This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I thought that this book was fantastic! I actually have looked at this book several times since its release and didn't pick it up sooner because I wasn't sure that I would like it. I had nothing to worry about. This story is disturbing and made me very uncomfortable but I loved it. Once I started reading this book, there was no stopping and I ended up reading it in a day.

As I said, this book tells a rather disturbing story. In some ways, it was like a train wreck that you know you shouldn't look at but you can't help yourself. This book deals with sexual abuse and could be difficult for some readers. I went through a wide range of emotions while reading this book. There were parts that made me mad, others that made me want to cry, some parts gave me hope, and some parts just made my skin crawl.

Lane goes to live with her grandparents after her mother's suicide. She has never met her Gran and Granddad, not to mention her cousin, Allegra. Allegra and Lane bond right away and become quite the pair. They spend almost all of their time together either in town with Tommy and Cooper or on the farm. Years later, Lane is called back to the farm because her cousin is missing. Lane works to figure out exactly what happened and where Allegra is.

This story is told through two timelines. One timeline follows Lane and Allegra as teenagers when Lane first comes to live at the farm. The other timeline is set in the present with Lane back at the farm to look for her lost cousin. These two timelines worked perfectly together. Information from the past that would be needed to fully explain the present seemed to be worked in at just the right moment. There were also a few passages from the other Roanoke girls which gave a lot of insight as to the history of the family.

I would highly recommend this book to others. This is the kind of story that will stay with me for a long time. I really appreciated that the book ended on a hopeful note with all questions being answered. This is the time that I have had the chance to read Amy Engel's work and I am looking forward to reading more of her novels in the future.

I received a review copy of this book from Random House via Blogging for Books.

Initial Thoughts
Honestly, this was great! It was disturbing and uncomfortable but I never wanted to put it down. I wanted the Roanoke Girls to be okay and hated everyone who threatened that. There were a few surprises and a lot of heartbreaking moments. I love that the book ended on a hopeful note.

Nothing to do with Roanoke, the lost colony in North Carolina like I thought (Roanoke is simply the family's last name) but it's a decent contemporary mystery. There are things that bothered me but not the things you'd think. It wasn't the drama that some people found too disturbing. I can and have dealt with worse. It was certain scenes that were blatantly misleading the story to a fantasy direction. I'm not usually a reviewer so I'm not gonna detail my issues 'cause I'm lazy. I'm mostly bothered about the name. I'm originally from N.C. so I got excited thinking I was gonna read about the lost colony. I was mad when I first finished reading but now I'm not 'cause it's not that bad which is why I edited this review. No hate, but no love. I just expected a fantasy-ish novel about the real lost colony. Maybe that's my fault for not researching the book too much, maybe it's the author's for borrowing that name and hinting within the book about magical feelings when there is no magic whatsoever in this book. Just shitty people and manipulation.

basically: meh.

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

I snagged a copy of this one when it was a read it now for the first 100 members. It promised some of my favourite tropes in novels – rich family, idyllic setting, dark twisty secrets.  This book has one of those annoying boats in the title tag line saying the most dark twisty shocking plot! However, this one did deliver on the dark twist.

 

My biggest issue with this (side from the really nauseating disturbingness of the plot twists) is that it was predictable. I’d guessed the Roanoke family secrets almost immediately. Anyone who’s ever seen Law and Order: Special Victims Unit could probably guess what’s going on here. I also guessed correctly who the killer was.

 

That being said, there was something utterly compelling about the story telling. I really liked Lane, the main character. Told in a then and now format, what happened when Lane was a teenager and went to live with the Roanokes after her mother committed suicide. Her grandparents and her cousin the same age as her Allegra. And the now chapters of what happens when Lane goes back as an adult after Allegra disappears.

 

Lane was by no mean a good, nice person. Not as a teen, nor as an adult. She was a flat out bitch, she was blunt and cold and didn’t even bother to hide the fact that sometimes it was easier to be cruel than to be kind. Despite her personality flaws, she made a very interesting character, and I kind of loved her. While her cousin Allegra was your typical spoilt rich girl. She could manipulate people easily, and wrap boys around her finger. She could convince you to do anything, regardless of consequences. She had a certain charisma about herself, despite the fact Allegra could be stroppy selfish and childish. She tells Lane about the sordid history of the Roanoke girls before them. All the girls in their family line - including both their mothers  - all got pregnant young and either ran away or committed suicide.

 

The Roanoke household is a big mansion and a farm run by its patriarch Yates Roanoke Lane and Allegra’s grandfather. He has an old world charm about him. Firm when needed without being overbearing, yet very witty, charming and always with a kind word and encouragement, while grandma is your typical blue blood grandma. Beautiful but cold and kind of passive.

 

In the summer in their teens Lane learns about farm life and meets Allegra’s current boyfriend Tommy, and his best friend Cooper. Tommy is your average small town good boy from a nice family while Cooper is the good looking dude with the shady family and bad history, he and Lane hit it off immediately and begin a relationship, more hooking up when they can than anything else.  

 

When Lane comes back to town as an adult she reconnects with Tommy, now married and a police office and Cooper, now a mechanic. The Roanoke house is still the same as it was when Lane ran away in her teens. With one exception. Allegra is gone. Lane searches for answers to what happened to her. Flipping back and forth between what happened that summer when she arrived and her investigation on return.

 

Also flittered into the novel is chapters on various Roanoke women and what happened to them either when they ran or when they died.

 

The writing is top notch, even though none of the characters are particularly likeable. The story telling makes you want to know what’s going on, what happened back in that summer, why did Lane run away, what did she learn about the Roanoke secrets. And when she comes back what happened to Allegra. Did she finally leave – was she murdered? What happened? It’s twisty and very disturbing in parts. The answers to the Roanoke secrets are actually in the text if you look between the lines. And it is sick. It’s stomach wrenching and utterly utterly wrong in very way possible.

 

It’s a pretty fucked up book but it’s excellently written.

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the review copy.

So, a while back I promised myself I wouldn't succumb to the £0.99 temptation and I would only buy reduced books if they were on my tbr. Well, I was doing really well until...I had a bad week. Let's face it, other people buy shoes and handbags when they feel they need a boost but we buy books. Not that I need them, my physical bookshelves are full to bursting - I have had to start storing books in a (dangerous) third row as two deep just doesn't hack it - my kindle is full of freebies and deals I never will read and even my kobo, which I swore faithfully to myself would mainly be used to borrow books from overdrive, is slowly filling up with unread (but very good and mostly cheap) books. What can I say? I stand up now and confess:

"My name is Julie, I'm a bookaholic" (but I can stop anytime I like, it's just I have these books reserved at the library...)

 

Edit: I might as well go the whole hog and buy two more. I've added Carrion Comfort and Black Hills to my Kobo, I like Dan Simmons and I've wanted to read them for a while, I'm ruined anyway.

 

Oh dear, I'm depressed now, I wonder what's on offer at Amazon...

Eleven years ago Lane Roanoke ran away from her grandparents house in Osage Flats and vowed never to return. But then her cousin Allegra goes missing and she is drawn back to the house she spent a long hot summer in. What has happened to Allegra? And why do all of the Roanoke girls either run away or die?

 

A few people who saw me reading this book commented on the beautiful cover. In this case this book is the embodiment of the adage ‘Don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ for it’s beautiful frontage conceals a dark tale.

 

I had been warned before I read this book that it would be traumatic and disturbing. Being the person I am I therefore started to guess at what the story could be about. I had therefore already drawn my own conclusions before I started to read. Once I did pick the book up my thoughts were confirmed. It was at this point I put the book down for a while. Not because I found the story too traumatic. Mainly it was because I was a little disappointed that I had been proved right, contrary person that I am. I think I was hoping for something to surprise me, to shock me and because I had anticipated it, the shocking reveal fell flat. (Now this storyline is revealed early in the book for it makes up most of the narrative. I’m not going to spoil it for you and reveal it here, there are no doubt other reviews that will tell all if you want to find out before reading.) So I let the book sit for a while, read another book but then decided to pick this one up again. And I’m glad I did.

 

None of the characters are particularly likeable, with perhaps the exception of Cooper and Tommy. All have their own secrets to keep, things in their history that have shaped them today. Lane is the outcome of her upbringing, raised by a mother who showed no love, looking after herself from the age of 16, all the distrust and betrayal shaping her into a woman who is outwardly tough, but still lost on the inside. Cooper, subject to his own traumatic childhood, has emerged a more resilient man, determined to not become his father, something that drives him every day. The other characters are all well drawn, and I wouldn’t want to spoil it by describing them here for you. They all have secrets that have shaped their lives, which have impacted on others and which have far reaching ramifications for themselves and others.

 

The town of Osage Flats and the house of Roanoke are also characters, the small town almost aiding in the disappearance of Allegra and the other Roanoke Girls, allowing the secrets to be kept, to not be questioned. The weather is oppressively hot, stifling the will of the residents. The saying goes that only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. Perhaps it should be amended to include the Roanokes too.

 

It has been said that this book is a marmite book – you’ll either love it or hate it. I like to be different and whilst I didn’t love the book, I didn’t hate it either. It’s hard to say that you can ‘enjoy’ a book with this subject but in the sense that it was an entertaining, readable book, I did enjoy it. I enjoyed reading about the present day Lane, and seeing how her relationship with Cooper, the boy she left behind, developed. The storyline of what happened to Allegra is almost a side story, something to tie up the story of 16 year old Lane and the Lane who returns to Roanoke 11 years later.

 

It is a story about the secrets we keep and the secrets we share, of how selfish acts can destroy but also how they can save, of the toxicity that love can bring but also of the freedom it can also deliver.