Author: Simone St James
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 336
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This was a book
that started slow and awkward. I almost gave it up. Thankfully, I didn't.
I almost never
give up on a book and my patience and determination to keep reading were rewarded with this slow burner that soon picked
up pace.
The Broken Girls turned out to be a thriller and murder mystery that went beyond its genre, growing to
be an indictment of the Holocaust and its excesses, a paranormal ghost story, a
tale of friendship spanning decades, a tale of justice denied and fought for.
Fiona Sheridan has
not been able to get over the loss of her sister Deb, who was strangled and
dumped at Idlewild Hall, an old, abandoned girl’s school which has been
abandoned since 1979. Deb’s boyfriend, Tim Christopher, was tried and convicted
of the crime, but that has not given Fiona closure. She is still haunted by the
crime, unable to move on, even as Tim has spent 20 years in maximum security
jail. She wonders if Tim killed Deb, or if someone else did.
Fiona gets herself
an assignment, writing about the restoration of Idlewild. The new owners are
Margaret Eden and her son, Anthony. Her efforts are supported by Jamie Creel, a
cop and her boyfriend.
On a tour of the
place, with Anthony, Fiona learns that another body has been discovered. The body
of a school girl, Sonia Gallipeau, who was killed in 1950, and her body dumped
in an old well.
Fiona, already
grieving Deb, grieves also for Sonia, the 15-year-old orphan girl whose life
had been brutally cut short. She becomes determined to find out who killed
Sonia, while also seeking to find out who killed Deb.
But Jamie’s
father, Garrett Creel, a former police chief, resents her attempt to revive the
case. How far will he go to stymie her efforts. Will Fiona succeed? Will
justice be served to Deb and Sonia?
After the Prologue
set in November 1950, in which we learn that a young teenage girl is about to
die, the story alternates between the 3rd person past tense viewpoint
of Fiona in November 2014, and to those of Katie Winthrop, Roberta, CeCe and
Sonia Gallipeau in October 1950.
In time, we get to
know the four girls, room-mates turned friends, quite closely. We learn of
their individual histories, of how they came to be at Idlewild Hall, the
boarding school of last resort, where parents stashed their embarrassments,
their failures, and their recalcitrant girls.
Each of them had a strong story
which came out well. I was particularly touched by what Sonia had gone through,
having lived at Ravensbrück
prison as a young child.
Through the twin
narratives of Fiona and the Idlewild girls, we are acquainted with Mary Hand, a
ghost who haunts the school. A ghost who is brings to life a person’s worst
fears. A ghost who terrifies you with your worst horrors. Mary was a strong presence who left her mark on the story.
Initially, I found
the writing banal. The devices the employed were old and worn out. For
instance, we get Fiona’s description when she looks into her car’s rearview
mirror. We find Jamie talking at length, about something that Fiona already
knows, but that, she says, she wants him to talk about because it’s more fun
to get information from you. How bland is that!
But gradually, it
seems as if the author gets more comfortable with the story, and you settle
down for the ride. Simone does a great job of creating a mood of suspense and
terror. It is in the descriptions and the action sequences that she truly excels. There is something forbidding, brooding about
the descriptions. The landscape of Vermont comes alive, in a way that helps one
imagine it.
After the first
few chapters, the writing became more intense. The fear that the characters
felt, the emotions and feelings they went through became more real to us. I felt a deep sense of compassion for the four friends in 1950, with no family to love them.
I didn’t quite
take to Fiona initially. Her dad was more vigorous and alive, compared to her. But
gradually I began to like her. Her character underwent a positive change. From
being somebody who wrote fluffy lifestyle pieces, she began to want to write a
story on Idlewild.
I also appreciated the fact that even as she grieved for her
own sister, she also grieved for Sonia, for the fact that no one had mourned
her loss. Fiona’s tendency to not just want to whiz by, but to want to stop and
truly see, also appealed to me.
I liked the
description of Malcolm: Malcolm Sheridan had never done small talk — he was the kind of man who looked you in the
eye on first meeting and said, Do you enjoy what you do? Do you find it
fulfilling? If you had the courage to
answer, he’d listen like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever heard.
Apart from these
characters, I also found the four girls to be very strong and well drawn out.
Jamie, on the other hand, I didn’t much care for, even though the author went
on and on about his muscular arms. His character arc didn’t grow as well as
Fiona’s had.
In contrast, even Lionel Charters, who plays a bit role, came out stronger.
The younger
man-older woman pairing, 29 to 37, was bold. But the romance, in the initial
chapters, was utterly lackluster. It was also a little unreal that Fiona felt
absolutely no insecurity about the age gap. But then again, maybe it was
because she had freethinking, hippie parents.
Once again this
relationship also benefited from the improvement in the writing.
The book gently
mocks old-time phrases, like being born on the wrong side of the blanket, as well as the girls' textbook, Latin Grammar for Girls. As Jamie says, “The good old days when
apparently Latin was different if you were a girl.” And using
the term ‘iron deficiency’ for having one’s period.
The author makes fun of the outdated notions in a gentle but firm manner. It was not assumed that the housewives of the future needed to know
much about science.
But there were
some errors and some awkwardness that slipped past that should have been caught.
Early on, Fiona
tells Jamie, “It pays to have a nosy journalist on your side,” and that’s
funny. Fiona is far from nosy.
The name and
surname, Charlotte Kankle, were repeated five times and Cindy Benshaw twice.
Surely the author could have called her just Charlotte the second time onwards.
On the other hand, we don’t get to know Roberta’s surname until 2014, as part
of Fiona’s research. But these were
minor errors in the larger scheme of things.
The cover was beautiful. The intimidating image of Idlewild, as seen through a cracked window pane.
The book was beautiful, and the
women characters and their stories certainly deserve your attention.
(I received an ARC from First to Read).
(I received an ARC from First to Read).
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