mystery, fantasy
Thirty-five years ago, Carly’s Aunt Vivian disappeared from
her overnight shift at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, NY. Carly, now the same age
that Vivian was when she disappeared, 20, travels to Fell to investigate and
see if she can solve the life-long family mystery.
The Sun Down Motel was a ghost story within a mystery. It shifted points of view between Vivian in 1982 and Carly in 2017. This structure worked well to help the reader learn about Vivian and her family dynamics and to learn about Carly’s investigation progress alongside Vivian’s actual experiences. I was never bored and found the mystery interesting.
I enjoyed Simone St. James' realistic look back to the early 1980s and the reminder that, while women’s rights were expanding, they still had a long way to go, especially in a small town. The lack of technology back then inspired the perfect backdrop for the crimes perpetrated at the time under the nose of a small police force. The current-day story was, perhaps, a little less believable. From the start, the fact that Carly seemed fairly careless and fixated on solving a mystery that had been mostly ignored her whole life had to be accepted in order to enjoy the story. She was willing to do things that others probably would not have done. And Heather’s personality as Carly’s sidekick was too convenient. But it was still a fun story despite the feel of the somewhat forced construction of Carly’s parameters in Fell. I liked learning new things as the story went along—some expected and some not. I loved the surprising parts.
The audiobook narrators were Brittany Pressley and Kirsten Potter. They both have terrific voice
repertoires and are great voice actors. Overall, they did a fantastic job.
Kirsten had a few areas that you could tell were inserted after the main
recording and Brittany had a few mispronunciations that bugged me. I’ll give
them an A- as an ensemble.
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