A Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. James

e-ALC, 10:18:00
Narrated by: Anna Caputo, Saskia Maarleveld, & Ari Fliakos
Release Date: January 20, 2026
Published by: Books on Tape
Read from: January 21-22, 2026
Stand-alone 
Source: PRH Audio App (I received this ALC free from the publisher and their App. This did nothing to influence my review!)
Content Warning: Child Death, Grief, Violence, Suicide, Murder. Mental illness spirals, Death of a Parent, Alcoholism & Drug Abuse
For Readers Interested In: Adult, Audio, Horror, Sparkly Covers, Romance, Thrillers

    Siblings return to the house they fled eighteen years before, called back by the ghost of their long-missing brother and his haunting request to come home.
     Strange things happen in Fell, New York: A mysterious drowning at the town’s roadside motel. The unexplained death of a young girl whose body is left by the railroad tracks. For Violet, Vail, and Dodie Esmie the final straw was their little brother’s shocking disappearance, which started as a normal game of hide-and-seek.
     As their parents grew increasingly distant, the sisters were each haunted by visions and frightening events, leading them to leave town and never look back. Violet still sees dead people—spirits who remind her of Sister, the menacing presence that terrorized her for years. Now after nearly two decades it’s time for a homecoming—because Ben is back, and he’s ready to lead them to the answers they’ve longed for and long feared.

*MY THOUGHTS*

This was one of the weirdest books I’ve read in a long time. Because like why is it that there’s no climax to this story? It was just there and then it was over. But still St. James is an author I gotta read, so I took the chance to read it anyways.

Ok so the first things first. I just didn’t get what the point of this story was. There was no climax. They went to this house, they tried to find all of these things, and then the book was over. I was so confused because I didin’ t think it was a sequel, but it was written like it was a second book in the series and it was was just being used as a filler. And like, I’m sorry, but this whole thing is about a ghost and a haunted house, and learning more about the town. It just got boring.

Learning about the town was one of my favorite parts. i love to find connections and things like that in books, and even without reading a lot of them I recognized some things like the motel. It made me want to go back and read those, which is funny because the plot and everything else about this didn’t.

My other favorite part was learning all the things they could do. They all had their thing and I was impressed with all of them because couldn’t be me. I would NOT be doing that lol But as far as their little brother, I had already guessed what it was all about, so there wasn’t anything that just surprised or stood out to me. Them coming back and having to live through all of that again seemed like torture. But even with them coming back and finding out what happened to their brother, that’s all that happened. I thought I had skipped a chapter or something that explained it, but nope.

This was a weird one. I think there were too many people with too many POVs. It confused me and confused the rest of the story. With so many POVs being told we never get the full story or a full background from the main characters. And it cost this one for me. Luckily, the ghosts and the small bits from the other stories made up for it. They kept me interested enough in the other books to stay in this one. I hope this one helps others feel the same.

Overall, I give this