I found this book totally absorbing, well written and I could not put it down. Very interesting family and very gripping. I will look for others by this author.

This is an eloquently written novel with some endearing characters. It's enriched with superb imagery and analogies etc. Two eras are used. 1959 and the present. The author skilfully links up the past with the present by laying some ghosts to rest. Four young sisters stay with their Aunt & Uncle at Applecote Manor in the red-hot summer of 1959. In the present, fifty years later Applecote Manor seems idyllic, a fresh start and far enough away from the bustle of London. At the same time, it's bewitching and gives you the shivers as the family decide to relocate. Jessie Tucker (present) is a second wife and feels as though she's living in the shadow of Will's first saintly wife. This insecurity is reinforced by her stepdaughter who struggles to accept her. There are interesting dynamics between them. The disappearance of Audrey Wilde is the "elephant in the room" between the families and the community, but the four sisters are curious and later Bella, Will's daughter senses something strange. The ending is poignant and satisfying after a lot of water under the bridge. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin UK Michael Joseph for a superb read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I lapped up all of the characters and found myself immersed in their world. I was gripped all the way through. A fabulous read.

I enjoyed Eve Chase's writing style- it was very rich in imagery. A dual narrative full of mystery and dark intrigue. We follow the past history alongside a more modern storyline with the Applecote Manor taking a central role. The Wilding girls spend a summer there after their cousin had disappeared several years before. Their aunt and uncle were understandably changed by this ordeal and many stories and rumours are around. I loved this part of the story particularly.
In more modern times Jesse feels cut off from everything she knows at the Manor and haunted by the mystique and dealing with a step daughter

This is an atmospheric,mysterious novel which beautifully recreates the old,neglected mansion which Jessie and her family move in to to escape from problems they are facing in London.The story moves between the present and the 1950s,when a young girl who lived there vanished without a trace .It is told from the point of view of Jessie in the present ,and in the 1950s Margot,one of four sisters who go to stay with their aunt and uncle,the parents of Audrey ,the girl who disappeared.
Right from the start ,the writer effectively creates a very creepy atmosphere and sense of,foreboding .The book is beautifully written and constructed in such a way that you want to keep reading to find out what happened.
A great summer read-definitely one to recommend.

Super tense thriller with compelling characters, especially Margot and a well crafted storyline told in scintillating prose.

Reading this book was like stepping back in time. Totally enthralled by the wonderfully descriptive and evocative writing, I became more and more immersed in the story and, in a funny way, was sorry when I arrived at the end. Very worthwhile reading.

Brilliantly written with lots of twists and turns in the plot to keep you incapulated til the end of the book.

Very well written. However the actual story was a bit lacklustre and not as exciting as I had anticipated. I was hoping for a little more mystery and excitement. I would definitely read another book by the same author as their writing style really appealed to me.

What a page turner this book was,gripping,the building of the characters so the reader feels they are in the story themselves.
Superb from the first page to the back cover a triumph by Eve Chase I shall be delving into more of her offerings for sure.Why are you still reading this review go buy the book its infinitely better!!

I found this to be far too similar to her reovirus book, Black Rabbit Hall. Enjoyable to read on the each, but nothi more substantial.

It was ok i guess. It took me absolutely ages to trawl through it because i constantly lost interest and found something better to do.

A gentle mystery with wonderful characters. Set both in the present day and the 1950’s this really does evoke a sense of times gone by and makes me sigh with nostalgia even though I’m too young to have lived then! I’ve not read Eve Chases previous novel, but this has certainly made me want to read more by her.

The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde' has it all; history, a mystery, a manor house, romance, hot lazy summers. And murder?
In the heatwave of 1959, four sisters return to Applecote Manor to spend the summer with their aunt and uncle when their mother goes travelling; but despite the sunshine and the beauty of their surroundings, the mysterious disappearance of their cousin, Audrey, five years previously, casts a sinister shadow over them all. Their aunt is still grieving at her daughter's loss and deeply troubled by the lack of closure, the fate of Audrey still unknown. She see the girls as a channel for her grief, particularly Margot, the closest in age to her own lost girl.
Cut to the present and a new family comes to live at the old and crumbling manor. Jessie, along with her new husband and baby daughter, believes that the move from London will be a new start for her troubled family. Stepdaughter Bella however, still grieving for the premature death of her mother is resentful of Jessie's intrusion into her life and feels an outsider in the new order of her family.
Through the dual perspective of Jessie and Margot, Eve Chase enfolds her readers in a mysterious and thrilling story of death, deception and loss of innocence as gradually, the full story of what happened to Audrey is revealed.
A thoroughly good read which I am giving 5 stars.

This was a nice story that once I got into I found a quick read with an interesting storyline. I enjoyed that the two different timelines joined up at the end. Margot being the mystery woman was a surprise twist.

An atmospheric story that skilfully blends two stories.
The novel begins with a body being dragged across grass. We don’t know whose it is, or who’s involved. But when we switch to 50 years later, we know we’re not getting answers soon.
In the 50s we have Margot and her sisters,the Wilde girls, sent to live in Applecote Manor in the Cotswolds. The home is the scene of her cousin Audrey’s disappearance. What happened? Who knows about Audrey?
Interspersed with this we have the modern story of Jessie who moves to the Manor with her young family.
Slowly, the details are resolved.
Gothic qualities abound and this is a story packed with sentiment. There may well be elements of the plot you guess, but some details will certainly surprise you.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to review this.

A tale of sisters, secrets and the teenage years of confusion and temptations on the brink of adulthood. ‘The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde’ by Eve Chase is about two groups of sisters, unrelated, who live decades apart in the Cotswold house of Applecote Manor. Overhanging everything is the mysterious disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl, Audrey Wilde, from the same house in the Fifties.
Jessie and Will move to Applecote Manor, a rundown doer-upper, with their toddler Romy and Will’s teenage daughter Bella. Jessie is seeking a country life, Will hopes to step back from his logistics business. Almost as soon as they arrive, things change. Will’s business partner leaves and causes the sale of the company so, while he negotiates this, Jessie is left in the run-down house with the two girls. Romy fearlessly explores the potentially dangerous land, including river, pool, woods and well. Bella sullenly resents Jessie for not being her own mother, who was killed in a road accident. And then they learn about the disappearance of Audrey Wilde.
Is there something intrinsically wrong with the house and the land surrounding it? Why are the neighbours shunning Jessie and her two daughters? Who is the woman with the two black dogs who often stops and stares at the house? Why don’t local labourers want to work there? There are lots of things going on in this book, almost too many.
The second story strand focuses on four cousins of Audrey who, years after her disappearance, spend the summer of 1959 at Applecote Manor with their still grieving aunt and uncle. The girls, who are knitted together as a tight unit when they arrive, are teased apart by the arrival of two local boys, Harry and Tom. As the flirting and laden glances become more meaningful, the story darkens and some of the truth is revealed.
I enjoyed this book despite the occasionally dense plotting. There are many twists and turns, some of which could have been stripped out to give air to the central mystery. I particularly enjoyed the 1959 section and the inter-action of the four sisters, shadowed at every step by their memories of Audrey. The message: if you don’t face up to tragedy when it happens, it can reverberate through the years and never dies.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

What's it about?

Applecote Manor captures Jessie's imagination the first time that she sees it. She's so sure it's the perfect escape for her troubled family. Yet the house has a certain air about it, something that she can't quite pin down. Back in the fifties, Margot and her sisters are visiting their aunt and uncle at Applecote. Time has halted for them since the disappearance of their only and beloved daughter Audrey.

My thoughts

There seems to be a new kind of genre of popular fiction. It's a sort of 'old house' fiction, set in the not-too-distance past, always in summer. There's a family in crisis at the centre, sometimes two families, and often a woman on the brink of something. There's an unsolved crime in the mix, generally something to do with the family. I'm going to call it 'nostalgic family thriller'; this story fits into this group neatly.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy this book; I did. If you're a fan of Kate Morton or Dinah Jeffries, you most likely will enjoy it too. I loved the setting, and wanted Applecote Manor for myself. I empathised with the modern family battles, although found the characters themselves a little thin. The fifties characters seemed altogether more thought out, almost as though Chase came up with the modern family to help tell the fifties' family's story. That wouldn't surprise me, actually.

It was a very warm story, and I'm not just saying that because it partially set in a heat wave. The strength in these types of novels lies in how the author constructs the familial relationships; Chase does a sterling job here. There was real affection for the people and the place. Again, I half expect that Applecote Manor to be inspired by a real place.

The plot was good, a gently paced thriller. In actual fact, the 'crime' of the title is almost an after-thought; this would work well as a stand-alone family drama without the disappearance to solve. I didn't work out whodunnit, which I liked; it gets tiring automatically guessing at endings all the time.

All in all, a lovely book.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, if you're after something about families in old houses.

I received an ARC of this book, started it, then things happened and it got shelved. Once I started again I really regretted that I hadn’t carried on first time. A story split between two times, two sets of characters in one place, Applecote Manor. The author spun out the mystery of Audrey’s disappearance, and kept me wondering who was involved, and what happened to her. The sisters staying with their bereaved aunt and uncle, the young blended family trying to sew their life together with a fresh start at a country house, two stories woven in to a reveal at the end. Very enjoyable.

So atmospheric that I really couldn't put it down. I felt was drowning in the story in the best possible way. Highly recommended