The Sun Down Motel was my favorite unexpected read this year. I don’t mean that I didn’t expect to read it, but I guess I should rather say that I wasn’t expecting to like it so much? As some of you have picked up on the pattern — I don’t look at lengthy reviews of books I haven’t read, and only rarely will read them after I decide I’m not going to finish a book (which also rarely happens). So, I had no idea how good this book was!

You all know I’m trying to read more contemporary literature. I have a hard time keeping up with the trends, nor do I really feel like I have to, but sometimes it’s fun talking about what other people are talking about. Hence — The Sun Down Motel, a novel by Simone St. James. Set dually between the early 1980s and 2017, the story is told from both the perspective of Carly (2017) and her Aunt Viv, who disappeared without a trace in a nowhere town in New York. The Sun-Down Motel is the last place Aunt Viv was known to be, having worked there for a few months on the night shift. After Carly’s mother, Viv’s sister, dies of cancer, Carly goes to Fell, New York to find answers. 

There, she finds that Fell is the only place in the contiguous United States without a stable internet connection, many of the local newspapers haven’t been digitally archived, and in a town where multiple young women are murdered, not everything is so cut-and-dry. The Sun Down itself seems to hold secrets of its own, sometimes coming alive, and simultaneously transporting you 35 years earlier. 

I normally don’t like an ending so tied together, but I would’ve hated probably any other ending. The story was truly spine-tingling, and I stayed up two hours past my usual bedtime finishing it. It was sad in some ways, yet vindicated in others. The author mostly answered any questions you might have at the end of a mystery thriller. I enjoyed the writing style overall, and it’s a great autumn-transitioning-into-winter read, as the nights get dark earlier, and you might be in the mood for something just a little spooky. The Sun Down Motel deserves a solid 4 out of 5 stars from me!

If interested in purchasing this book to read for yourself, considering buying from your local bookstore! My favorite is linked here.