Fast paced, exciting, and a fun read. Just when I think I knew what was going on, boom! It went somewhere else. Great character development, great story. Just really exciting, and I will definitely recommend it!

Ooh, this was a good one. Creepy, suspenseful, and...well, realistic, as far as this kind of book can be. I love that Ellery feels like a real person, and no, her life doesn't just go back to normal just because she's the one who gets away. I couldn't put this one down and can't wait to read the next!

Review copy provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ellery Hathaway survived an abduction when she was 14 years old. A serial killer had taken her on her birthday and she was rescued from the closet by FBI Agent Reed Markham who'd gone on to write a best selling book about the case. Now, years later, Ellery is working as a police officer in Woodbury, Massachusetts. No one there knows her past but then people start vanishing, exactly one year apart, right around her birthday. No one at work believes that these missing persons require much investigation nor do they agree that these are all connected and that a new killer might be working the area. Since she has no support from her Chief or fellow officers, Ellery contacts Reed Markham and asks him to come to Massachusetts to look at the files. Ellery knows that somehow this is connected to her and her past. NO SPOILERS.

This is the first in a series featuring the former kidnap victim turned policewoman Abigail Ellery Hathaway. She's an interesting protagonist with her history and her scars and I intend to get to know her better by reading the next books in the series. I liked the story and the writing style as it kept me engrossed enough to read it all in a single sitting. Even though I had it all figured out before the team, I still enjoyed the details of the police procedural.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for this e-book ARC to read, review and recommend. I appreciate that it was still available to download even though it was published in 2017 as I like to start at the beginning of a series and read the books in order. I have #2 and #3 queued up.

This novel was thrilling and enthralling! I could not put it down. The characters are believable and relatable. The minutia of small town law enforcement is enhanced by the enormity of the crimes being committed, more so because no one is convinced they are really occurring. I like the way the author portrays a victim and the aftermath of the horror she survived in its banality since it is probably as real as it would get. I enjoyed the different characters and the plot was interesting and well developed. The twist ending was excellent!

4 stars for a well done mystery set in a small Massachusetts town. The suspense builds up continuously and has a satisfying climax. Ellery Hathaway is a patrol officer in fictional Woodbury, Mass. She believes that there is a serial killer in town. However, although there are 3 missing persons, there are no bodies, so the police chief doesn't believe her. Ellery was abducted by a serial killer when she was 14. She now uses her middle name, instead of Abigail. No one knows about her past except her Mom and someone who sends her birthday cards. She hasn't told anyone in town her birthday. She believes the serial killer knows.
She calls Reed Markham, the FBI agent who rescued her, for help. This mystery was a enjoyable read. I finished it in 2 days. There are some gory parts. It is not a cozy mystery.
One quote:
"When at last he took the exit for Woodbury, it was if the forest rose up around the road, trees thick as a bear's fur, the sun rendered as a distant, filtered light."
Thanks to St. Martin's Press for sending me this book through NetGalley.

The Vanishing Season is a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The characters will get your mind turning as to why and how. You'll see a sick mind at work in this story.

I love that through NetGalley I am introduced to authors I have not read. I really enjoyed this fast-paced, page turning detective novel. Was it the best written? No. However, sometimes one needs a quick read. The "who done it" part was easy to determine but the author kept my interest. This is a good summer/by the pool book.

Hands down, this was the best mystery suspense books I've read in a long time. I'll definitely be looking for more from Joanna Schaffhausen!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I was hooked right from the start and couldn’t wait to get to the end. I really liked the character interaction and it had me guessing until the end. Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The Vanishing Season is the first book in a new mystery/thriller series by Joanna Schaffhausen. Originally published in 2017, this reformat and re-release from Macmillan on their Minotaur imprint it's 274 pages and available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

This is a well written and atmospheric thriller with a serial killer theme and a main protagonist who is an adult survivor of an abduction as a teenager. The plotting is tense and controlled and ramps up through the book to a satisfying (and admittedly somewhat surprising) denouement. The characters are clearly drawn, distinct, and believable. The dialogue is intelligent and never clunky.

I read this book alone in my house during a snow/hailstorm in the middle of the night and scared the pants off myself. It really is well written and parts are very creepy. The language is rough (R-rated), and there are potentially traumatic themes (obviously), abduction, body horror, murder, etc. I would recommend this series to fans of the gritty procedural serial killer genre. The author has a strong voice and a surprisingly sure command of plotting and tension elements in her writing for a debut novel. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

Four stars.

I really liked this book. It had a very interesting plot and well developed characters. The main characters were very sympathetic, especially Ellery. She had the right amount of strength and vulnerability. The identity of the killer really took my by surprise because I was expecting it to be someone attached to the police department. Overall, this was a great read.

The Vanishing Season is a fine first novel. You can see the synopsis elsewhere, so I won’t go into that.. The plot held my attention throughout and I read right through it. The book’s weak point was character development. The characters were sufficient to keep the thrilling plot moving along, but there weren’t many who were easy to connect with. I look forward to more by this author. She’s off to a good start.

Ellie has joined the law enforcement agency to try and find it what happened to her fourteen years ago. The man who rescued her is also still plagued by the case.
This story is very interesting and captivating. It is easy to get captured by the characters.it is a good “who done it “. I very much enjoyed reading this book.

THE VANISHING SEASON is the first crime/mystery book in the Ellery Hathaway Series by Joanna Schaffhausen.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press for granting my wish on NetGalley! This was a unique thriller that gripped me from the first page. This was an impressive debut!

Ellery Hathaway is the only survivor of a famous serial killer Francis Coben. At the time Ellery had been abducted by Cohen on her 14th birthday off the streets of Chicago and raped her and cut her, and then shoved her in a closet. Ellery had sat in a killer’s closet, and felt the claw marks in the wood, left by the girls who had already died.

Agent Reed Markham, a profiler with the Behavioral Sciences Unit of the FBI, found Ellery all those years ago, and saved her from serial killer Frances Coben, who now is in prison on death row.

Ellery Hathaway moves on with her life and is now living in Woodbury, Massachusetts as a police officer for the past four years. She keeps her past private and no one knows about her traumatic past. Ellery lives in a tiny farmhouse in the woods, and is greeted everyday by her basset hound, “Bump”. Love that dog!


When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday—the day she was kidnapped so long ago—Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer’s closet all those years ago.

Are these missing person's connected to Ellery and the serial killer Coben?

Agent Reed Markham had made his mark while working on the Coben case, even wrote a book, but lately his luck had run dry. His marriage was falling apart, his boss was not pleased with him after he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can’t turn her down, but their investigation will suck them right into a dangerous past.

The Vanishing Season is a fast-paced and suspenseful crime mystery thriller with strong main dynamic characters, that that I really enjoyed. Excellent debut novel and one I highly recommend!

Many thanks to St. Martins Press, Minotaur Books, and Netgalley for granting my wish!

Ellie and Reed
This story was intense!
It was intriguing.
It was a page turner.
It definitely kept me on the edge of my seat!
I give it 4.5 stars and a strong recommendation!

There are high ratings for this mystery-thriller by author Joanna Schaffhausen, and some of the book’s elements deserve those high marks. Unfortunately, there are other pieces that don’t quite fit and thus feel forced.

I am usually not a fan of protagonists in this genre who have a mental disability or issue, as the technique is overused. In “The Vanishing Season,” however, giving both Ellery and Reed separate events in their past allowed the author to develop each character while the ghosts of their past also defined their personalities and motives as the story unfolded. The author’s deft handling of their past problems kept the plot moving.

Other plot elements were not as smooth. I am not usually one who can guess who the killer is, but the clue dropped by the author was so ham-handed that a blind detective couldn’t have missed it. In the first seven chapters there are two information dumps that came out of nowhere, lasting for pages before the story got back on track. And while I was happy everything that happened during the climax was explained, the explanation was jarring. All of the above interrupted the flow and caused me to question the “reality” of the story.

There were also parts of the story that I felt were impressive. The relationship between Ellery and Reed progressed naturally and jumping inside both of their minds gives readers valuable insights. Ellery’s memories are powerful and when she relives the trauma of her past it is impossible not to feel the horror. These are definite five-star elements.

The negative aspects were never enough for me to consider discontinuing reading the book, although I felt the author missed chances to make this book much better. Three-and-a-half stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a complimentary electronic copy of this book.

The Vanishing Season is an interesting take on the final girl trope. It tells the tale of Ellery Hathaway who is the only survivor of a serial killer. Years after being rescued she is living life in a small town as a police officer, and no one has any knowledge of her traumatic past, or so she thought. This story mixes secrets with missing persons, murder and personal histories in a way that keeps you engaged until the end. While reading it I kept thinking of all the different characters the "big bad" could be, but then changing my mind right up until the end. If you like twisty murder mysteries then this is a book for you.

A nice thriller that had me alternately want to keep reading but freaked out to read some chapters late at night. I’m excited to see how the series continues in book 2.

14 years ago a young girl was abducted while out riding her bike. Someone saw her abducter. Flash forward to the present where 3 people have disappeared. Only one person seems concerned about the missing. That is the young girl who was abducted and is now a cop. When her fellow cops and supervisor do not believe something sinister is happening, she reaches out to the person who rescued her. FBI Agent Reed is on a forced leave of absence when Ellery, the young girl, contacts him for help. What ensues is a thrilling story that leaves you questioning who the new perpetrator is. Has the past come back to hunt Ellery? Does Ellery know more than she is saying? Will Agent Reed be able to save her again? The story strings a web of possibilities that has you guessing until the killer comes to light. I would highly recommend this book to those who like mysteries and whodunits. Looking forward to reading more about Ellery, Reed and Bump (the dog).
Thank-you the NetGalley and the publishers for providing me with a complimentary copy to read and review. (less)

This is the first time in reading anything from this author. Always on the search for more high drama mysteries of late this one caught my eye. Ellery in this right away catches my interest as she is also the one that drew me to the book. This town is a place I am familiar with but it is soon going to go through changes. Also there is Agent Reed whom has a history but now he is going to really have his hands full. The intrigue is deep so that it has you latched on so not a thing is missed or it could be dangerous. The title is so appropriate also you want to also know more. This is one that will not let go once you dig in along with these characters. Ellery now has a follower so when I come across her again I have to go where she leads.