Join a book club that is reading The Sun Down Motel!

No Clue Mystery Book Club

Welcome to the No Clue Mystery Book Club.

We are an online club in the Euro time zone looking for a good read, a good discussion, and a good time!


Everything mystery and mystery adjacent is welcome:

Mystery Thriller? Let's do it.

Mystery Horror? Bring it on.

Historical Mystery? Why certainly, sir.

Mystery Sci-fi? Beam me up.

Classic Whodunit? It was us in the club with the book!


Each month one member will propose a few books and all members can vote on what they want to read. Meetings are held on the last Thursday of the month via Zoom and forum discussion is always welcome. Looking forward to reading with you!

Books, Brains & Brews

We read, we laugh, we occasionally spill tea… Literally and figuratively.

The Sun Down Motel

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

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 in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

BUY THE BOOK

Published Oct 20, 2020

352 pages

Average rating: 7.62

544 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

thenextgoodbook
Sep 04, 2025
6/10 stars
thenextgoodbook.com
The Sound Down Motel by Simone St. James
326 pages

What’s it about?
This ghost story/mystery flips back in time from the 1980's to present day. 20-year-old Viv Delaney shows up in Fell, New York and takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel. A short time later Viv disappears with no trace. Her niece Carly comes back to Fell in 2017 to try to figure out what happened. Ghosts, murders, and a creepy hotel are the backdrop to this murder mystery.

What did it make me think about?
This was a plot driven mystery. No thinking required. Just turn the pages.

Should I read it?
This started out slow for me. Very implausible, lots of ghosts- but I kept at it and the plot picked up. If you suspend your disbelief and hold on this book turns into a satisfying murder mystery.

Quote-
"Night people were not the same as day people. The good people of Fell, whoever they were, were sound asleep at three a.m. Those people never saw the people Viv saw: the cheating couples having affairs, the truckers strung out on whatever they took to stay awake, the women with blackened eyes who checked out at 5 a.m. to futilely go home again."

If you liked this try-
My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh
The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
The Kept by James Scott
Sandiejo20
Apr 26, 2022
9/10 stars
LOVED THIS BOOK! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I loved the POV chnage chapter by chapter and the parallelism. Ending was a little predictable BUT there were a few surprised throughout and a few holes in the story, but absolutely loved it. Read it in two days.
literarily_occupied
Aug 12, 2025
9/10 stars
⭐⭐⭐⭐
JaneRose0514
May 02, 2025
10/10 stars
Following a young woman who travels to Fell, New York in pursuit of the truth about her aunt's mysterious disappearance in the same town, The Sun Down Motel will entrance with a rich sense of place, 80's nostalgia, and an utterly gripping - and genuinely creepy - mystery.

I love a good scary mystery, and The Sun Down Motel had all the elements to make it perfect. I loved the Gothic atmosphere, the theme of women coming together to get justice for other women, and the excellent momentum of the pacing.

It was great, mysterious, and also scary. I like the writing of the book and also the cover:)
wardbunch
Mar 26, 2025
4/10 stars
Unrealistic and sappy. Fun for a summer or October read, but no real literary value.

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