Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman

Arcadia Falls
Author:  Carol Goodman
Publisher:  Ballantine Books
Publication Date:  March 9, 2010

From Goodreads: 

Meg Rosenthal is driving toward the next chapter in her life. Winding along a wooded roadway, her car moves through a dense forest setting not unlike one in the bedtime stories Meg used to read to her daughter, Sally. But the girl riding beside Meg is a teenager now, and has exchanged the land of make-believe for an iPod and some personal space. Too much space, it seems, as the chasm between them has grown since the sudden, unexpected death of Meg’s husband.



Dire financial straits and a desire for a fresh start take Meg and Sally from a comfortable life on Long Island to a tucked-away hamlet in upstate New York: Arcadia Falls, where Meg has accepted a teaching position at a boarding school. The creaky, neglected cottage Meg and Sally are to call home feels like an ill portent of things to come, but Meg is determined to make the best of it—and to make a good impression on the school’s dean, the diminutive, elegant Ivy St. Clare.


St. Claire, however, is distracted by a shocking crisis: During Arcadia’s First Night bonfire, one of Meg’s folklore students, Isabel Cheney, plunges to her death in a campus gorge. Sheriff Callum Reade finds Isabel’s death suspicious, but then, he is a man with secrets and a dark past himself.


Meg is unnerved by Reade’s interest in the girl’s death, and as long-buried secrets emerge, she must face down her own demons and the danger threatening to envelop Sally. As the past clings tight to the present, the shadows, as if in a terrifying fairy tale, grow longer and deadlier.

In Arcadia Falls, award-winning author Carol Goodman deftly weaves a mesmerizing narrative of passion: for revenge, for art, for love.



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I'm a big fan of Carol Goodman, so I was really excited to get to read Arcadia Falls.  Like most of Ms. Goodman's books,  Arcada Falls take place at a boarding school. I am not at all surprised how quickly I fell into the story.

Meg just lost her husband,  she decides the best option for both her and her daughter is to take a teaching position at a boarding school in Arcadia Falls.  Meg quickly notices something isn't quite right at the school.  Wierd rituals, and a mysterious death of a student has Meg wondering what is going on at Arcadia.  She realizes the rituals, and wierdness somehow link back to the past of Arcadia, and the founding members of the boarding school.

I really enjoyed how things started coming to light.  The plot is interesting, and keeps you reading to find out what happens in present Arcadia, and past Arcadia.  The pagan rituals are eery, and the students are very strange.  The story goes back and forth between what is happening in the now, and what was happening in the then at Arcadia.  We are learning about the past through a journal of one of the artist who helped start the boarding school.  

Arcadia Falls is a great gothic mystery.  Carol Goodman is one of my go to authors.  She has yet to fail me.

Book recieved from Crazy Book Tours for review