The first book that ever scared me, I mean genuinely, sleep-with-the-lights-on, blanket-over-the-head terrified me was The Shining. As problematic as Stephen King is proving himself to be on social media these days, it will always be my first haunted hotel story, my introduction to a subgenre I still find both pleasurably frightening and almost universally engaging.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James (Berkley) is a new personal yardstick against which I plan to measure all other haunted hotel/motel stories. It incorporates all of my favorite elements of the subgenre while also introducing novel elements such as time slips and reframing horror and haunting as generational trauma, heightening the tension and the terror.

Which elements? I’m glad you didn’t ask.

The Setting

It isn’t enough for a haunted hotel/motel story to take place in and around a temporary residence (abandoned hospitals and other high-traffic structures work as well). No, to be an effective setting for this type of tale, the hotel or motel needs to appear completely generic upon first glance. Old castles, fancier hotels, even suburban homes have quirks that make them stand out, that make them special, and cue characters from the beginning that something out of the ordinary is wont to occur.

The haunted hotel/motel story needs a place like the Sun Down: an isolated way station stuck in the 80s in which the only way to tell which room is yours is to check the number on the key fob. A place through which people pass without much thought because it’s convenient or in which it’s easy to hide.

You don’t go there because you want to make memories or enjoy the amenities; you stop because you’re too tired to drive any more and you see the neon sign from the freeway. You have to believe you’ll be there for one night in a room that contains no traces of the previous occupant and in which you’ll leave no trace. Only once you’re there – once you’re ensconced and moderately comfortable – does the true nature of the place show itself. And by then, it’s too late. You’re stuck and you have to solve the mystery to survive.

The Sun Down Motel earns extra points for being set in upstate New York since that’s where I grew up. There’s always a little extra thrill in thinking, even if only for an instant and only for fun, “That could have been me.”

The Hotel/Motel as a Character

Once it comes to life, the building itself morphs into an autonomous entity. It responds to its environment: sounds, lights, the presence of certain people. The ghosts come out as part of a conversation between the motel and the protagonist, sometimes as punishment (as in The Shining) and sometimes – as in the case of the Sun Down – as a warning to the young women working the night shift.

As the reader, you can imagine the sound of breathing behind events, the even inhalations and exhalations of the structure as it watches, waits, and finally strikes. Blood and gore don’t really get to me; suspense flips my delicious fear lever, and knowing the motel is going to do something but being forced to wait for it to happen is my favorite flavor of horror.

St. James knows exactly when to strike amid the ebb and flow of family history and active story, which is what makes The Sun Down Motel such a compelling read.

The Haunting is a Foregone Conclusion

One of the things I love most about this genre is its refusal to waste time mucking about with the protagonist’s suspension of disbelief. She may have to convince other characters that the supernatural elements of the story are legit, but she kicks the metaphorical tires, says, “Yup, haunted,” and forges ahead.

Skipping the hand wringing and faffing about leave more room for character development, plot, and the awesome creepy stuff I, for one, picked the book up for in the first place. The Sun Down Motel caught my attention specifically because no one, not even the skeptics, completely dismiss the idea of the place being haunted or that the murder investigation with which Viv (our 80s protagonist) has become obsessed might be connected to said haunting.

No one doubts modern-day protagonist Carly, who arrives to track down her missing aunt in 2017, when she claims doors open on their own; that a woman with bloody hands walks the balcony; or that a child, the same age as one who died in the pool, is cursed to walk the grounds until the mystery is solved.

Haunting as a Metaphor for Generational Trauma

Sometimes, a haunting is just a haunting, and I love those stories. Sometimes, there’s more to it. Why, for instance, does Carly feel compelled to follow Viv to the Sun Down? Why is she so desperate to discover what happened to an aunt she never met and that her mother refused to talk about? Why did both women run to the same place after suffering a loss? Why do the ghosts respond to both Carly and Viv? The motel?

Because they share something. A sense of being cut off from their family. A feeling that they’ve never really belonged. They are both haunted, literally and figuratively, in shared ways. In ways no one was able, or cared, to fix. St. James reveals this slowly, however, parceling it out with each new discovery in Viv’s investigation of murdered women and in Carly’s investigation of Viv, trusting the reader to make the connections and solve a mystery of their own.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James is available now from Berkley, as is her 2018 novel The Broken Girls.