Title: The Roanoke Girls
Author: Amy Engel
Publisher: Crown Publishing
Publication Date: March 7, 2017
Pages: 279
About the Book
A gripping, provocative thriller about the twisted secrets families keep, perfect for fans of The Girls.
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...
My Rating
🔍🔍🔍🔍 out of Five
My Review
The Roanoke Girls,a standalone dark suspenseful thriller, is my first Amy Engel book. Fifteen year old Lane comes to live with her grandparents, the Roanoke’s, after the suicide of her mother. She had never met her grandparents or her cousin Allegra who was six months younger. All Lane knew about her mother’s family was her mother had ran away and wanted nothing to do with them. Because Lane’s mother had difficulty showing love to their relationship was not good.
The story takes place in Osage Flats, Kansas mainly over one summer. Once Lane arrives there the book goes back and forth in time (then and now). The book was mostly told in first person point of view of Lane but some chapters explained the back stories of other Roanoke Girls. The writing style flowed easily and kept me interested throughout. I don’t want to share too much other than the subject matter is disturbing. What a sick messed up family!! It’s pretty unreal how everyone involved just acts like everything is normal. Reading it made me sick and angry but I couldn’t stop.
I loved the relationship and dialog between cousins Lane and Allegra. When some of the secrets are revealed to Lane, Allegra tries to explain and rationalize what is going on. She obviously had been brain-washed since she had lived there all her life. Reading a book like this gave me kind of a weird feeling…like I was reading a secret diary that I shouldn’t be. All the characters were flawed but I felt especially sad for Lane who had never known love from her mother and when she shows up at her grandparent’s home she has a small hope that things will change. This is definitely not a happy pick-me-up kind of book but rather dark and disturbing.
🔍🔍🔍🔍 out of 5 ! I recommend to those who love to read about dark and disturbing family secrets. Thank you to Amy Engel, Crown Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book to review.
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