Lane Roanoke is only 15 when her mother kills herself, and Lane must go live with relatives she never knew she had, in a small town in Kansas. Cousin Allegra is six months her junior, vibrant and mercurial, with the same dark hair and willowy frame as Lane; grandparents Lillian and Yates welcome her into their home as one of their own. There she sees a wall of pictures of the "Roanoke Girls," aunts and cousins and even Lane's own mother, preserved through time in aging photos hung in the big farmhouse. Allegra is quick to inform Lane about the dark side of the wall: all of the women are gone. "Roanoke girls never last long around here," she tells Lane. "In the end, we either run or we die."

This proves true for Lane, who stays only a short time at Roanoke before fleeing, leaving Allegra behind. Eleven years later, she's drawn back to the farm when her grandfather calls to tell her Allegra has gone missing. From this strange and twisted set-up, The Roanoke Girls shifts backward and forward in time, alternating between tales of Lane's teenage summer in Roanoke and her re-entry into her family's insular and disturbing world as an adult. As the story of the Roanokes unfolds, their many, many secrets are slowly revealed.

Though Amy Engel's novel is dark, it is not overly bleak. Its sense of humanity elevates The Roanoke Girls beyond mere mystery, mere suspense, mere story of dysfunction, morphing into a compelling story of psychological suspense that is relentless.

I am currently clearing out my shelf for older titles that I either DNF'ed or didn't have time to review. Unfortunately, this title falls under one of those categories.
If my memory serves, I read most of The Roanoke Girls before life got in the way and I didn't pick it back up after that. Up until I stopped reading (about 60% of the way through), it was an engaging and satisfying read that I would recommend for people who like thrillers and have a higher tolerance for some sensitive topics related to sexual assault.
I hope to pick this book up at some point, but I would like to thank you for providing me the opportunity to read this book, even if I wasn't able to finish it.

I am kind of upset with myself......how can I be rating such a dark and disturbing story so highly? The only way I can explain and justify enjoying this book as much as I did is that this tragic story sucked me right in on page one

I was captivated, enthralled, horrified, and utterly delighted by this book the entire time! I'm a sucker for a good twisty, small-town mystery and a dark, Southern Gothic style, and The Roanoke Girls delivered on all fronts. It hooked into me and didn't let go for a very long time.

Twisted and dark - the perfect combination weaved into this psychological suspense/thriller. The characters and storytelling are brilliant. Maybe not be a good story for anyone who is easily triggered by abusive situations, though. I will be cautiously recommending this to readers I know.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this one. I think I want to try to revisit it at a later date because I only got through half of it. The description of the book makes it sounds like something that would be right up my alley. It may have just been the writing style that didn't work for me.

Hard to admit I "really liked" such a messed up story, but it was so twisted and well written. Even with all of the sickening actions/behaviors, I remained fully engrossed and invested in the characters.

First off, I will say that this review will come with a serious TRIGGER WARNING for many reasons, just a few I will name here: suicide, pedophilia, incest, etc. Do not go starting this book thinking it's a run of the mill thriller about a missing girl, because it is not.

In Kansas, there is a house where the girls born there, Roanokes, never seem to leave...or if they do, they don't last long. Lane is the daughter of one of those Roanoke Girls, and though she was raised far away from Kansas, she is forced to go back there after her mother kills herself. Lane joins her cousin Allegra, who was raised in the house by their grandparents, and another orphan.

This book tells the story of one life changing summer in the lives of teenage Allegra and Lane, but also, the current tale of how Lane must go back to the Roanoke House after ten years because Allegra has gone missing. Secrets will be found out, and horrors hidden far too long will come to light even as Lane feels the pull of the house she thought she had escaped on her once again.

I do not want to give away the main "secret" of the plot, but I will say that it's not really that much of a secret since it's kind of blurted out around 20 % into the book. Once this comes out, it didn't take much for me to imagine the rest of the storyline, and as I finished the book, I was right on nearly every prediction I made about what would happen.

Lane is not a particularly likable main character. Even she knows that she's not a good person, but she goes out of her way to expose her flaws and make herself seem worse than she really is, even as a teenager. For someone who has so much self introspection throughout the novel, she truly does have no sense of how to make herself stop doing the self destructive things that she does.

The other characters in the book weren't much better. Allegra strings along a guy who's madly in love with her until she can't have him anymore; only then does she want him. Everyone else in Roanoke House turns a blind eye to what is happening right in front of their faces, and ultimately I cannot say there was one single person in this book that I liked.

The other main issue that affected my rating of the book is that it's beyond the scope of believable, unless there are these types of stories somewhere out there and I've been living under a rock and not heard them. I cannot believe that THREE different generations of women could be so deeply affected by the same man. I also cannot believe that the people who were not part of the family could accept what was going on.

I'm not sure who I would recommend this book for; but if you decide to give it a shot just know that you're going into a novel that tries hard to be dark and twisty, but ultimately I just found gross and predictable.

I wasn’t a huge fan. Hard to follow....mainly skinmed until I got to the end.

I gave this book three out of five stars. While the premise of the book was interesting and it kept me reading, it isn't a book I would recommend. The "twist" is fairly easy to figure out, and for a thriller it wasn't very exciting. There were also quite a few descriptive sex scenes in the book, that didn't really add anything to the story.

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.

4 out of 5 stars! 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.

I liked this book very much. It's a very modern take on Southern Gothic, with well-drawn characters that are only opaque where they need to be, if that makes sense, and tons of small-town farmland atmosphere. Also, it includes tropes that I personally tend to really like in the genre, and they're used rather well.

I appreciate the careful use of flashbacks. The "Then" sections help to explain the "Now," and the extra bits fill in some missing details, but never rely on cheap twists. We more or less know what's happened and what is happening (with the obvious exception of the central "missing person" mystery), so its mostly the depth of the characters that is slowly unfolding. A neat trick. The writing and structure are more technically elegant than what one might initially think from the first couple of chapters.

It's rather easy to play armchair psychologist with these characters, but that does not make it any less satisfying to do so. There was not a lot of character growth or revelation in this book; these folks are rather laid-all-out-on-the-table from Page One. That's not to say this isn't a character-driven book, though! It's only that the thrust lies not in growth and change but in depth, and in an exploration of what psychological damage and abuse can do. One really roots for the MC, Lane, despite OR perhaps because of how damaged she is. One really hates the creepy yet charismatic Yates. One is both drawn to admire and to pity Allegra. One thinks Cooper is a pretty awesome dude.

There are only two things that keep this from being a "perfect" 5-star read for me. One is that the ultimate resolution of the "missing person" mystery, following a few decent red herrings, relies on a plot-point that... does not actually make sense, unless there's some PSYCHIC POWERS being added to the mix. Which, um, no. This is not that kind of book. It's difficult not to have spoilers here, but let's just say, none of these characters is built up by the narrative to have had any precognitive "I know who killed me" moments, and yet a moment like that is pretty much the pivot point for the reveal.

The second thing is that I didn't really buy the "other" reveal: the part where Lane admits to her own muddled feelings about Yates. She seemed consistently disgusted by him, once she learned certain facts, but then all of a sudden she says she nearly fell under his spell then too? There just didn't seem to be enough to support that.

So this would get 4.5 stars from me. I will definitely be interested to see what Amy Engel writes for adults next.

This book, wow this book.. Amy Engel's writing is powerful, which helped to push me through this story that was somewhat unsettling. This was not an "easy" read, and if someone has triggers I wouldn't recommend it, but the writer dealt with this material with some sensitivity. But wow, what a ride. Something bad always happens to the Roanoke girls, this book sucked me in and I was hooked until the very end.

Disturbing.

That is the best word to describe this book. Disturbing.

And not really in the 'good' sort of way that a disturbing book or film can be.

This was just... disturbing.

I'm not spoiling anything when I put it out there that incest is the main theme of this novel. Yes, incest. Yates Roanoke 'loves' his sisters, his daughters, and his granddaughters. Bonus points for his granddaughters also being his daughters.

So why did I give this book three stars? Because it was just disturbing enough to make me finish it and see the story through.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and re-evaluate my life choices.

This book is MESSED UP.

But I liked it. A lot.

Judging from the reviews I guess this one is a hit or miss depending on what you like. The writing was great, easy to read and follow. Easy to get through the book in just a couple of days.

The story was complete. Which I loved. I feel like too many books leave me hanging in the details, and this one didn't. I was so happy with the ending, and the entire story in general. I mean, obviously I wasn't happy about the stuff that happened, but the writer made it work to well!

When I started the book I was only a few pages in when I didn't pick it up for a couple of weeks because I had NO time to read and I was so sad! So when I finally got the chance I read it in a day and a half. I couldn't put it down!

The Roanoke Girls are not what you expect, even when you think you've pieced together the whole story. For Amy Engel and this being her first novel for adults, I think she hit the nail right on the head. I'm very happy with this book.

In the beginning of the book, even before page 1 there was a "family tree" demoting how each of the characters were related. I took one look at that and knew that this book was going to be messed up. I also drew a conclusion from that family tree, knowing that this book was all about family dynamics. Amy Engel took strong topics and put an artful twist on them. She kept me reading and turning the pages well into the night.

Though the topic was artfully done, the overall idea seemed a little implausible. The entire town seemed to understand what was going on in that house, yet no one spoke up. Between the number of runaways and suicides in the family, something was a little too fishy. And if all this was going on, there would have been some type of genetic consequences in the daughters.

Finally, the main character seemed a little shallow and disconnected from what was truly going on. I know she had a rough childhood, but not near as rough as her cousin. Having lived in that house in high school she had to know something was going on. There really was no depth of character to her at all. It seemed as though she exhibited all the classic signs of a person who experienced that type of childhood.

Overall, this was a very well written book that held my attention. It was different than other books in it's genre which was a refreshing change.

I received an advance review copy of The Roanoke Girls from the publisher, and author through NetGalley, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Tragedy strikes young Lane Roanoke's life when her mother dies and she's sent to Kansas to live with her grandparents and her cousin Allegra. The book moves seamlessly through time as a grown-up Lane settles in Los Angeles, far from rural Kansas. But a call from her grandfather draws her back. Allegra is missing and she feels duty-bound to return to their home to help find her. But what secrets await her? She's already discovered something that could tear the whole family apart. An excellent read!

THIS was a hideous read for me - I didn't like the subject matter, I didn't like the language, and I didn't like the characters at all - I did not feel invested in them and just wished that someone more exciting would come into the story to change it up and that was not to be. It was slow and plodding and just meh. I quit this book at 10%, unable to force myself to continue. I am only giving it one star because I have to rate it, otherwise it would be no stars. What a waste of my time.

A somewhat disturbing family secret molds the lives a several generations of a family in rural Kansas.

I’m very glad The Roanoke Girls didn’t try to lead us on like the big secret was so mysterious. If it had held onto the idiotic notion that the rape wasn’t painful obvious and saved the “reveal” for later, I would have quit the book. It didn’t, so I didn’t. 

The WTF of what actually happened to her cousin and ex was interesting. I was legit spinning in circles trying to puzzle it out. It’s the only reason I kept reading with all these terrible people and things going on. 

 

MC is a flawed woman to put it mildly. She’s the definition of a hot mess. She’s a victim that hasn’t dealt with any of her trauma and has learned terrible habits and coping mechanisms. In the end, I’m really proud of her and her direction. It’s not really happy, but realistically okay. 

If you need a small town mystery that’s true to life and with a gray cast, this is your book.