The Broken Girls (25 in 2025 #24)

Author: Simone St. James  Title: The Broken Girls Publisher: Berkley Date Published: 03/20/2018

Read Dates: 12/02/2025- 12/03/2025
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Broken Girls is a multi POV, dual timeline thriller. It focuses mainly on Fiona in 2014, a reporter doing a story on the abandoned boarding school where her sister’s body was found 20 years ago, and also alternates between the POV of four students at the school in 1950. When a body is found during renovations, Fiona is determined to identify the victim and solve a 60 year old mystery, while possibly shedding light on her own sister’s death.

This was my first book by this author and I was hooked! I loved the slightly supernatural element to the story, the shifting POV’s and the dual timelines. I couldn’t put this one down.

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 suspicion that something was never right about the case.

When Fiona discovers that Idlewild Hall is being restored by an anonymous benefactor, she decides to write a story about it. But a shocking discovery during the renovations will link the loss of her sister to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past--and a voice that won't be silenced. . . .