This mystery/suspense takes place in Fell, a small town in upstate New York. In 1982, Viv Delaney finds herself in need of a place to stay for the night and agrees to be the new night clerk for the Sun Down Motel in exchange for a temporary room. She wasn't planning on staying in Fell for long, but something about the town and the Sun Down intrigues her and she stays for a few months until disappearing without a trace. Now, in 2017, Viv's niece Carly comes to Fell in the hopes of finding some connection to her aunt and finds herself also working as the new night clerk. Carly initially only planned on this trip taking a week or so at most but when strange things start happening at the Sun Down and Carly picks up a thread of what might have happened to her aunt, there's no way she's leaving the Sun Down until she uncovers the truth.
This was a phenomenal read and I can see why it had such a large following when it was released in 2020. This was a fantastic mix of mystery, suspense, and supernatural horror in the perfect ratio for me. I loved all the characters and how the dual timeline and dual perspectives were used to keep the reader engaged in the story from start to finish. This has been on my TBR for quite some time but I needed to let the hype die down a bit. I very much look forward to reading more from St James soon!
We get alternating chapters throughout the story from Viv in 1982 and Carly in 2017 and initially, I thought Carly's chapters investigating her aunt's disappearance would be more interesting. However, I actually found myself drawn to Viv's chapters as she was working on her own investigation. I really loved how the two timelines were similar enough to draw some great parallels between them but still each engaging enough on their own. I also liked how, of course, we get some overlap with Carly finding out something about Viv and then we see that exact same thing in Viv's chapters. However, since Carly is sort of working backwards from the disappearance to try and figure out what happened to Viv and Viv's chapters are going forward in time from when Viv arrived in town the two plot lines don't exactly match up. I think this does make the overall story more interesting and I really loved when Carly starts putting everything together because the reader has all the information from reading Viv's chapters. I read the audiobook and they used different narrators for Viv and Carly which I always like.
The mystery elements were interesting and the investigation on both plot lines didn't feel like a typical mystery with red herrings and twists and dead ends. Instead, they felt more like a scavenger hunt where each nugget of information answered part of a question but left enough of a question for the characters to move on to search for the next nugget of information. They then had to puzzle all these pieces of information together and figure out how they all fit. I, generally, don't mind this format of mystery and I think St James does a fantastic job of laying out all the clues in a very logical manner. I didn't feel like any of the investigation jumps were unearned or came down to just dumb luck so it really felt like the endings of both timelines were worth the wait.
I completely was not expecting the supernatural horror elements to be in this book. We see them almost immediately and I was shocked initially (especially since I was listening to the audiobook) but them I was 100% on board. I think having both Viv and Carly work the night shift was a fantastic way to guarantee they'd be at the I absolutely loved how the horror elements were a pretty consistent source of tension throughout the book. We do, slowly, get the background of the horror elements and where they come from, which fit nicely into the mystery investigations. I also loved the slow escalation of danger that these supernatural events gave us since the mystery aspects were pretty low-stakes (at least initially). The supernatural elements also fit well into the ending resolution in a really satisfying way.
I really loved all the characters we meet in both timelines. Fell is a town that seems to attract lost people and people who are searching for something in life so all the characters are all flawed in their own way. Viv, Carly, and all the secondary characters were all so interesting and came together really well. I liked the idea of all these characters finding themselves and each other at just the right time. This read had a 'found family' trope feeling to it with these somewhat loners coming to work together. While we do get a good amount of information about the side characters, most of the character development is focused on Viv and Carly. I thought it was really nice how Viv and Carly's stories were so similar, especially since Viv disappeared before Carly was born. It gave the story an almost fantastical feeling, at points, because we can see these two relatives traveling the same path, taking the same steps, 35 years apart.
The ending was more bittersweet than I was expecting but I really liked where both plot lines ended up. There were a good number of twists but I wasn't really surprised by any of them necessarily because St James would almost spoil the twist, in a way, before we got it. For example, at one point there is a piece of evidence found and a character is so incredibly sure the evidence is X. They keep saying over and over that the evidence was X and it was what they were looking for all this time. So, of course, knowing that I still had a good chunk of the story left at that point I knew the evidence wasn't X and then, a few pages later, it is confirmed the evidence was not X but was, in fact, Y. So while the evidence being Y was a twist, the heavy handedness that St James made the one character go on and on about the evidence being X made me immediately suspicious and thus made the twist less of a surprise. At that point in the story, I was very invested in these investigations so as soon as the evidence was revealed, I also immediately thought it was X so, again, having the character go on and on made me immediately suspicious.
Overall, this book worked for me in pretty much every way. I loved the way the mystery and supernatural elements went hand in hand. The characters were all flawed, but I really enjoyed the feeling of them coming together to solve the mysteries. I was intrigued from start to finish and I love the way the ending came together. I'll be reading more from St James soon!
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