yep, just as disturbing and messed up as everyone said it was. such a hard book to read, like at times i would just have to put it down because it was.. disgusting. but it was also engrossing and i was so wrapped up in this dysfunctional family. i absolutely loved the ending. seriously messed up book but very good.

There is no secret to the fact that incest is a major theme in this book. The mystery of Lane's missing cousin Allegra is long and winding. The story is told in Then, Now, and from others points of view. Set in a small, rural Kansas town, the Roanoke girls are full of mystique and tragedy.
I almost quit reading this book twice, but continued because I really needed to find out what happened. Don't be concerned with graphic sex, there is none, but the psychological damage done is very deep.

I have to say I was really excited to read this book. The only details I knew about it going it were how dark and disturbing the book was. I was sure it was going to be right up my alley. I have to say I didn't hate this book but I didn't love it either. I was engaged in the story in the beginning. It was depressing and I was interested to learn more but the more I got into the book I was ready to finish it to move on to something else.
I did enjoy how it was told from different perspectives. Lane was the main perspective over the majority of the book. I didn't love Lane as a main character but I enjoyed how honest she was. She would always say what was on her mind and wasn't afraid. You did get a look inside the heads of the other Roanoke girls which was enjoyable. Getting a different perspective was a nice change of pace.
I also enjoyed how the book took place in the past and then in the present. I feel this is always something you have to be careful doing because things can end up getting confusing going back and forth like that but it ended up working out fine for the story. It was easy to tell the difference between the different time periods. I was never lost or confused about what was going on.
However, I really didn't enjoy that the dark secret of the Roanoke girls was discovered so quickly. I wish we had some suspense and build up to that. I feel that might have made me enjoy the story more. I wish we found out when Lane found it out in the past. There were a couple of times Allegra would bring it up to Lane about there being this big secret and she is dying to know and I would just be like oh it's this okay. I understand it took Lane to discover what was actually going on in Roanoke. I just wish us readers were put in the dark for a while longer too. The only shocking scene was when you finally found out what actually happened to Allegra and at the same time I wasn't really shocked. The story basically hints at the outcome.
Overall I think this was an interesting story. It is dark and disturbing so I do warn you if you decide to read this book. I do wish the dark secret could have been told to us at the end. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I didn't know what was really going on with the family. I love having different perspectives in books so that was enjoyable and something I wasn't expecting. I would say if the synopsis interests you go for this book you may end up really liking it.

It does feel as though a common trope in literature about country folk is a hearty slice of good ol' incest and "The Roanoke Girls" is no exception. Set on a the Roanoke family estate in deepest darkest rural Kansas, Lane Roanoke is sent to stay with her grandparents following the suicide of her mother.
Her partner in crime is her cousin, Allegra, whose mother is also absent. Allegra tells her that "Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die."
Pretty soon, Lane realises what's going on and runs, but is pulled back years later when her grandfather contacts her to inform her that Allegra has gone missing. Has she run? Has she died? Nobody seems to know the answer, so Lane returns to Roanoke to look for her cousin, and face the past and all its horrors.
Reminiscent of "Flowers in the Attic", this is a fairly unbelievable story. The characters are mostly unrealistic and the "secret" is pretty obvious from the start. The denouement and showdown was just way too over the top for my liking, which is a shame, because Engel obviously has a lot of talent, this just isn't the right vessel for it. It feels like she's deliberately trying to be sensational with a very sensitive subject matter, which comes across as pretty jarring.
I'll be interested to see what Engel does next - hopefully she picks a story that does justice to her obvious talents.

3.5/5 stars. While I am all for books of a dark and disturbing nature, I was not entirely on board for this title. At first I thought it would be along the lines of a Virgin Suicides type of book, but I was not totally prepared for all the twists, turns, and incestuous relationships. All in all, I thought this book was very predictable.

This review will be short because with this type of book I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to ruin any surprises. I was captivated by The Roanoke Girls after the first few pages. It was creepy, terrifying, and disgusting. I loved it. I sort of had it figured out before we found out what the family secret was, but that didn’t make it any less horrifying. There is the potential for some confusion as the story jumps back and forth in time, but after the first couple of times I became more comfortable with it and stopped being confused. I highly recommend The Roanoke Girls for fans of psychological thrillers.

While beautifully written, this book is, what do we say now... "problematic". There is an element of the gothic novel here- children taken in, big creepy homes, uncaring caretakers or overly caring caretakers, small town malaise, inappropriate teens. This book has it all. And all the while there are the undercurrents of bad things that have happened in the past that are rippling into the present, but not overtly. Usually, that checks all my boxes. But this time I felt the line that was crossed was too much.

*****SPOILERS*****





I found the ambiguity to the acts of incest (the tantalizing "secret") and the teasing way it was revealed and discussed to be too gross to be a nuanced expression of how confused the girls were under their grandfather's spell. It was too lurid, base and sensationalized. It could have been redeemed with more of a distance between Lane and her grandfather, but looking over her shoulder as she is pulled in during the last part of the book was just gross. So many triggers without appropriate consequences for the victims. I cannot in good conscience recommend this book.

ROANOKE GIRLS was compulsively readable; I finished it in two days. That being said, I did find the plot was a little undeveloped, especially the middle section of the book. It felt like not much discovery was happening in Lane's pursuit of Allegra and instead she was mostly just sleeping with or fixating on not sleeping with Cooper. A better balance of sex and mystery would've made this a more complex narrative. I think the book would appeal to fans of Megan Miranda's ALL THE MISSING GIRLS, though Miranda's structure and plotting are more intricate than Engel's. I'll be curious to see what she writes next, when sex hopefully doesn't overwhelm the other themes quite so much.

Note: I read this as a free e-ARC from Netgalley. This is one twisted but masterful story. Lane only knows her mother never showed her love before committing suicide. Then she finds herself living with her mother's parents for an unforgettable summer. Fast forward she is called back to Roanoke to help find her cousin, Allegra, who has gone missing. Back to where she hoped she'd never go or see again. Back to where so many secrets await.

A good book, but hard to read. The book is well paced and at times suspenseful. “The Roanoke Girls” digs deep into some disgusting family secrets (could be triggering for sexual abuse victims). It was dark, sad, and impossible to put down. I would recommend this title to book groups and patrons who enjoy reading a darker shade of fiction.

This is a well-written mystery novel with a storyline that is (hopefully) a bit hard to believe. I would have liked it better if I hadn’t found it so (wait for it —- ) disturbing! I’d love to hear from others who read it, too. Recommended for those who loved VC Andrews back in the day…

I have seen this book floating around for a while and was thrilled when I had the chance to review it by Blogging For Books and Netgalley. I knew this book was a mystery and centered around The Roanoke family specifically ‘The Roanoke Girls’. In my opinion it should be shouted from the roof tops and rammed down your throat that this contains themes focused on incestuous sexual abuse, in fact the whole book is centered around many generations of rape and pedophilia.

*this book contains triggers*

After reading the book I had a look at other reviews, many were stating that the readers were unable to finish the book, and I completely understand, it was disturbing and revolting in most places but personally I am a firm believer that no subject should be taboo. I feel like I am rambling…
Before I began the book I had no idea that this was the main focus of the whole book so you can imagine my horror when the themes became clear. After I had gotten over the initial shock I began to enjoy the story more. The book focuses on Lane and her cousin Allegra, the two remaining Roanoke girls, and Lane’s journey to discover the horrific truth of what happened to the her mother, and the other female Roanoke family members, all dead or missing.

Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.

Although the story-line was relatively steady, the books itself made for a compelling read. The intense plot is broken up by chapters alternating between THEN and NOW with sporadic chapters from other family members. It definitely added some interest and variety to the story. Over all I think Engel wrote of disturbing crimes in a very honest, real and tasteful manner.
Story and plot aside I was most impressed with Lane, she was really really likable. Although a confused child at heart with a cruel upbringing she was tenacious and heroic with a great amount of love to give. I loved the relationship between her and Allegra, and between her and Cooper.

My favorite part was the ending, I was hoping and hoping that Lane would find happiness and peace, because honestly, she really deserved it.

Overall it was a great read, with hard hitting themes, a search for justice and a likable main character.

**** A great 4 STAR read ****

The synopsis doesn't leave much to the imagination but having only suspicions about what this book was all going to entail I made predictions early on and they ALL came true. (Not to say that is necessarily a bad thing.)

This book gave me so many different emotions. The undertone of the whole book had my skin constantly crawling. I love getting to see through each of Roanoke's girls eyes; It was twisted chilling experience. I would say that this book perpetrated the white-hick-incest stereotype to a T. I wanted to put this book down but I needed to know how it ended. The ending killed me in a very satisfying way

This is definitely an intriguing read. Warning - this book may be traumatic for some.

Following my trend of reading books centered around family secrets, the Roanoke Family is no exception. You are met with a family mystery - one that the main character, Lane, is determined to solve. But, in order to do so she must face the truth head-on. And...it's creepy, irksome even.

Engel's portrayal of Lane is intriguing. I was hooked by the subtle teases of the truth - how it seeps out.  I found myself hoping that the truth would be different. I particularly liked the clues that Lane follows and the imagery used throughout her search for the truth. Engel spun an intricate web of characters that repeated fail each other. Even those who suspect the truth are reluctant to seek it out. The only let down for me was the way the truth was finally revealed - it was anti-climatic in a way. Definitely a good read though.

4 stars from me.

**I received my copy via Blogging For Books in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thank you to the author and publisher for this opportunity.**

This family was super-creepy to me from the very beginning. And as you read, their secret becomes very obvious but it is not stated right away. When Lane's mother kills herself, Lane goes to live with her grandparents on their farm called Roanoke in Kansas. She learns from her cousin, Allegra about the Roanoke girls, all the woman in the family who have died young or ran away. The book is mostly in Lane's point of view, jumping from past to present with some other shorter chapters with the other now dead Roanoke Girls stories. Lane only stays for one life-changing summer before running away to California, where she stays until getting a call from her grandfather that Allegra is missing. Lane, in coming back to Roanoke, is finally forced to face the past in order to help find Allegra. There is definitely a theme of destructive love and secrets and the question of if people can really change who they are and the future that seems to be made for them based on their family's past. There is sadness throughout the book but the mystery of Allegra's disappearance kept me guessing until the very end. I would definitely recommend to mystery lovers!

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars on a Goodreads.

I received a free advanced copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration.

Thank you to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for review! All opinions are my own.

So, I'll go ahead and admit it. I requested this book solely based on the title. I'm fascinated with Roanoke so when I saw a book with the title The Roanoke Girls, I jumped at the chance to read it. Then I started seeing reviews that this was a "dark and twisted read" and I knew it was something I would be all about. But then I read it.

I have a lot of feelings about this book. Some good, some probably not so good. But I do have to say that my overall reading experience with The Roanoke Girls was certainly interesting and unforgettable.

Plot:
Just a forewarning, this book is not about the lost colony of Roanoke. I'd know that if I actually read the synopsis in full before just diving right into the book. What it is about is a girl named Lane who returns to her family's estate in rural Kansas after her cousin disappears. This book jumps back and forth between Lane's first arrival at Roanoke (which is both the name of the house as well as the family last name) and her return over a decade later. You get to see both fifteen year old Lane discover the dark, twisted family secret that destroyed her mother and adult Lane returning to the house to help solve the sudden disappearance of her cousin. Unfortunately, Roanoke girls don't last long and either run away or die.

To say this book is dark is probably an understatement. The "secret" comes out fairly early in the story, and it's quite shocking to say the least. But as the book continues and you follow Lane's time there in both the past and present, you learn just how deep the secret goes. I was honestly thrown off by a lot of the subject matter and found myself having to put my Kindle down several times to really think about whether or not I wanted to continue. But it was because of that feeling that I kept going and finished this book. I've never had a book push me like this one did. It calmly grabbed me by the hand and pulled me in and then took me on a twisted ride that I will never forget. This book is dark, the content almost disturbing, but give it enough time and it will show you a different side of itself.

I loved the back and forth with teenage Lane and adult Lane. I think that having that aspect of past and present really allowed the reader to experience the story in a way that almost makes you understand Lane as a character better than if it had been just the past or just the present. You see how Lane handles the secret as a teenager and how she acts once she comes back as an adult knowing what she knows. She's probably the most normal Roanoke girl of them all, but she's definitely not perfect.

I will continue to say it throughout this review but this book is incredibly dark. I know, I should find an adjective or something to replace that, but it just feels like the right word to use. Thankfully, despite the secret being very obvious and present throughout almost the entire book, it's never actually described in a graphic way. You just know it's there, and it is mentioned quite a bit, but you never get gory details. While you may find the content upsetting or disturbing, I urge you to take a chance and step into the world of The Roanoke Girls. The surface may be ugly, but underneath is a story about family, love and acceptance that is sure to leave its mark long after you've closed the book.

Characters:
Lane absolutely made this book for me. She's grown up with a mother who was never really a mother but more a distant figure in her life, never really understanding why she cries all the time and eventually kills herself. Then she moves to the only family she has left, almost instantly connecting with her hellion of a cousin, Allegra. Her grandmother is distant, but more of a mother than her own mother way, and her grandfather is everything she could have wanted. Lane feels love for the first time and has a family, what more could she want? Then she meets Cooper, and goes on the roller coaster ride that is experiencing first love. Unfortunately, she finally learns just why her mother was so sad all the time, why her grandmother is so distant, and why Allegra gets so jealous when Lane gets all of the attention. At fifteen, she's not equipped to deal with something like that, so she runs. Living on her own is rough and she definitely makes mistakes, but she's alive and away from Roanoke, until Allegra disappears. What I loved most about her was how loyal she was to Allegra. Even after ignoring messages from her and being apart for over ten years, she still instantly packed up and went back to Roanoke to help find her. She's strong, smart, sassy, funny, and just everything I love in a character.

The relationship between Lane and Allegra was beautiful. They were alike in looks but almost polar opposites in personality, and I just adored them. Lane only spent the summer with Allegra, but in that time, they bonded for life, so it's no surprise that she returns all those years later to help find her. The two of them were so well-written and I just couldn't get enough of their relationship. I laughed with them, I cried with them, and there were times when I just wanted to drag them both away and keep them safe. They were definitely a highlight of my reading experience and despite them being pretty messed up, they were still fantastic. I also really enjoyed the relationship between Lane and Cooper. They were quite dysfunctional and their relationship probably wasn't the most healthy, but it worked for them.

In general, the numerous characters that were in this book were all so incredible. I was afraid I'd start to get confused once I started to learn about the previous Roanoke girls, but each one of them (despite their parts being so short) was so unique and easily distinguishable. Lane was certainly my favorite, but I also really liked Cooper and Charlie. There are a lot of characters, but there's never a time where you get confused because the author gave them each their own voices to tell the story with. It's so easy to write a large cast of characters and have them all get lost, but Amy Engel did a fantastic job making each and every one of these characters different and able to stand out on their own.

Writing:
It's so hard to talk up this book without seeming crazy. The subject matter is one that will definitely make you pause momentarily and possibly even go back and re-read it to make sure that yes, that is what you just read and yes, that is the direction that the story is going. But bear with me here because that is only one very small aspect of this book. What kept me turning the pages was Amy Engel's writing. It's so beautiful and feels like it could just draw you in to rural Kansas to experience the things that Lane is going through in both the past and the present. It's so descriptive and haunting and honestly, unlike any other book I've read. I found myself struggling on whether or not to continue several times, but I just couldn't get enough of the writing that I had to continue. It leaves its mark on you, without a doubt, but in the best way possible. This is a book that takes you through every emotion you could imagine, makes you question why you'd ever read a book like this, and will absolutely make you fall in love with how incredible the words on the pages are. I'm serious, this book is intense and dark but the writing flows like a small creek and will be your candle in the darkness. I've never read anything like this before, and I will probably be recommending it to anyone looking for a new book to devour.

I had so many conflicting emotions regarding this book. I liked it, but I couldn't understand why I'd like a book that had such dark subject matter, and it seriously made me question myself. But if you're willing to just accept the darkness, you'll find an incredibly beautiful book underneath it all. This is perfect for readers looking for a dark and twisted story that will take you on a roller coaster from start to finish and leave you breathless by the end.

<p>A decent potboiler, genre: midwestern gothic, to while away a lazy summer day. Unfortunately, for a book that deals with repeated sexual abuse, it's surprisingly unsympathetic to the victim, with the female narrator having a slight Humbert Humbert-esque rationale of the situation. So that was uncomfortable. Obviously, no one in the story (except maybe the narrator's high school flame Cooper) is that sympathetic, but at the same time, none of the characters really have enough depth to make their unsympathetic personalities compelling. Of course, it's not a literary novel; it's a (slightly trashy, although not in a bad way) mystery novel where Engel trusts her writing and her readers enough not to make the sexual abuse the lurid, end revelation. Out of everything in the book, I appreciated that the most. </p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/18162759/book/141856509">The Roanoke Girls</a> by Amy Engel went on sale March 7, 2017.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

Wow! This was an emotionally charged book written about a very taboo subject. I have to just say that I LOVED this book! Somehow this book manages to his every emotion. This is a coming of age, dark and twisted, powerful story of love. It hit every emotion cover to cover.

Every character in this book has some sort of flaw. A damage done to them that has scared them and made them even more interesting. There wasn't a single character that didn't fascinate me.

The Roanoke Secret is revealed pretty early on. It isn't hard to figure it out, yet it isn't a secret that is flat out revealed. You know what the secret is yet the story keeps going. This books switched back and forth between present day and the summer of secrets. I finished this book in about 3 days.

There is no BIG REVEAL at the end of this twisted, messy story. Rather, all the pieces seem to fall into place letting the reader see the entire picture all at once instead of bits and pieces. The end of the story left my mouth hanging open in awe.

I highly recommend this. I am so thankful for Netgalley and Crown Publishing for allowing me a copy to read and review!

Get your copy now and start reading!

A 5+ star read for me!

Ehhhhh..... I finished it, so it wasn't absolutely horrible. Did not hold my attention very well, a bit hard to follow. Thank you for the opportunity to read it though