An interesting and poignant mystery, combined with a coming-of-age story. I can see how the reviews are so mixed, and I can tell why people wouldn't click with the narration style, but I really liked it. Haunting and sad.

This wasn’t quite what I was expecting. What sounded like a book full of promise and intrigue, actually fell flat as it just lacked substance. I found the flicking back and forward between past/present to be confusing at times, which is not like me and I really enjoy books with multiple timelines!
That being said, the writing is beautiful and so full of descriptions that you really do feel like you are during that summer it all happened!

I loved this book. It's beautifully written, memorable and moving. I will be looking out for more books by Felicity McLean. It was a perfect distraction from the world for a while!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance digital copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

A book brimming with mystery, brilliantly written & gripping. But it lacked any real answers and the absence of resolution was so disappointing for me.

A huge thanks to Point Blank & NetGalley for gifting me a copy in return for an open & honest review.

⭐⭐⭐

I'd read such mixed reviews about this so I really didn't know what to expect.
For me it read more like a coming of age / literary fiction book rather than just a mystery but I think this was why I ended up liking it as much as I did.. I consider Australia my second home so I loved the setting of an Aussie suburban town in the 90s and the descriptive language made for a great atmosphere when reading..
I was left feeling a little deflated by the ending but all in all a really good read.

This was interesting in lots of ways, but unfortunately left me unsatisfied at conclusion. The book is very atmospheric and there's an underlying tension, which makes up for the lack of significant action during the plot. There are no concrete answers, so it's not for someone who needs their mysteries to have a conclusive ending, but overall it was an enioyable read.

It was an interesting read. I liked the writing style and scene setting, it was very atmospheric.

The plot dragged sometimes, but overall it kept me interested.

A good read which kept me guessing, I would have liked more details about the characters and I was disappointed by the end. I still think that this is a good debut novel.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Not finished - something about the style of the narration just didn't click, I am sorry to say I didn't get very far before having to put it down.

I've heard so much hype around this book and it's well deserved in my opinion. This book is just so so compelling and interesting, I struggled to put it down for you know... getting on with my life, going to work and all those annoying things that stand between you and finishing a fantastic book!

This is the first book for ages that I really engaged with. I enjoyed the author's style and was hooked by the narrative. The characters are realistic, and there is a constant sense of mystery to carry you along. The Australian- ness is not overwhelming, but gives a definite sense of place.
Highly recommended
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC

What a delightful tale this is - beautifully narrated by 11 year old Tikka who is cheeky, observant, insightful, a very believable child's view during the hot summer. The carefree lives of the the Van Apfel sisters and Tikka and Laura. But all was not as it seemed and eventually the Apfel sisters disappeared, never to be seen again. Everything changed for Tikka and Laura and secrets were kept by everyone in the area while the police searched for the girls.
Interspersed is the return of Tikka from abroad to spend time with Laura and her family and how what happened has still had a huge effect on all their lives.
Can't wait to read more by this author.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Felicity McLean/OneWorld Publications for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

An engrossing read that kept me involved to the end. There was sadness, laughter and mystery throughout.

Although the case of Azaria Chamberlain (the Dingo Ate My Baby case) is referenced several times during this intriguing Australian mystery, it’s the real-life case of the Beaumont siblings the story actually borrows from. If you don’t know the story of the Beaumont children, it’s basically this; three children vanished from a popular beach near Adelaide and were never seen again.

In this story, it’s three sisters who disappear from an outdoor school concert one night. Told through the eyes of Tikka, a friend and neighbour of the girls, the story is told in dual timelines; the events leading up to and surrounding the disappearance, and the present day, when the adult Tikka returns home from where she’s working in Baltimore due to a family illness and can’t help but start thinking about her missing friends all over again.

The book needs some trigger warnings, including for animal cruelty, parental abuse, enforcement of religion, death of a child, CSA and underage sex (rumoured). Cordelia, the old-for-her-years middle sibling of the Van Apfels, is rumoured to be pregnant and it’s clear her relationship with her father is unhealthy at best, from what Tikka discovers.

The writing is beautifully descriptive, to the point I’d class this as literary fiction, and gives an incredibly detailed flavour of suburban Australian life in the early 90s. However, I don’t think it’s going to go over all that well with mystery fans because it fails to actually provide a resolution. It’s haunting and sad and superbly written, and the child Tikka is indeed an endearingly precocious narrator, but if you don’t like stories where pretty much all the loose ends are left still flying around in the breeze, you’ll come to the end of this and feel unsatisfied and frustrated. I want to give it five stars for the quality of the writing, but that ending really does just peter out, and I don’t like unsolved mysteries. Four stars.

In 1992 the Van Apfel girls go missing from small-town Australia. Seven-year-old Ruth is found, but there are no traces of her teenage sisters, Hannah and Cordelia.
Almost thirty years on, their childhood friend, Tikka, is still haunted by their disappearance. Told mostly in flashback from her viewpoint as an eleven-year-old child, the story is a multi-layered drama of the harm as well as the good in families, friends and acquaintances.
Written in intricate detail, this novel will appeal to fans of slow-burn literary fiction.
With thanks to Net Galley, the publisher and the author for providing a free copy in exchange for my personal review.

I don't know if this was a me problem or a book problem, but unfortunately I didn't gel with this one and DNFd it at about 25%. I've seen good reviews for it, so it might have just been the wrong time for me. I didn't connect to the characters and didn't have much interest in the plot.

An interesting concept told in an engaging enough manner. This is an enjoyable read that I was gripped enough to finish quickly. I like books that have a more definitive resolution, although I understand that it defeats the object of the novel to give any definitive answers.

EXCERPT: The ghost turned up in time for breakfast, summoned by the death rattle of Cornflakes in their box.

She arrived on foot. Bare feet. Barelegged and white knuckled, in a pale cotton nightie that clung to her calves and slipped off one shoulder as jaunty as a hat. Her hair was damp with sleep sweat - whose wasn't that summer? - and stiff strands of it fenced in her thirteen-year-old face like blinkers strapped to a colt.

By the time we got there she was already halfway across the cul-de-sac. Her unseeing eyes, her stop-me shuffle, they'd taken her as far as that and she might have made it further too, if it wasn't for the car that sat idling at a ninety-degree angle to her path. A right angle made from her wrongs.

The driver's elbow pointed accusingly out of the window and he leaned out and shouted to each neighbour as they arrived on the scene: 'She came from nowhere!' as if that were her crime. This girl who appeared from thin air.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: We lost all three girls that summer. Let them slip away like the words of some half-remembered song and when one came back, she wasn't the one we were trying to recall to begin with.'

So begins Tikka Molloy's recount of the summer of 1992 - the summer the Van Apfel sisters, Hannah, the beautiful Cordelia and Ruth - disappear.
Eleven and one-sixth years old, Tikka is the precocious narrator of this fabulously endearing coming-of-age story, set in an eerie Australian river valley suburb with an unexplained stench. The Van Apfel girls vanish from the valley during the school's 'Showstopper' concert, held at the outdoor amphitheatre by the river. While the search for the sisters unites the small community on Sydney's urban fringe, the mystery of their disappearance remains unsolved forever.

MY THOUGHTS: This was a delightful fix of Australiana. 'Cossies' (swimsuits), 'thongs' (flip-flops), 'yabbies', kookaburras, and finishing sentences with 'but'. I felt quite at home, although I would never call the suburbs of Sydney home. The dialogue is so realistic I could hear the voices complete with accents as I read.

The characters are enchanting. A trio of teenage girls and their two younger sisters trying to make sense of life and the largely confusing behaviour of some of the adults in their lives. These are normal girls. They form friendships and cliques. They squabble and sulk. The older three often leave the younger two out of their plans and secrets.

Tikka, not her real name and we never find out what that is or how she earns the nickname Tikka, is stuck in no man's land, older than 8 year old Ruth, but not yet a teenager like Hannah, Cordie and Laura. It is Tikka who narrates the story, so we only get to know what she knows and/or suspects. It is Cordie, the sleepwalker, who shines in this group. Rebellious, ethereal, she has an air about her, a sense of living beyond her years.

We learn of the cruel and inhumane treatment of the Van Apfel girls, particularly Cordie, at the hands of their father, a religious fanatic. And her suspicions about Mr Avery, Cordies new teacher. But mostly it is the lead-up to the fateful night the girls go missing, Tikka's reaction, and the ongoing effect on her and Laura's lives many years down the track when certain incidents are viewed differently with the benefit of hindsight and experience.

The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone is well written and enjoyable. It's a slow burning mystery, and an intriguing one. Don't expect to get all the answers served up neatly. It isn't going to happen.

An author to watch.

🐨🐨🐨🐨

#TheVanApfelGirlsAreGone #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Felicity McLean is an Australian author and journalist. This is her first novel.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to One World Publications, Point Blank via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone by Felicity McLean for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

In Felicity McLean’s debut novel, The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone, we follow 31-year-old Australian lab assistant Tikka Malloy down memory lane to the summer she was 11, when the three blonde Van Apfel sisters disappeared into the valley. The body of Ruth, aged seven, was found a few days later; Cordelia (Cordie) and Hannah, aged 13 and 14, were never seen again.

Tikka and her older sister, Laura, lived in the same cul-de-sac as the Van Apfels, spent a lot of time with them in the lead-up to their disappearance, and were privy to the excesses of their hyper-religious parents. They never did find out what became of Cordie and Hannah, who could well still be alive, and occasionally torture themselves with the question of whether sharing everything they knew would have made any difference to the investigation.

I was drawn to this book by its similarities to Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides - a book I read several times as a teenager (I hardly ever reread anything now, though that may be a supply thing…). Like the Lisbons, the Van Apfels are blonde and pretty, have strict Christian parents, and disappear in a flash. Cordie is the Van Apfel version of Lux Lisbon - the stunning, precocious, rebellious sister who draws the most attention.

As with The Virgin Suicides, the story of the Van Apfels is told by an outsider who lives nearby, but that’s where the comparisons run out. Unlike the boys in Eugenides’ novel, Tikka spends quality time with the Van Apfels, as opposed to largely observing/spying on them from afar and collecting objects that have passed through their hands. While Tikka admires Cordie, it’s not the same kind of worship the boys lavish on the Lisbons - the Van Apfels are therefore portrayed as humans, rather than inscrutable creatures like their counterparts.

McLean has accurately portrayed what it’s like to be an awkward child through the character of Tikka. She doesn’t really fit in at school or seem to have any close friends. While the other kids sing, play instruments, or dance for the school show, she chooses to write a skit, and the cooler girls who act in it wouldn’t give her the time of day in any other circumstances.

While, as mentioned above, Tikka is constantly at the Van Apfels’ house, at the same time, she’s set a little apart from the others because she’s too old for Ruth, but too young for Cordie, Hannah and Laura, who’s always pulling rank over her. She wants to be like the older girls, but they don’t let her in on their secrets. She writes a part especially for Cordie in her skit, but Cordie isn’t interested.

Tikka’s questions, thoughts and misunderstandings on a range of topics including death, séances, religion, teachers, and popular sayings make for some real snort-out-loud moments, and reminded me of myself at that age, as well as the girls in Joanna Cannon’s The Trouble with Sheep and Goats. Another great source of humour in the book is Mrs McCausley, the nosy, sharp-tongued Tupperware enthusiast who lives on the corner and knows everyone’s business.

Also like Cannon, McLean has faithfully captured the experience of long, hot summer days as a child in suburbia: the hours spent languidly hanging around, nothing really happening, the highlight of the afternoon being an ice-cream or lolly from the freezer. Although, of course, this is Australia, so it’s November rather than July/August!

The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone ends with a lot of unanswered questions, beyond what Tikka and other characters reveal to the reader over the course of the book about events at the time. I’d have personally liked to have seen at least some of those things cleared up, but it’s not like Laura and Tikka get any answers or resolution either - reflecting real life. Even taking that into consideration, this is a sparkling mystery novel that’s perfect for summer.