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Amy Engel

The Roanoke Girls: the addictive Richard & Judy thriller 2017, and the #1 ebook bestseller Hardcover – 14 March 2017

by Amy Engel (Author)

892 ratings

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'Dark and intense, with a compelling twist' L.S. Hilton, author of Maestra.

Beautiful.

Rich.

Mysterious.

Everyone wants to be a Roanoke girl.

But you won't when you know the truth.

Lane Roanoke is fifteen when she comes to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin at the Roanoke family's rural estate following the suicide of her mother. Over one long, hot summer, Lane experiences the benefits of being one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls.

But what she doesn't know is being a Roanoke girl carries a terrible legacy: either the girls run, or they die. For there is darkness at the heart of Roanoke, and when Lane discovers its insidious pull, she must make her choice...

The taboo-breaking thriller of the year, perfect for fans of Emma Cline's THE GIRLS.

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Product details

Publisher : Hodder & Stoughton; 1st edition (14 March 2017)
Language : English
Hardcover : 400 pages
ISBN-10 : 1473648378
ISBN-13 : 978-1473648371
Dimensions : 16 x 2.8 x 24 cm

Customer Reviews:
892 ratings

Product description

Review

A must-have (Sunday Express)

A provocative thriller (Telegraph)

A debt to Daphne du Maurier is evident throughout this remarkably assured adult debut (The Sunday Times)

Fans of The Girls will love this sweat-soaked, sultry, small town tale full of shadows and lurking dread. (Red Online)

Wonderfully told, both delicate and sinister... undoubtedly clever and memorable (Irish Independent)

'Deeply, darkly twisted. I loved it. A (vastly superior) Flowers in the Attic for a new generation' (Sarah Hilary (author of Someone Else's Skin ))

Twisted, controversial...SO compelling and beautifully written (Claire Douglas, Sunday Times bestselling author of Local Girl, Missing )

Packed with suspense and danger...this is a book that stays with you (The Lady)

Beautifully written and utterly captivating...and so so dark. I loved it! (Katerina Diamond, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Teacher)

'One of the best books I've read in a long time...Gripping, twisty, dark - what a page turner. One not to miss!' (Rebecca Done (author of This Secret We're Keeping ))

Book Description

Boundary-pushing and provocative, this is a novel about the twisted secrets families keep - and the fierce and terrible love that both binds them together and rips them apart.

5 star		53%
4 star		20%
3 star		16%
2 star		4%
1 star		7%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Victoria

Slow burn

Reviewed in Australia on 9 April 2020

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The book is described as a psychological thriller but it felt more like a slow burn. Some good writing in part but didn’t grab me as much as I thought it might.

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Shaz198

Heavy material

Reviewed in Australia on 14 September 2017

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A dark and twisted story that could be all too real in this day and age.
One very messed up family. The subject matter is not for the faint hearted...although not too graphic.
Kept me turning the pages.

One person found this helpful

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Stacey Clark

INCREDIBLE!

Reviewed in Australia on 20 February 2019

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I couldn’t stop reading! Absolutely brilliant. I remember watching ‘American Horror Story - Roanoke’ so I already had a pretty messed up feeling about the name and the place. This just added to it! Incredible!

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Kindle Customer

The best sickly twisted book i have read

Reviewed in Australia on 22 April 2017

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The story line in amazing. I love how the book is a constant flash back flash forward. You think you know everything you need to know towards the end but the ending ties it all together and leaves the icing on the cake. Would recommend this book to to people that love twisted story's

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Amazon Customer

WOW!!!

Reviewed in Australia on 31 May 2017

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Absolutely AMAZING book! Well written, easy to read, only took me 2 days!
I picked up the secret early but still couldn't put it down! Loved the 'then and now' chapters and each girls story.
WONDERFUL

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Ciclochick

Unsettling but compelling

Reviewed in Australia on 3 September 2017

Although all the plot threads were satisfactorily tied up by the end, for me, the book threw up a number of unanswered questions.

Lane returns to the wealthy Roanoke family home after her mother, Camilla, dies. It's where she spends a summer and where she discovers that beneath the have-it-all façade there lies a seriously dysfunctional family…one she has no desire to be part of. But when her closest ally, her cousin Allegra, goes missing eleven years later, Lane is forced to return.

The book is disturbing and aims to shock…the topic (sexual abuse and incest) is extremely unpleasant…but I became more irritated than shocked by the fact that not one of abusees…and let’s face it, charismatic Grandad ‘has’ just about every female member of the family whatever their ages or generation…reports it or tells anyone else…because Grandad loves them all, they’re all so special. That just didn’t wash with me.

However, despite the chilling and uneasy subject, it is without doubt compelling, riveting and extremely well written. I’ve never read any books by Engel, but her writing is powerful and emotional, and I really enjoyed her style.

Dark, unsettling, a little haunting, sad, twisted, but despite my few niggles, an intense page turner.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

A little dark and unsettling but intriguing

Reviewed in Australia on 24 March 2017

I must confess my interest waned a little early on in this book. I’m usually okay with unlikeable characters but for some reason a couple of the leads in this novel put me off from the get-go. Fortunately however, I hung in there…

There’s something unsettling about this book. I mean, readers are meant to be alarmed or surprised or even horrified at the secrets this family has been harbouring. Indeed, the happenings would be unbelievable if we didn’t see or hear of similar stories in the media from time to time.

Nevertheless… it will be a bit hard for a lot of readers to stomach.

I’m pretty hard to shock but found myself second-guessing the judgements I was making about some about the characters in the book and pondered my own feelings of their guilt, innocence and – I guess – vulnerability.

The book’s not as fast-paced as I’m accustomed to, but I found myself intrigued about Allegra’s fate, particularly given the history of the Roanoke girls and their predilection for running away or dying prematurely.

The narrative as it relates to Allegra’s disappearance is akin to a slow burn as Lane’s return unfolds in multiple timeframes and we learn more about her first arrival at Roanoke 10 years earlier, when she only stayed the summer and first met her cousin and grandparents. And Lane’s story is intermingled with short chapters about some of the other Roanoke girls… their lives, departures or deaths.

There’s something almost gothic about this book and its setting. Although it’s happening in the present (and recent past) it could be unfolding centuries ago, and Engel does a good job with the creepy and desolate setting of the family home and its surrounds – a metaphor for the way in which the Roanoke family itself suffused over the years.

3.5 stars

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

5 Mixed Up Stars

Reviewed in Australia on 20 July 2017

This book was a real train wreck but I loved it. It is not the usual kind of book that I read being a love story kind of girl but it was nice to step out and try something different . It had a little bit of everything. A thriller, a who did it with a bit of a dark and disturbing story line which may be a trigger for some people. If you are after a book that once you start you won't want to put down till the very end, this is the book for you

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Top reviews from other countries

Lipsquid

A disturbing and compelling story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 August 2017

Verified Purchase

This is a very tricky book to review without spoiling it so I'll try hard not to.

Lane moves to Roanoke house following her mothers suicide. She moves in with her grandfather, grandmother and cousin Allegra.

Having had no contact with them previously, she finds her grandmother aloof. But her grandfather and Allegra couldn't be more welcoming. For the first time in Lane's life she's found a home at Roanoke. She's loved and loves in return.

She then finds out a little about her family history. And Roanoke girls don't tend to last long...they either run away or die in sudden unexpected circumstances...

Years later after Lane herself has run away she is called back to Roanoke when Allegra goes missing. But she hasn't run, yet they can find no trace of her.

The truth is this book is incredibly dark, haunting and disturbing. Yet Engel writes in a way that compels you to keep reading.

Lane is incredibly flawed, and some parts of her appall you. However you can't help but feel for her. She has never had a normal familial setting and this has scarred her irreparably. She feels more comfortable with cruelty than kindness, which is in itself heartbreaking.

A well written, disturbing story that tackles some pretty horrendous subject matters. Yet I devoured it.

8 people found this helpful

Lucille Grant

Gripping family scandal

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 August 2017

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The Ranoake Girls is a gripping story about an American family in crisis. The reason for the crisis becomes apparent early on but the circumstances of a cover up over the generations, when one person could have stopped it at source, is truly shocking.

Lane Roanoke returns to her grandparents home when her cousin Allegra goes missing. Has she left of her own accord, has she committed suicide after learning she is pregnant or is there a more sinister reason for her disappearance? Lane sets out to find out and the narrative is interspersed with flashbacks of the first time she lived with her grandparents after her own mother's death.

The book is well written and compelling. But some people may find the content of this particular family secret too difficult to deal with. Many thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to read and review The Roanoke Girls.

11 people found this helpful

booksy

Not the dark, Gothic feast I expected

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 March 2017

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At times this novel is incredibly well written - at others (when describing Lane and Cooper's relationship) it veers somewhat into teen romance/bad erotic fiction territory. To be honest, this isn't the novel I thought it was going to be - for some reason, I expected a more Gothic vibe to it and I think opportunities were missed to bring Roanoke, as a house, to life more. I don't want to say too much about the novel (for fear of giving the plot away) but while the subject matter is dark and taboo, I didn't feel that the reality of it was dealt with as effectively as it might have been. Apart from Lane's mother, who'd clearly lead quite a disturbed life, there wasn't enough built up around Allegra's persona (perhaps because she and Lane only occupy one timeline together (when they were teens and Lane spent one summer at Roanoke) and when Lane was next there, a decade later, it was because Allegra had gone missing). I think, in order for this novel to have had more impact, the reader needed to get into Allegra's headspace more - and that never happened.

It's difficult to say much more without spoilers. I enjoyed the novel and the writing, but it just fell a teeny bit short for me - I sort of think if a writer's going to write about something dark, then make it properly dark and the whole vibe at Roanoke just wasn't sinister enough.

5 people found this helpful

Michelle

3 stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 September 2020

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This has two main time lines, and Then, Now plus various other one off time lines which to start with felt really confusing but eventually all the puzzle pieces came together.

As with most multiple time line plots I'm generally always more interested in one more than this rest and i was definitely more involved in the Then time line than the others.

It took me a while to get into this, I was almost at 30% before it got my attention and even then so much happens off page that the 'gripping thriller' tagline just fell flat for me. If a book is going to have a disturbing trope, like this one does, i want to see it, feel it, otherwise it washes over me and in a thriller I expect to see everything first hand in at least one of the time lines.

It was ok, its certainly not bad, it just could have been so much more.

Mary P

Dark, disturbing and compelling

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 August 2017

Verified Purchase

At just 15 years old, Lane Roanoke finds herself alone in New York following the suicide of her seriously depressed mother. She’s not had a great life so far – indeed Lane feels as if her mother didn’t really like her.

So when an NYC social worker tells her that she has grandparents in Kansas who want her to come and live with them she is astonished. Lane’s mother had always refused to talk about her family, so she really has no knowledge or history of them.

When she gets to Kansas, what she finds is the Roanoke mansion in Osage County where her grandparents Lillian and Yates Roanoke live with their other granddaughter, 16 year old Allegra.

Allegra is a bit of a kindred spirit, full of life and mischief, who loves nothing better than a bit of fun. Lane finds that there is significance in being a Roanoke in a poor town where the Roanokee’s can play the wealthy benefactors and for the first time in her life, Lane finds that she is loved, wanted and that she can buy whatever she likes.

Yet, when we first meet Lane, she is on her way back to Roanoke after a series of dead end jobs in Los Angeles. She doesn’t really want to go back, but her cousin Allegra is missing and she feels a deep sense of guilt for having left Allegra behind when she went. So when her grandparents call her back, she reluctantly returns.

Amy Engel beautifully intertwines the past and present Roanoke, with a 10 year gap between the two. So we learn how the two teenage girls grew up together and how Allegra was yearned after by the young and straightforwardly handsome Tommy, now the local policeman. Lane was attracted by the dark and sultry Cooper; a town bad boy destined to inherit his father’s car repair workshop.

It isn’t long into the novel before we learn that Roanoke has a dark and horrible secret. It is this secret that causes the Roanoke Girls either to run or to die.

Tommy isn’t having much luck finding Allegra, but Lane knows her better than anyone and she is tenacious about finding out what happened to her cousin, helped by that knowledge and the carvings that Allegra made whenever she was upset.

What makes this novel work so well is the strong focus on characterisation and the very clear atmosphere of repression, dust and depression and the secrets that hold this family together.

Oddly Yates Roanoke is the least fleshed out of these characters, even Lillian Roanoke comes across more clearly – in her case as a cold, bitter shrew – devoid of warmth or hope.

There’s no doubt that The Roanoke Girls is a well written, dark, disturbing and grippingly compelling novel. But for all that I was left uncomfortable about what it says about women and that unsettles me more than anything.

2 people found this helpful

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The Roanoke Girls: the addictive Richard & Judy thriller 2017, and the #1 ebook bestseller Hardcover – 14 March 2017

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