The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James was published in 2018. The author had a huge goal with this one: combine a ghost story, two murder mysteries, two time periods, a Holocaust story, and a romance in one book. I was pleasantly surprised at how well she wove everything together. 

I love historical fiction, and St. James added the Holocaust connection and kept it real even though this is a ghost story. As a mystery, St. James did an excellent job of setting up suspense that kept me listening. I listened to the audio version of this book, and it was well narrated. I love a good ghost story, and this one was just scary enough. 

This story fluctuates between present day and 1950. The main character, Fiona, had an older sister who was murdered and her body was found on the grounds of an abandoned boarding house. When the boarding house is sold and the plan is to refurbish and reopen it, Fiona finds it brings her grief right back to the surface. 

Fiona is a reporter, and tries to find out more about the boarding house, the person who plans on restoring it, and the holes in the narrative of her sister's murder. Her search leads her to another story from 60 years ago, and the truth may put her own life in jeopardy.

 

Read to a child today even if that child is you. 

Link to our NICU book registry to donate books to babies in the newborn intensive care unit so their parents can read to them while they grow. You can also donate gently used books to our project by sending them to me or to Angie. Email me for a mailing address. We can use both English and Spanish books. If you have a graduate of the NICU, or if you have a baby whose life you would like to honor by donating books to this project, let me know, and I can make a book plate with their name for the books you donate.