The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

When journalist Fiona Sheridan hears that the deserted Idlewild Hall is being renovated and will be reopened, she is appalled.  Everyone in town has always avoided the place and it has been closed since the 1950's.  Fiona has a personal reason for avoiding it.  Her only sister had been found murdered on its grounds twenty years ago, the death that tore apart her family and that has kept her from moving on in her personal life.

Back in the fifties, four roommates bonded together to survive Idlewild Hall.  Known as a boarding school for problem girls, there was little about learning that defined the place.  It was all about rules and punishments.  Of the four, Katie Winthrop was the clear leader.  She had been sent there after an incident with a boy left her bruised and bloody, her parents blaming her.  Cece was the illegitimate daughter of a rich man whose maid mother tried to drown her in shame.  Sylvia was a French refugee from World War II and the horrors that visited France.  Roberta was the closest to normal, a girl with good grades and athletic talent.  But she had viewed up close and personal the effects of PTSD on her favorite uncle and it had broken her.  Together they managed to survive and even thrive in a place where everyone believed the ghost of an unhappy girl stalked the halls.

Fiona is determined to use this renovation to finally find the truth about what happened the night her sister died and was left there.  She does this over the objections of her boyfriend, Jaime, a local police officer, son of the former chief.  The first day she visits the place with the son of the new owner, workmen find a body down in an abandoned well.  It appears to have been there for fifty years or more.  How does this body tie in with the school and with Fiona's sister?  Can she find the answers before the evil manages to find her?

Simone St. James writes in the paranormal realm with novels that are both gothic and mystery.  Her work has won awards such as the RITA Award from the romance genre and the Arthur Ellis Award from Canadian mystery writers.  Her forte is the deft characterizations she creates; strong women who manage to thrive in horrendous situations.  In this novel, the transition between the 1950's, the 1990's and present day are handled efficiently.  This book is recommended for readers of paranormal mysteries.