"Vanishing Falls" by Poppy Gee attempts to deliver a mystery thriller set in a small town, but it falters in execution, leaving readers with a narrative that lacks depth and coherence. The plot, while initially intriguing, loses its way as the story progresses, with too many unresolved threads and a lack of clear direction. The characters, though diverse, feel underdeveloped and fail to evoke a strong connection, making it challenging to invest in their fates. The pacing is inconsistent, leading to moments of confusion and a lack of engagement. Despite the novel's potential, "Vanishing Falls" ultimately falls short of delivering a satisfying and compelling mystery experience.

2 stars

I tried getting through this novel several times and, while the plot and description grabbed my attention, the book never did. Writing was a bit choppy and I just couldn’t get into the book, despite its fascinating setting in the Tasmanian rainforest and the mystery of where Celia has gone.

Full review to come on Goodreads and Amazon. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a review copy.

I’m someone who wants to avoid conflict at all costs and that includes reviewing books that I feel are subpar.
However, seeing books on my NetGalley shelf, waiting for feedback after a year or more of me reading it…has given me more anxiety than it’s worth so I need to just get it over with. 😑

What I liked:
The Cover
The Location
The Synopsis

What I didn’t like:
Disjointed & convoluted writing style
Lack of character development (3 POVS)
Little to no mystery
Uninteresting plot
Lackluster ending

I enjoyed this book by Poppy Gee. The characters were great, and the plot/pacing was great too. #VanishingFalls #NetGalley

I just finished reading Vanishing Falls by author Poppy Gee. It’s a thriller that takes place in the beautiful setting of Vanishing Falls which is a small town located in a Tasmanian rainforest. The story centers around the disappearance of Celia Lily. She is married to Jack Lily and they live in a mansion called The Calendar House. You learn of all the other characters in the town who are not as well off as the Lily’s but play an important role in the story. This is a town filled with a lot of dark secrets. Greed, addiction to crystal meth and husbands that prostitute their wives out are just some of the topics the author writes about in this book. This was my first time reading about this area of the world and the descriptions I thought were beautiful. It was a really good story, one I enjoyed and would recommend. All through the book I thought I had it figured out as to who was to blame for Celia’s disappearance but at the end I learned that I was wrong as usual. I’d like to thank the Scene of the Crime Early Read program, Sam Glatt, marketing assistant at HarperCollins Publishers/William Morrow and NetGalley for the arc to read and review. I’m giving this a 4 star rating.

I received this book through NetGalley.

I had really high hopes for this book because both the setting and the storyline intrigued me. Set in Australia, in a small town, a woman disappears. There are several suspects but the police don't seem to be all that interested in actually finding the missing woman. Joelle, a simple-minded resident, and acquaintance of the missing woman seems to pick up on little clues that everyone else misses and is finally able to piece things together enough to solve the case.

The plot was a little convoluted and the transitions between all the different people were jarring. There was also a lot of extra stuff that really didn't move the plot along or add to the story. I never did manage to connect to any of the characters or the setting. I never got to the point where I couldn’t wait to return to the book to continue, which is usually my benchmark of whether I think the book is good.

At its core, this is a small town whodunnit. Joelle is a wife, mother, and helper in her loving husband’s butcher shop. Her past was traumatic and she is now feeling happy and loved. We learn about her intellectual disability through her thoughts and the interactions she has with others including her husband. Her husband is her friend, lover, and caretaker, with the latter causing conflict as she seeks more independence.

Celia, a much admired, upper-class woman goes missing in the small Tasmanian town and through three perspectives, the truth about her and what is happening is slowly discovered. The other key characters are Celia’s husband, Jack and Cliff, a family friend and all three have something to hide. Joelle gets very invested in the investigation and readers’ fears for her will keep them hooked. This will be appreciated by those who like stories full of multi- layered characters and historical reveals.

I mainly listened to the audiobook and at times, read along with the e-galley. Thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for the e-galley. My reviews and ratings are my own.

Content Warning: murder, drug addiction and use, sexual assault, memories of bullying and domestic abuse, a story of a massacre

What a fascinating book. I was impressed by the storyline and the characters were all well written and complex. Where there are complex storylines combined with intriguing characters the reader experience is magnified tremendously. To have a book that is well written as well as entertaining is a delight. Reading is about escaping your world and entering another one. Here I forgot about my own life and was immersed in the world created by the author. I would recommend this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the e-book to review. I liked Vanishing Falls and the new (to me) locale of Tasmania. Visiting a new place via a book is always an adventure and the descriptions were fabulous. However, the book was slow moving and if I'm being honest, I enjoy a more fast paced novel.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The synopsis of this book sounded intriguing to me so I requested a copy to read.
Unfortunately, I have tried reading this book on 2 separate occasions and during that 2nd attempt, I have only managed to make it halfway through so I'd rather stop here and state that this book just wasn't for me.

Dark psychological suspense set in the small town of Vanishing Falls in the Tasmanian rainforest. The Falls that drop deep underground are as much of a character as the multi-layered townspeople, seemingly normal on top, but beneath twisted, broken and worn. The story is viewed through the eyes of three characters with very different realities, setting the reader up to wondering about unreliable narrators up to the very end. A rich woman disappears, her husband is suspected, secrets abound, animosities rise, tensions snap - a very dark, often dreary tale of people acting on their most basic impulses. Few people to like, though you will be rooting for seemingly simple Joelle, despite, or even because of her own dark secrets.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

1.5 stars

Months ago, I made a promise to myself.

I swore to always write fair and honest book reviews. I swore to never pad ratings out of sympathy. I swore to never award unwarranted low ratings.

For honesty is always the best policy. To this belief, I cling tightly.

Honesty, however, is not always easy. It’s not fun to deliver bad news. It can be rather challenging. And it pains me to write the words that follow. It truly does.

But if I’m being honest, Poppy Gee’s latest mystery/thriller, “Vanishing Falls,” stands to be one of the worst novels I have ever read. It is mind-numbingly terrible. It is the kind of awful the literary world has not seen since Baldacci first published “The Christmas Train.” (Those of you who have read Baldacci's holiday gem know EXACTLY what I mean. Don’t even try to deny it.)

The premise of the novel is solid –

Deep within the Tasmanian rainforest lies Vanishing Falls, a town famous for its contentious past. Within Vanishing Falls sits Calendar House, a magnificent mansion owned by the Lily family and currently occupied by art collector, Jack, his socialite wife, Celia, and their four young daughters.

All is well with the Lily family -- until Jack returns home one night and discovers that Celia has disappeared. Crazed with worry, Jack enlists the help of the local police, only to then somehow find himself to be the prime suspect in their investigation.

Where has Celia gone? Is it an abduction? A planned escape of her own orchestration? Or has something far more sinister and unfortunate happened to her?

And I will leave it at that. If I reveal any further information regarding the plot, I fear I may spoil the (minuscule bit of) fun of the outcome.

On its face, “Vanishing Falls” appears to be right up my alley. I love a good mystery; I love a good Gothic house. And there aren’t many stories set in a small town in the middle of the rainforest of Australia. A reader is hard-pressed to find a novel with a more unique scenic backdrop.

But all the enticing elements don’t mesh very well. The tone of the novel is scattered and ever changing. One minute it feels like you’re reading a gothic mystery. The next minute it feels like you’re reading a cozy. And then after that, it's as if you’ve stepped into a time warp and switched to reading a historical mystery. Gee fails to successfully blend the various tones and genres together, resulting in a very bumpy and disjointed reading experience.

Plus, her prose is beyond rough and choppy. It's infantile, as well. It lacks any sort of flow whatsoever, and the words trip and stumble over one another as you read them silently in your mind. Gee’s writing has no subtlety; she bluntly tells all to the reader, never shows.

And Gee’s characterization isn’t any better either. The narrative of “Vanishing Falls” is told through the alternating viewpoints of three separate characters – Jack, his friend, Cliff, and Joelle, a town resident – and all three are severely underdeveloped and flat. The secondary characters fare even worse.

Oh! I mustn’t forget to also mention the dialogue. Wooden, stiff, forced, awkward, and unnatural. Those five adjectives sum it up nicely.

Typically, I can somewhat overlook poor technical and stylistic writing skills in a novel if the story is at least entertaining. But in this case, I can’t even claim that to be true. Because “Vanishing Falls” is downright boring. The core mystery is not anything new, and it’s certainly not very clever. There aren’t any surprising, jaw-dropping twists. It takes way too long to discover exactly what happens to Celia. And it is so simple to predict the outcome and solve the mystery. The final revelation can be seen hundreds of pages away.

Boring. Boring. Boring.

Still, the setting is terrific! Yes. The Tasmanian rainforest is quite fantastic. (Look at that. I found one positive to share.)

Bottom line – “Vanishing Falls” is a dreadful chore of a read. I tried to like it. Really, I did. I stuck with it to the very end, hoping and thinking it would improve.

But if I’m being honest, it just never did.


I received an Advanced Readers Copy from William Morrow and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions included herein are my own.

**This review has been posted on Bantering Books (my blog), Goodreads and Facebook (multiple book-related groups). It has also been posted on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

I really enjoyed this dark mystery set in Tasmania. The story was very atmospheric. I remember feeling the same way when I read The Dry, another story set in Australia. It's a deceptively simple story. The town of Vanishing Falls has fallen on hard times. Celia Lily and her lawyer husband Jack Lily live in Calendar House and are probably the wealthiest in town. They are the big landowners, art collectors, and have a stable. The Lily family has owned Calendar House for many years. In fact Jack's mother grew up there. Joelle Smithton is the butcher's wife. She has a sweet, trusting personality and people in town think she's simple minded. But Joelle has sharp observation skills and she understands people on a different level than most. When Celia goes missing one night after the Apple Queen Pageant everyone starts to look guiltily at each other and the dirty underbelly of Vanishing Falls begins to reveal itself. Joelle's intuition leads her to find clues that even the police have overlooked, but will the killer try to stop Joelle before she solves the crime? #VanishingFalls #NetGalley

This starts off incredibly slow to the point that you wonder if the entire story is to be about the minutiae of the characters lives. I almost gave up reading it. Once you get to the place where Celia goes missing, then the plot gets all twisty and you start to get interested. The mystery is pretty easy to figure out but Poppy Gee throws in some red herrings to keep you guessing.
It felt like this should have been taking place in the early 1900's because the characters quirks were more suited for that time period than present day. I constantly had to remind myself that this was taking place in modern times. The characters were a bit odd and none of them were likeable.
I struggled to read this book. It may appeal to someone who enjoys slow burn stories or someone who understands more about life in Tasmania. I'm giving the book three stars because I could see its potential even if it wasn't a book for me. I enjoyed the mystery aspect; I wish that it had been a faster pace with at least one likeable character.
Thank you to Netgalley,William Morrow, Harper's Collins, and the Scene of the Crime Early Reads for the advanced copy.  The opinions are my own.

This is my first book by this author, I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I look forward to reading more from this author. This is a well written story that has characters that brought the story to life for me. The characters are connectable and made the story easy to read. This is a slow paced mystery thriller story that may not be for everyone especially is they need a fast paced story. This is a story where a woman named Celia comes up missing. The story than surrounds this missing woman on where she is and what happened. There are a few twists and turns that left me questioning and kept me turning pages. I highly recommend this book.

A great mystery! A well known glamorous and wealthy mother goes missing and the town of Vanishing Falls secrets are exposed as they search for the truth. Thank you netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of Vanishing Falls. Great, solid thriller! I really loved the setting of this one. It is set in the Tasmanian rainforest of Australia, this an area that I knew nothing about. Really great setting and enjoyable read.

This book has a slow start, but it is worth hanging in there! The author describes the scenery of Vanishing Falls in such vivid detail that it was easy to picture it in my mind. Overall, this was a pretty good read once I got into it.