The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

The Broken Girls is 2/3 psychological suspense and 1/3 ghost story, which, I’ll admit, is not my favorite genre. In fact, it would have worked just as well without the “ghost” parts, but it does add a creepiness to the storyline that might not have been there otherwise. It’s set in small-town Vermont, where a girl’s boarding school has sat empty for decades. Journalist Fiona Sheridan is somewhat obsessed with its locale, as this is where her sister’s murdered body was dumped 20 years ago. Fiona was 17 at the time, and the murder tore her family apart and seems to have kept her in limbo ever since, even though her sister’s boyfriend was tried and convicted of the murder. She keeps her police officer boyfriend at arm’s length, and when she learns that someone is renovating the old school she thinks it would be a good idea for her to investigate and write a story about it. Flashing back and forth between this timeline and the 1950’s, we learn that the girls at the school were all afraid of the ghost of Mary Hand, and that one of them, Sophia, is about to be murdered as well. Through her research on the school, Fiona discovers some clues to Sophia’s murder, and unearths some new information about her sister’s death as well. This book will suck you in, and the final dénouement is riveting, with or without the ghosts.