This is how it was as to the setup of this story: a creepy motel with a spooky tower, a gruesome murder, a cursed family, and the memories of three women who were friends once.

The story is weird and convoluted but well-written nevertheless, and its narration goes back and forth in time. Anything with horror mixed with the supernatural is not my favorite kind of reading, but I found the suspense in this story to be pretty good.

One of the things I noticed is that this book has triangle patterns. Jason, Amy, Margot triangle; Amy, Margot, Piper triangle; Sylvie, Rose, and Lou triangle. As to the setting in time, the storytelling goes back and forth in three different times. 1955-60s of Slater sisters Sylvie and Rose’s time, the year 1989 with Rose’s daughter Amy’s friendship with Piper and Margot, and 2013 with the gruesome murder of Amy and her family and the demise of the motel.

The setting as to the place is in London, Vermont, in a motel with 28 units for guests and the replica of the Tower of London. The motel, once a lively business, has gone to ruin with the construction of a highway that isn’t anywhere near it.

At the beginning of the story in 2013, the police are called to the Tower Motel where a gruesome murder has occurred involving Amy and her whole family. It is thought that it was a murder-suicide committed by Amy. Her old and estranged friends Margot and Piper, however, believe in Amy’s innocence.

Amy was found with a photo and a cryptic message in her hand saying room 29. Margot and Piper know what room 29 is but do not talk about it to anyone for when, together with Amy as teens, they had discovered its existence. Even Margot’s husband Detective Jason Hawke who was in love with Amy once and still is obsessed with her is not told.

As Margot and Piper investigate the grisly deathly, the real story of Amy’s cursed family is evidenced. The curse has to do with shapeshifting and it shows up by skipping a generation. I would have liked why, how, and when this family's curse was cast upon them, but that was left open.

As to the ending, I found it titillating but without much literary sense, although the entire story certainly has entertainment value and possibly would succeed as a dark Hollywood yarn.

Although the storytelling and the plot construction are good, I had a like/dislike relationship with this book. As much as I appreciated its elements and the suspense, the spooky or weird factor was not presented or explained well to my liking since a metaphor or a decent reason wasn’t attached to it.

Sylvie's letters to Alfred Hitchcock.

the unexplained things and the dark side of the story presented as being just dark without a lesson or a metaphor.

silly for having read the book to its end.

is Jennifer MacMahon, an Irish writer and journalist.

Read at your own risk. The story is well-told and it succeeds as a thriller, by grabbing the reader's curiosity, but it is convoluted and from my point of view much of its weirdness and dark factors are not explained well.

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Created Jun 23, 2019 at 5:34pm • Submit your own review...