give up on the book, but am glad I didn't.

The ghost story aspect of it felt weak and didn't live up to what I was expecting from it.  I wanted more than what we were provided, and there was potential for more, but I don't think it was explored enough.  The beginning is slow going but it does pick up the pace and gets a little more interesting.  There are parts of the book where the story gets rather dark, but St. James handles this in a professional manner and makes it interesting rather than cringe-worthy.   It jumped back in time and back to the present a bit and sometimes I had a hard time following along, even though it does tell you the time frame prior to beginning that sequence.  Breaking up of these sections gave the book a sort of broken feeling.  It might have been better accomplished with Fiona finding journals or letters from each of the girls rather than flashing back to them.

There seems to be a lot of different storylines with the four girls who lived at Idlewild Hall, but there were times when I wished it would have focused on Fiona or her sister's story more and told the rest of the girls' stories through them.  Sometimes too many characters tend to take away from the story and I almost feel like that happened here with this novel as well.

I love the supernatural and ghost stories and I felt like the idea was there, the pull/lure to bring readers into it, but I wasn't all that impressed with the writing style.  I would recommend it for those who enjoy a ghost story, thriller, even mystery.  Others have enjoyed the story immensely, it just wasn't the book for me.



Greensmith Girls

Rowen Greensmith is an aspiring journalist and is beyond happy to have gotten away from her family, and their reputation.  But when her aunt calls about 2 dead bodies, Rowen returns to home for the story and to help her family avoid the press. Her whole family, and Eric Richardson get pulled into the a story of supernatural intrigue.


So this book was relatively shorter, coming in at alittle over 100 pages.  It is easy to fall in love with the idea of this family of women being pulled into a supernatural mystery.  But the idea and execution are two different things.  The writing itself was a hit and miss.  Something's were great while other things not so much.  The tone was very monotonous and hard to really get into. There is a lot of build up to what happened only for the reader to be let down with the "big reveal"  it wasn't all that big if you pay attention. 


There is a romance in the story, and I guess almost every story needs to have a budding romance in some form or another.  The characters aren't really all that deep, nor do they grow throughout the story.  Rowen decides to quit her job after a few short days of her family  having a sort of see-saw effect of welcoming her and not welcoming her.  They didn't seem all that warm enough to quit a job.  Once the book ended I had more questions that answers.  There isn't much to the story other than Eric and Rowen just  driving around.  I would have liked a little more from the ghosts speaking or interacting with the characters more, or more aspects of the women being witches.  That part of the story seems important, but isn't used much.


If you like a book that is incredibly easy to read and that you don't need to put a lot of effort into it, then sure pick up this book.  But if you want something with a little more meat to it, then this isn't for you.  Personally, I give this book a 2 out 5 stars.  I was not a fan of it.

Ghost Shadow by Heather Graham

David Bennet's fiance was brutually murdered and positioned to resemble a thousand year old murder.  After the murder case was closed, David leaves town trying to leave all the rumors behind.  Katie O'Hara hopes to reopen the Bennet family museum after the death of the patriarch.  But there is a wrench in her plans, David Bennet who returns home to settle his grandfather's estates.  But he is not the only person with his sites on Katie.  Someone else is following Katie, and killing throughout the city.  While Katie takes on the cold case on her own, she has help from a spiritual friend only she may see.  All of these things mixed together make for a great story.

I have recently discovered Heather Graham's writing.  This book was the second of her's that I have read and I highly enjoyed it.  I like the idea of a ghost helping someone find a killer or try to protect the person who see him.  In this book Bartholomew, was highly concerned about Katie's safety, not just her physical safety but the safety of her heart.  He warned her against falling for David for various reasons, almost like a big brother would.  Bartholomew quickly became one of my favorite characters in the book for this reason and because he was a prankster and one who enjoys having fun.

Overall the story was interesting and I enjoyed the historical aspect included into the story, but there were some points that didn't seem to flow right or seemed to drag on rather than keep pace with the rest of the novel.  Katie and David's characters were well developed, and somewhat complex, but all the other characters fell into the background.  Some characters are introduced in the very end that would have made sense to introduce earlier on including the killer.  We didn't see much of the killer character in the book aside from when the story told from his viewpoint (when readers didn't know who it was).  If there was a little more interaction happened with the killer and Katie/David the ending may have made a little bit more sense. 

Graham does a good job setting up the story and building suspense throughout it, but some points seemed to have fallen short of expectation. It almost felt like there was more that Graham could have done with the story.  But even with dull moments the book still held my attention and pulled me into the story line.  I would recommend this novel to mystery fans who don't want something gory and over the top.  There is some romance, but I don't think there is enough for the novel to be considered a romance novel.  I would give this book a rating of 3.5 out of 5.  I have three more Heather Graham novels on my to read list (I am sure I will end up buying more) and I cannot wait to begin one of them.