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It is official, Simone St James has become one of my fave authors, and this is the fifth book of hers that I’ve read this year. She definitely has a talent for creepy, spooky ghost stories and haunted houses and just that overall gothic storytelling. This is one of the Murder, Crime and Thriller group’s October reads, and shockingly, the one I voted for too! That doesn’t happen often for me.

The book summary basically lays out how the story started with honeymooners, Eddie and April, getting lost on some dark and creepy highway, the opposite direction of where they were going, where they pick up a bloody and beaten teenaged girl who is being chased by someone in a large truck, that is now coming after them. It gets pretty scary, but they’re able to get the teenager to the local hospital where she ends up dying. The teenager was a backpacker staying at the local beach were a lot of backpackers stay.

What the book summary doesn’t say is that April and Eddie had only know each other for a few months when they got married. They’re also keeping a lot of secrets, from each other as well as everyone else. After they are taken into custody and questioned about the dead backpacker, there are even secrets that they didn’t share with the cops (until later) about what else they saw when they picked up the backpacker. Atticus Lane, aka Murder Road, is a strip of highway that is very well known for a string of murders that have been occurring for nearly 20yrs. None of this is a spoiler since it’s basically how the story started.

After they were released, and in an effort to clear their name, as well as satisfy their curiosity of what else they saw, they start researching one particular murder, the first one from 1976. After meeting a pair of really odd sisters, Beatrice and Gracie, they start learning more about the girl and discover who she may be. Love Beatrice and Gracie! They’re kind of crazy and funny in a silly kind of way. FYI �� this is a ghost story with a malevolent and vengeful ghost. So if you’re one of those kinds of readers whose enjoyment of a story is contingent on the story’s level of believability, then this probably would not be a good story for you because this is a crazy story.

The character development for Eddie and April was well done throughout the story. Wish there was a little bit more on Rose and her dead husband, Robbie as well as the kooky sisters. The pacing was steady to fast and the storyline very interesting and kept me engaged from the get-go. The writing was classic St James with enough spooky and scary scenes to get the creeps. I also like the historical timeframes that St James bases her stories in, at least the ones I’ve read. This one was back in the 90’s in a small rural town in MI, so no one in the story had a cell phone and people still used pay phones. People still did research at the library with hard copy materials, so no Google. Anyway, I’m looking at an overall rating of 4.1 that I will be rounding down to a 4star review.