The Broken Girls

January 8, 2018
St. James (Lost Among the Living) graduates to hardcover with this creepy supernatural thriller set in small-town Vermont. In 2014, journalist Fiona Sheridan’s interest in finding out the truth about her sister’s murder—which occurred 20 years earlier near Idlewild Hall, an abandoned girls’ boarding school—is revived by the news that the property is being restored by a mysterious out-of-towner. Fiona’s boyfriend and the police in his family, however, don’t want her digging too deep. Flashback to 1950, when four roommates at Idlewild build deep friendships while dealing with the sinister presence of Mary Hand, a veiled ghost whom generations of students claim haunts the garden where her dead baby is buried. Mary is a pervasive but subtle influence who makes everyone in both eras feel “so horribly afraid.” All the characters must also cope with human-produced horrors such as torture and neglect. The two story lines converge on a satisfyingly settled if unhappy ending. Readers will want to see more in this vein from St. James. Agent: Pam Hopkins, Hopkins Literary Associates.

July 1, 2018

Fiona, a journalist, looks into the closed case of her sister's murder at a Vermont school for troubled girls and unintentionally stirs up terrifying secrets of the past. Told in the alternating voices of Fiona in 2014 and four teenage girls in 1950, the book follows events that culminate in two violent murders. Twenty years ago, Fiona's older sister Deb was discovered dead on the grounds of Idlewild, a dilapidated boarding school. Deb's boyfriend was arrested and incarcerated for her murder, but grief-stricken Fiona had lingering doubts about his guilt. Now, someone plans to reopen the former school in spite of its tragic history and rumored ghost, so Fiona uses the opportunity to investigate. After construction on Idlewild reveals a skeleton, Fiona's focus centers on the two cases, her complicated relationship with her policeman boyfriend, and the maddening spirit that whispers the victims' darkest secrets. St. James wastes no words in this chilling page-turner. Vivid, haunting descriptions and spare, purposeful dialogue put readers right in the middle of the dusty classrooms where schoolgirls endured unspeakable abuse and a ghostly voice murmurs, "Hold still." Well-crafted characters and scenes highlight the differences between gender expectations of the past and today. VERDICT Give this frightening suspense novel to lovers of thrillers. Perfect for fans of gripping crime drama and/or gothic stories.-Sandi Jones, Wynne High School, AR

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2018
St. James' riveting genre-blender combines a supernatural tale with intertwined mysteries from the 1950s and today. The historical story line features four girls who have been sent to Idlewild Hall, a forbidding Vermont boarding school where the education is as meager as the care. One of the four, Sonia, is particularly in need of love and attention but gets none, and her disappearance is swept under the rug as her friends' pleas for a search go unheeded. The later story takes place in 2014, when Idlewild is again central to a mystery: What exactly happened to the murdered sister of Fiona Sheridan, a journalist who sees the renovation of the school as her chance to get to the bottom of the crime. Haunting events in both erasliterallyis the malevolent spirit of Mary Hand, a terrifying figure whom the schoolgirls encounter regularly. This horror-tinged mystery is frighteningly believable, peopled with feisty characters, and features top-notch dialogue. St. James, who won the 2013 RITA Best First Book award for The Haunting of Maddy Clare (2013), might have another prizewinner on her hands.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)