Vanishing Daughters really intrigued me with its plot from the start - blending fairy tales, urband legends, serial killers and grief. The themes were extremely compelling but, as the story progressed, it started to lose its momentum.
The pacing felt off and by the halfway point it seemed like there was a lot happening but somehow nothing at all. The narrative became repetitive at times and the conclusion felt rushed, wrapped up in what seemed like only a couple of pages.
While the plot is intriguing, the final product left me feeling like it was both too much and not enough at the same time.

So many things going on in this book! Mystery, intrigue, fantasy, grief….to be honest I struggled to get into it. But I am SO glad I stuck with it! It starts out very descriptive and a little difficult to tell whose viewpoint you were reading—Briar or the killer! Ad the story continues, it felt a little repetitive at times, but the wrap up of all the story pieces was so well done I’d definitely recommend! Thank you for this ARC!

I could not finish this book, not because i thought it was bad but because i couldn't quite get into the story

Unfortunately, Vanishing Daughters by Pelayo didn't work well for me. It was more of a fairy tale or magical realism novel with dealing with the grief of losing a parent versus a horror. There is a lot of local knowledge of Chicago urban legends that I thought was interesting. However, the parallels to Sleeping Beauty were too many and the theme kind of went everywhere which made it feel incohesive.

Vanishing Daughters is a haunting and deeply atmospheric novel that straddles the line between surrealism and paranormal horror, offering a reading experience that feels more like wandering through a dream than following a linear story. Set in Chicago, the book layers history, folklore, and ghostly elements with an undercurrent of true crime.

The narrative leans heavily into its dreamlike quality, often blurring the boundaries between reality and imagination. The prose is lyrical and rich with symbolism, creating a moody and immersive atmosphere. The book also delves into historical details about Chicago and even touches on the Manhattan Project, offering unexpected avenues for readers with a taste for history.

That said, this is not a traditional thriller. While there is a serial killer storyline, it feels like a faint shadow in the larger tapestry of the book. Readers who enjoy clear-cut plots or resolutions might find the story challenging, as it often prioritizes mood and abstraction over direct answers.

For readers who thrive on ambiguity, love history intertwined with the paranormal, and don’t mind letting go of the need to know exactly what’s going on, Vanishing Daughters might be a mesmerizing experience. For others, it’s a book that demands patience and an appreciation for the surreal.

Chicagoland meets Ghostland meets Serial Killerland.

Like tunbleweeds being tossed across the Midwestern prairies, Vanishing Daughter is picking up elements of dark mossy things that grow unchecked in the corners of the mind. Cynthia Pelayo knows how to rip out a good yarn. Check out her previous novel Forgotten Sisters (2024).

Pelayo knows her stompin' grounds of the Chicago area with all of its highlights and lowlights. She will thread Vanishing Daughters with the footwork of deep research. Pelayo emphasizes the "thin place" where logic leaves its hat on a peg and the supernatural and unexplainable step through the door. Chicago is rich with ancient lore and tales of things that go bump in the night. And the shoulders of this great old city are hunched over and quite amused.

Briar Rose Thorne lives in a worn-down mansion on the south side of Chicago near Jackson Park. The home has been in the family for eons. Usually Briar is in the midst of research for her science based columns as a journalist. But Briar is bogged down with the weight of extreme grief. Her mother has passed away recently and Briar can't seem to put one foot in front of the other. In fact, she suffers from extreme sleep deprivation. It has affected her relationships with Emily, her best friend, and with Daniel, her boyfriend. And in the midst of all this, the mansion is speaking to her of its own grief.

Cynthia Pelayo writes with deep commitment. She parallels regional lore with fanciful fairy tales in this one. Her prose is magnificent especially in regard to grief in general. But she can labor a point which may turn away some of the more rigid readers. Pelayo injects a very curious thread of the Chicago Strangler who has murdered 51 women. Just how all these jagged pieces come together is worth a looky-look. Pack your parka. Gonna get cold to the bones in this one.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Thomas & Mercer and to Cynthia Pelayo for the opportunity.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Cynthia Pelayo for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for Vanishing Daughters coming out March 11, 2025. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author. It seems to be a modern adaptation of Sleeping Beauty. I usually love mysteries and thrillers, but this didn’t feel like that to me. It wasn’t really my cup of tea. The first half of the book was really interesting, but I lost interest in the second half. The plot wasn’t for me. I would check out other books by this author though.

Special thank you to #NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this eARC.

Vanishing Daughters is a supernatural suspense of a serial killer zeroing in on one Briar Rose in Chicago. Briar herself is struggling against many internal issues, the least of which is her house, Rose House, which sends signals in different shapes and forms while she deals with insomnia and grief, two weeks fresh into the passing of her mother.

The story is a clever, contemporary twist on Sleeping Beauty, continuing what I like to call to the Pelayo-verse: a present-day Chicago, teeming with fairy tales and the supernatural, with detectives trying to get to the bottom of the facts, this time in particular before a serial killer does.

In Vanishing Daughters though, the detectives are more in the background, a pleasant Easter egg to any who have read Pelayo’s Forgotten Sisters, as the detective’s POV is replaced with that of the serial killer, a mystery himself within as he contains some seemingly supernatural mystique in his murderous plots. Let’s just say this book contains a city full of screaming. Lots and lots of screaming…

Briar herself is an interesting case, a journalist with more knowledge of Chicago that she can churn out faster and heavier than you can fact-check on your phone. Her on-the-spot know-how, mixed with the struggles of figuring out why the random radios inherited from her great-great-grandparents go on and off, to roses and gifted spindles appearing at inopportune times, create a kind of Poet-pedia that is becoming emblematic of the author’s style. The whimsical just stops itself of becoming full twee.

There comes to a point though where the safety of Briar becomes an ‘enough is enough’ point, and one scene in particular, where a serious self-check is met with denial and enabling behaviour from her peers, kind of draws that line in the sand as to when is the serial killer just going to show up for the reader. The cover says ‘A Thriller,’ but you are going to have to skip to the final ten pages before that.

Vanishing Daughters is best seen as a suspense, and a loving showcase for Chicago, as Cynthia Pelayo continues to give her readers an in-depth, fantasy/supernatural look at the wonder and lore of the city she loves, one that I believe is growingly reciprocated.

3.5 🌟

I thought there was so much potential at the beginning of this book - I loved the heavy atmosphere and exploration of grief. But about 50% of the way through it felt like nothing much had happened, Bri was going in circles in her own head over and over, and the plot stalled. I wanted more from Bri's semi-haunted house, the effects of generational trauma and curses, and the killer, but I feel like I never got enough. It all got wrapped up neatly in the last 10% of the book, but it was only marginally satisfying. Still a good mood read if you want something fairytale-esque and spooky.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This was a fascinating take on the ever-popular genre of dark fairy tales. The plot had me hooked from the get-go. The characters were well-crafted and the prose was absolutely stunning.

Briar Rose is devastated by her mother’s death. She can’t seem to focus on her work, nor can she sleep. The first few chapters are a slow fever dream of insomnia perpetuated by grief. But once we meet the serial killer and his intentions to capture and kill Briar so that he can add her to his collection of “beauties” the book really shifts to a faster gear.

I loved the intertwining of Chicago history with the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty. The prose was very dreamy-like and evocative, creating clear images in your mind, but also allowing you to feel Briar’s frequent dream sequences that interweave with the past and present. I really liked Isaac, a man she befriends on one of her walks that helps her use her dreams as a way to find out the truth about the past that can also help with the present, and help find out who the killer is. This isn’t your typical plot-driven thriller, but more a psychological supernatural character driven one. Pelayo masterfully weaves horror, fairytale, and true crime into this novel in ways that couldn’t be pulled off by a less skilled author.

The reader is quickly sucked into the mystery of trying to figure out who the killer is, why Briar has been seeing an older gentleman passing by her home for many years, and who exactly is Mary – the famous ghost known was the Vanishing Hitchhiker of Archer Avenue. There are moments when walking with Briar along the most haunted places in Chicago that the reader can’t help but feel more terror for the characters encountering live people on their trail than any ghosts – as Pelayo likes to remind us that very often it’s people who are the real monsters, and not the supernatural.

This is a must-read for those who love fairytale retellings with a modern, true-crime twist to it. If you have enjoyed Pelayo’s previous books, then you will love this one a lot, as she has truly mastered her literary brand of intertwining magical realism with the grittiness of true crime. Read this for a haunted, and unforgettable experience.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley & Thomas & Mercer for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

It started the night journalist Briar Thorne’s mother died in their rambling old mansion on Chicago’s South Side.

The nightmares of a woman in white pleading to come home, music switched on in locked rooms, and the panicked fear of being swallowed by the dark…Bri has almost convinced herself that these stirrings of dread are simply manifestations of grief and not the beyond-world of ghostly impossibilities her mother believed in. And more tangible terrors still lurk outside the decaying Victorian greystone.

A serial killer has claimed the lives of fifty-one women in the Chicago area. When Bri starts researching the murders, she meets a stranger who tells her there’s more to her sleepless nights than bad dreams—they hold the key to putting ghosts to rest and stopping a killer. But the killer has caught on and is closing in, and if Bri doesn’t answer the call of the dead soon, she’ll be walking among them.

Loved it. Will recommend to others.

This one was difficult. I enjoy Cynthia Pelayo's writing, especially in this book. Too many threads were in play during this novel.
A retelling of the Sleeping Beauty tale, almost scholarly at times. Also a primer on haunted spots in Chicago. Mostly a meditation on grief. These parts work separately when they're put at the forefront, but they never really coalesced into a single narrative for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC.

This was just not for me. There was just way too much going on; fairy tales, urban legends, serial killers, grief, something about the Manhattan Project it was just too much. It also genuinely feels like the MC is just sleep deprived to the point that she should have been hospitalized, and while I think this was supposed to show just how awful it is to lose someone it just becomes too extreme. And maybe that's all this was; some sort of fever dream the MC is having while dealing with the loss of her mother and conquering the serial killer is her conquering her depression brought on by grief but even if that was the case the attempt to tie a serial killer, to a fairy tale (several versions of the same one), to grief was never fully realized. It felt incomplete and disjointed. There are some shining comments on grief and loss, but not enough, and somehow, too many.

Overall, I genuinely can't recommend this, which rarely happens.

As always, thanks to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for the eArc.

a nightmarish sense of grief combining fairy tales, ghost stories, and just the feeling you get when you don't feel like you're actually in your body. 5 stars tysm for the arc.

A modern twist on a classic fairytale! As a lover of Sleeping Beauty, this really hit the mark for me. The prose was beautiful and atmospheric and the story really pulls you in and doesn't let go!

Vanishing Daughters by Cynthia Pelayo is a gripping and emotionally charged thriller that delves into the disturbing realities of missing persons cases, particularly focusing on the violent disappearance of young women. Pelayo crafts a compelling narrative through the eyes of the protagonist, a mother searching for her missing daughter, which is both heart-wrenching and powerful.

The author expertly blends elements of suspense and horror with poignant social commentary on the systemic failures that allow such disappearances to persist, particularly in marginalized communities. The pacing is relentless, drawing readers into the mystery and the emotional turmoil experienced by those left behind. Pelayo's prose is atmospheric and evocative, enhancing the sense of urgency and fear throughout.

While the plot is tight and engaging, the characters, especially the protagonist, are rich with depth and complexity, making their motivations and struggles feel real. The only slight drawback is that the resolution feels somewhat rushed compared to the slow-burn buildup, leaving a few threads untied.

Overall, Vanishing Daughters is a thought-provoking, chilling thriller that balances suspense with a deeply human story. Highly recommended for fans of dark, introspective mysteries with a social conscience. 4.75/5 stars.

Vanishing Daughters by Cynthia Pelayo is marketed as a psychological thriller with hints of fantasy, but for me, it leaned more into philosophical musings than heart-pounding suspense. While there are moments that deliver the promised thriller vibes, these are scattered and often overshadowed by a meandering plot that struggles to find its footing.

The novel’s ambitious attempt to weave in a fairy tale motif didn’t quite land for me. The connections felt tenuous, and I think the story would have been stronger without most of that element. The middle section, in particular, gets bogged down with these threads, making it difficult to stay engaged.

Pelayo’s prose is undeniably thought-provoking, but the heavy philosophical style detracts from the pacing and tension that are hallmarks of the thriller genre. Ultimately, the narrative feels like it could benefit from another round of editing to tighten the plot and clarify its focus.

If you enjoy genre-bending stories that challenge traditional narrative structures and don’t mind a slower, more reflective pace, Vanishing Daughters might appeal to you. For those looking for a gripping, edge-of-your-seat thriller, however, this one may fall short.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was very good! I definitely find myself gravitating towards Cynthia’s books because her writing is so captivating. Catch me working through her backlist after this one!

This book is so haunting. Pelayo’s writing is enchanting, but this book is still horror which is a rare skill that only Cina can master.