The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

From Goodreads

Vowing to discover the fate of her missing cousin, a woman returns to her family’s Kansas estate where she spent one haunting summer as a teen, and where she discovered the dark heart of the Roanoke clan that left her no choice but to run.

Lane Roanoke is fifteen when she comes to live with her maternal grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, at the Roanoke family estate in rural Osage Flats, Kansas, following the suicide of her mother. Lane knows little of her mother’s family, other than the fact that her mother ran away years before and cut off all contact with her parents. Allegra, abandoned by her own mother at birth and raised by her grandparents, introduces Lane to small-town life and the benefits of being one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But there is darkness at the heart of the Roanoke family, and when Lane discovers its insidious pull she has no choice but to run, as far and as fast as she can.

Eleven years later, Lane is scraping by in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls with the news that Allegra has gone missing. “Come home,” he beckons. Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to Osage Flats, determined to find her cousin and assuage her own guilt at having left Allegra behind all those years ago. Her return might mean a second chance with Cooper, the boyfriend whom she loved and destroyed that fateful summer. But it also means facing the terrible secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.

As it weaves between the summer of Lane’s first arrival and the summer of her return, The Roanoke Girls shocks and tantalizes, twisting its way through revelation after mesmerizing revelation, exploring the secrets families keep and the fierce and terrible love that both binds them together and rips them apart.

My thoughts

My thanks to the Publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review. I gave this a 4 stars or 8/10.

Some things are taboo and off limits, they should stay that way too in my opinion. Sadly, some families don't always conform to the norm and deviate in their own way. Dark and disturbing are words that can be used to describe this story that tells us about the Roanoke family and the girls within it.

It's not an easy read and will affect some readers greatly. I found myself drawn in slowly, told in alternate chapters of the here and now, with the past we are drip fed the lives of Lane, Allegra and their grandparents. Lane is drawn back into the Roanoke fold when she finds out that Allegra has gone missing and she needs to find out where she is or what has happened to her.

This was a great debut novel by Amy Engel into the adult world of novel writing (previously a YA author), be prepared to feel a little uneasy at what you're reading when you grab yourself a copy of this. She neither sensationalises nor down plays the feelings surrounding this taboo. Looking forward to the next one with baited breath.