I’ve read a few novels by Simone St. James so when I saw this novella on Amazon, I just had to buy it. Of the novels by this author that I have read, “The Broken Girls” is probably my favorite.
Set in Upstate New York, the title would suggest it is a ghost story, and it is… yet really it is more a story of a women who is mentally ill. The protagonist was a twenty-nine year old actress who suffered a breakdown. At her doctor’s insistence she has moved away from New York City to recover. Yet after she moves in to 19 Howard Avenue, she goes downhill. She begins to exhibit signs of full-blown agoraphobia and is unable to leave the house. She hears noises in the house and is afraid of the upstairs and of the basement. She spends her time gazing out the window and watching the neighbors. Then, she thinks she witnesses a murder and calls the police. From then on, things take a turn for the worst.
The time period is integral to the story. It is 1959 and back then doctors often dismissed serious women’s concerns as them being ‘excitable’, or ‘hysterical’ and prescribing them sedatives – which only exacerbated their problems.
Ginette Cox was a woman afraid for her life in the story. A woman who was afraid to enter her kitchen, so she went without food… yet she continued to paint her nails? She continued to flirt with the policeman? These factors just didn’t ring true for me.
Simone St. James is an author who is famous for her ghost stories and she usually does it well, yet this time I think perhaps the short format of the story didn’t serve her well.
I purchased this novella for my own reading enjoyment.
Published January 3, 2023 by Berkley/Penguin Random House
ISBN: 9780593547700
80 pages
Simone St. James‘ debut novel, THE HAUNTING OF MADDY CLARE, won two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America and an Arthur Ellis Award from Crime Writers of Canada. AN INQUIRY INTO LOVE AND DEATH was nominated for another Arthur Ellis Award, and SILENCE FOR THE DEAD was shortlisted for a Goodreads Choice Award.
Simone spent twenty years behind the scenes in the television business before leaving to write full-time. She lives just outside Toronto, Canada, with her husband and a spoiled rescue cat. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Pinterest (though not all at once).
Nell Churcher is the protagonist of the story. She lives in London, on a narrowboat without a permanent mooring. She shares her humble abode with fifteen year old Billie, who is the daughter of Nell’s former boyfriend. Despite her affluent family, Nell has chosen to distance herself from them and makes her living by selling her stained glass pieces at the market. Her family are famous for a book that was published fifty years ago. “The Golden Bones” was an internationally renown treasure quest book which spurred countless followers aka ‘bonehunters’. The quest, based upon an old English folk song, tasked the treasure hunters with finding the bones to the skeleton of Elinor which were scattered by Nell’s father, the illustrator of the book. “The Golden Bones” is now coming up to its 50th anniversary and the family have planned a video launch of the anniversary edition of the book. This launch proves to go disastrously wrong, putting the well-being of Nell in jeopardy. For Nell (Eleanor) was named after the Elinor of the book, and some obsessive ‘fans’ (aka nutters) are finding it difficult to separate fiction from reality.
Erin Kelly is the Sunday Times bestselling author of He Said/She Said, The Poison Tree and several other standalone psychological thrillers. She also wrote the novelization of the award-winning TV show Broadchurch. Her work has been critically acclaimed and translated into thirty one languages. Erin also works as a freelance journalist and creative writing tutor. She lives in London, England with her family.
1) It has been a while since I’ve read an adult novel with a child protagonist.
Set in Boston, Massachusetts in autumn, the story maintained a good sense of place. Petra lives with her boyfriend Jonah, on the top floor of a purple triple-decker in the North End of the city.
“It occurred to him that most of the disasters people prepare for had already happened.”
Suzanne Berne is the author of The Dogs of Littlefield; The Ghost at the Table; A Perfect Arrangement; A Crime in the Neighborhood, winner of Great Britain’s Orange Prize; and Missing Lucile: Memories of the Grandmother I Never Knew, part biography and part memoir. She has also written short fiction and essays that appear in Vogue, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, and more. Berne currently teaches creative writing at Boston College and The Ranier Writing Workshop. She lives just outside of Boston with her husband and two daughters.
and after that I plan to read
This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from 
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Whoever described this novel as a ‘modern-gothic thriller‘ got it spot on. The creepy curiousity shoppe Berry & Vincent, with its gruesome inventory, was macabre. It’s owner, Mr. Vincent was memorable to say the least. Mr. Vincent, though small, elderly, and stooped, exuded a vibe of evil malevolence. The town itself seemed corrupted by the very fact that Berry & Vincent’s was located within it. After Teddy works for a while at Berry & Vincent, the reader questions whether he has come to be infected by the malignance that permeates the store and its owner. Has Mr. Vincent met his nemesis?
This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from 
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