History from a Woman's Perspective- A Book Blog

  Murder Road Author: Simone St. James Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery & Suspense, Paranormal  Publisher: Berkley Publication Date: 2024 Pages: 363 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Cold Cases .        July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.       When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of...

The Sun Down Motel Author: Simone St. James Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal Publisher: Berkely Release Date: 2020 Pages: 336 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review Synopsis Something hasn’t been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls . Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary. Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared i...

These Broken Girls Author: Simone St. James Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense, Paranormal Publisher: Berkley Release Date: March 20, 2018 Pages: 334 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review Synopsis: Vermont, 1950. There's a place for the girls whom no one wants—the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the too smart for their own good. It's called Idlewild Hall. And in the small town where it's located, there are rumors that the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their budding friendship blossoming—until one of them mysteriously disappears...        Vermont, 2014. As much as she's tried, journalist Fiona Sheridan cannot stop revisiting the events surrounding her older sister's death. Twenty years ago, her body was found lying in the overgrown fields near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. And though her sister's boyfriend was tried and convicted of murder, Fiona can't shake the suspici...

Lost Among the Living Author: Simone St. James Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense, Romance Publisher: Berkley Release Date: 2016 Pages: 364 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: England, 1921. Three years after her husband, Alex, disappeared, shot down over Germany, Jo Manders still mourns his loss. Working as a paid companion to Alex's wealthy, condescending aunt, Dottie Forsyth, Jo travels to the family’s estate in the Sussex countryside. But there is much she never knew about her husband’s origins…and the revelation of a mysterious death in the Forsyths’ past is just the beginning…      All is not well at Wych Elm House. Dottie's husband is distant, and her son was grievously injured in the war. Footsteps follow Jo down empty halls, and items in her bedroom are eerily rearranged. The locals say the family is cursed, and that a ghost in the woods has never rested. And when Jo discovers her husband’s darkest secrets, she wonders if she ever real...

The Other Side of Midnight Author: Simone St. James Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal, Romance Publisher: Berkley Release Date: 2015 Pages:  331 Source: My State Public Library  Synopsis: London, 1925. Glamorous medium Gloria Sutter made her fortune helping the bereaved contact loved ones killed during the Great War. Now she's been murdered at one of her own séances, after leaving a message requesting the help of her former friend and sole rival, Ellie Winter.      Ellie doesn't contact the dead—at least, not anymore. She specializes in miraculously finding lost items. Still, she can't refuse the final request of the only other true psychic she has known. Now Ellie must delve into Gloria's secrets and plunge back into the world of hucksters, lowlifes, and fakes. Worse, she cannot shake the attentions of handsome James Hawley, a damaged war veteran who has dedicated himself to debunking psychics.      As Ellie and James un...

An Inquiry into Love and Death Author: Simone St. James Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal, Romance Publisher: Berkley  Release Date: 2013 Pages: 368 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: In 1920's England, a young woman searches for the truth behind her uncle’s mysterious death in a town haunted by a restless ghost…       Oxford student Jillian Leigh works day and night to keep up with her studies—so to leave at the beginning of the term is next to impossible. But after her uncle Toby, a renowned ghost hunter, is killed in a fall off a cliff, she must drive to the seaside village of Rothewell to pack up his belongings.       Almost immediately, unsettling incidents—a book left in a cold stove, a gate swinging open on its own—escalate into terrifying events that convince Jillian an angry spirit is trying to enter the house. Is it Walking John, the two-hundred-year-old ghost who haunts Blood Moon Bay? And who beside ...

The Haunting of Maddy Clare Author: Simone St. James Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal, Romance Publisher: Berkley Release Date: 2012 Pages: 335 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis: Sarah Piper's lonely, threadbare existence changes when her temporary agency sends her to assist a ghost hunter. Alistair Gellis-rich, handsome, scarred by World War I, and obsessed with ghosts- has been summoned to investigate the spirit of nineteen-year-old maid Maddy Clare, who is haunting the barn where she committed suicide. Since Maddy hated men in life, it is Sarah's task to confront her in death. Soon Sarah is caught up in a desperate struggle. For Maddy's ghost is real, she's angry, and she has powers that defy all reason. Can Sarah and Alistair's assistant, the rough, unsettling Matthew Ryder, discover who Maddy was, where she came from, and what is driving her desire for vengeance-before she destroys them all?       Winner of two RITA Awards from the...

Silence for the Dead Author: Simone St. James Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal, Romance Publisher: Berkley Release Date: 2014 Pages: 386 Source: My State Public Library Synopsis:  “Portis House emerged from the fog as we approached, showing itself slowly as a long, low shadow....”      In 1919, Kitty Weekes, pretty, resourceful, and on the run, falsifies her background to obtain a nursing position at Portis House, a remote hospital for soldiers left shell-shocked by the horrors of the Great War. Hiding the shame of their mental instability in what was once a magnificent private estate, the patients suffer from nervous attacks and tormenting dreams. But something more is going on at Portis House—its plaster is crumbling, its plumbing makes eerie noises, and strange breaths of cold waft through the empty rooms. It’s known that the former occupants left abruptly, but where did they go? And why do the patients all seem to share the same nightmare, ...