Welcome to The Sun Down Motel, located in the small town of Fell, NY. There is cable TV and plenty of rooms available... as well as some "spirited" guests who have never left the motel since 1978. With a description like that, you wonder why would anyone want to stay at The Sun Down Motel let alone work there as a night manager. Well, what if there was a mystery related to the motel and the town of Fell that was keeping you there? Wouldn't you want to stay than leave?
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James follows two women in two very different time periods, trying to solve the mystery behind the motel's supernatural events and its connection to the unsolved murders of three women in Fell.
In 1982, Vivian "Viv" Delaney is a twenty year old from Illinois who decides to run away to New York City to become an actress. Unfortunately, she ends up further upstate and lands in Fell. In need of a place to stay she stumbles upon The Sun Down Motel, and along with a room she is automatically offered a job as the new night manager bestowed upon by the motel's apathetic owner. Viv soon finds herself becoming attached to the dreary town and its string of unsolved murders, as well as the strange motel itself after hearing alarming voices and encountering a reckless apparition of young woman warning her to run. As Viv delves deeper and closer to the truth, she disappears three months later.
Now in 2017, Carly Kirk has arrived in Fell in seek of answers to the disappearance of her aunt, Viv, who was the same age she is now, 35 years ago. She finds herself following the same path as her aunt and her investigation behind the three murders to even getting the same job as the night manager at The Sun Down Motel. And just like her aunt, Carly also encounters a few specters of the motel...
Right off the bat, this novel was spooky! Not just spooky, but pretty darn creepy. It didn't help either that I started reading it at night and these characters were encountering strange sights, sounds, and smells that I thought I was sensing too. I actually took my time reading it in the beginning because I had to take a break from the whole eeriness of it. Once I kept going however, I became invested in the mystery surrounding the novel.
While The Sun Down Motel is a ghost story, I also consider it a murder mystery. At first, I thought the murders were just going to be a small side story to what would culminate into one big revelation behind the paranormal activities happening in the motel. Although the novel partially answers that, it heads toward another direction that you begin to refocus your attention on the bigger picture at hand than what initially piqued your curiosity. The murders are actually the main mystery, while the motel and the ghosts that inhabit it are the smaller story connected to it, not the other way around. To be honest, I actually liked this twist. Most often ghost stories like these tend to end up in the realms of Poltergeist's ending where there is a huge reveal as to why all these strange events are happening. Instead, the novel first gives you the ghosts and it all builds up to a big reveal as to what really happened to those three women as well as Viv.
I really liked how the book overlapped Viv and Carly's stories by time jumping between 1982 and 2017, while still maintaining one straightforward narrative. It was actually exciting reading how both characters were investigating the murders together despite being in two different time periods. One character would discover something new, and then the story would fast forward or flashback to the other timeline and there would be more revealed to that discovery. It was also fun reading how Viv would leave a few breadcrumbs in her timeline, such as notes on a piece of paper that Carly would encounter in her present time. All of this leads up to one heck of an ending!
Overall, this was a very well-written if not eerily creepy read. It's a mystery ghost story set in a Stephen King town in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Just be sure if you really want to check in because like the town the motel inhabits, you may never leave or let alone want to.
While The Sun Down Motel is a ghost story, I also consider it a murder mystery. At first, I thought the murders were just going to be a small side story to what would culminate into one big revelation behind the paranormal activities happening in the motel. Although the novel partially answers that, it heads toward another direction that you begin to refocus your attention on the bigger picture at hand than what initially piqued your curiosity. The murders are actually the main mystery, while the motel and the ghosts that inhabit it are the smaller story connected to it, not the other way around. To be honest, I actually liked this twist. Most often ghost stories like these tend to end up in the realms of Poltergeist's ending where there is a huge reveal as to why all these strange events are happening. Instead, the novel first gives you the ghosts and it all builds up to a big reveal as to what really happened to those three women as well as Viv.
I really liked how the book overlapped Viv and Carly's stories by time jumping between 1982 and 2017, while still maintaining one straightforward narrative. It was actually exciting reading how both characters were investigating the murders together despite being in two different time periods. One character would discover something new, and then the story would fast forward or flashback to the other timeline and there would be more revealed to that discovery. It was also fun reading how Viv would leave a few breadcrumbs in her timeline, such as notes on a piece of paper that Carly would encounter in her present time. All of this leads up to one heck of an ending!
Overall, this was a very well-written if not eerily creepy read. It's a mystery ghost story set in a Stephen King town in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Just be sure if you really want to check in because like the town the motel inhabits, you may never leave or let alone want to.
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