I have read quite a few early reviews for this book. It looks like one of those that people either love or hate.

The Roanoke family tree has no branches. That should be yur first clue that something is not quite right at the Roanoke house. In the blurb it says 'an estate in Kansas", I've lived in Kansas. Estate? It sounds more like a House of Horrors. Where are the police in this town? Where are Child Services? Heck, where is any responsible adult?

The only character I felt anything for was Cooper the long ago boyfriend that Lane didn't bother telling goodbye when she fled. The rest of them had not one redeeming quality. Just bad people doing bad thngs and thinking it's normal. It is not.

A dark, and deeply disturbing story of abuse.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read it. The book is scheduled for a March 2017 release.

Roanoke Girls was a tough read. Although I finished the book weeks ago, I couldn't find words to write a review. It's been a few weeks and I still feel I don't have words. As disturbing as the subject matter is, the author does draw the reader in emotionally and once you're in it, there's a need or rather an obligation to finish the book to see the characters through to the end.

Twisted and dark, this is a remarkable read. A family secret that has continued on through generations sets the stage. Lane finally has a chance to live at Roanoke, where her mother ran from. She meets her cousin Allegra, and a summer of teen antics ensue. Fast forward to the present: Allegra is missing and Lane's grandfather is distraught. Never thinking she would ever return to Roanoke after that one peculiar summer, Lane can't let Allegra's disapperance go. Without a doubt, this is one of the most compelling novels I have read recently, unsettling yet captivating. Flashbacks build the tension and provide insight into a sordid dysfunctional family and its secrets.

Anytime I see a book claiming to be about a “family with a dark secret,” my mind immediately goes to one thing, and I bet yours does too. (It starts with “I” and rhymes with “blincest.”) And not only is The Roanoke Girls about just such a family, it’s set in Kansas, my home state! Finally, we shall be known as more than just the home of Dorothy and Toto!

Seriously, Everyone Who’s Not From Kansas (including that New Jersey-accented TSA agent, you know who you are), please kindly shut your trapholes about the flipping Wizard of Oz. No one here cares. I’m not saying I’m excited to be associated with rhymes-with-blincest, but I’m just about to the point where I’d take that over another crack about the stupid brick road. And your little dog, too!

Anyway, The Roanoke Girls is so addictive to read. It’s somehow super-trashy in subject matter and quite well-written at the same time, which is confusing because I couldn’t tell how much to judge myself for loving it. Is this like a V.C. Andrews novel I should hide under my proverbial mattress and never confess to having read, or is it a sensitive literary exploration of the damaging love of a seductive patriarch? Am I a perverted weirdo showing up for the shock value, or am I a gentlewoman and a scholar?

Eh, forget the analysis, both literary and psycho-. I don’t care what it says about me that I really, really liked The Roanoke Girls. I clucked my tongue and fluttered my fan at every twisted revelation.

With regards to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for the advance copy. On sale March 7!

"I dream of the Roanoke girls, lost and broken. Staring eyes and crumpled bodies. Jane. Sophia. Penelope. Eleanor. Camille. Emmeline. Allegra. They are calling for me, begging me to help them. I search and search, but never find a single one." This book fascinated me and I couldn't stop turning pages or should I say swiping the screen? It is about Lane Roanoke, who has to go live with her Grandparents. Her cousin, Allegra, also lives there. It is uncanny how much they look alike. But Lane doesn't have time to try and figure that mystery out because she is fighting her own demons. Her mom committed suicide and just like the other Roanoke girls who have died, there seems to have been a dark secret as to the reason why. "Sometimes it's a revelation, even to me, how much more comfortable I am with cruelty than with kindness. " Allegra mysteriously goes missing, just like all the other Roanoke girls. As Lane tries to uncover where Allegra could have gone, she also uncovers disturbing family secrets. The author created wonderful characters that you can't help love and hate at the same time. The writing was beautiful and lyrical. "I'm not running. I know running doesn't get you anywhere. You can't outrun what's inside of you. You can only acknowledge it, work around it, try to turn it into something better." Each Roanoke girl's story is told throughout the book to help give clues as to how and why Allegra is gone. I highly recommend this mystery thriller.

Great read! The author tells a great story. I look forward to more from this author.

Lane Roanoke never had it easy. Tragedy comes as no surprise when her mother commits suicide, forcing Lane to live with her grandparents and spitfire cousin, Allegra. What comes next is a rollercoaster of a summer full of passion, debauchery, and confusion. The Roanoke girls are two things. Cursed and beautiful. All of them.
Years later, living in California and still haunted by tragedy and painful memories, Lane is forced to return back to the Roanoke house when Allegra is declared missing. What comes next is even more sinister than Lane could imagine. A twisted tale full of vengeful heat, twisted secrets, and so many flawed characters, you're head will spin for hours after turning the final page. Imagine Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects and August Osage County combined. This is one I won't forget for a long time.

Returning to Roanoke, her grandparents' farm in rural Kansas, was the last thing that Lane ever intended on doing. Though only spending one summer surrounded by family secrets in a dying town, she left for California and vowed never to go back. After years of just trying to exist, she receives a call from her Grandfather telling her about her cousin Allegra's recent disappearance. Sensing something isn't quite right, Lane hops on a plane and returns to the tragic place that she left all those years ago in the hopes of finding Allegra or at least assuage her own guilt over running away.

By integrating all the Roanoke girls' stories, Amy Engel weaves a page-turning family saga that switches between Lane's first summer in Osage Flats, Kansas all those years ago and her return. At first the time shifts every chapter confused me, but I did get comfortable with the format and could see why the author chose to present her story this way. While the book was very easy to read, I felt more of a YA voice coming through than the adult thriller I believe Engel intended. This makes sense considering that her two previous novels fell into the YA genre; however, considering the disturbing subject matter I thought a more nuanced tone could have been used.

And that brings be to my biggest concern with the story. Without revealing any spoilers, just be aware that there is a taboo subject at the heart of The Roanoke Girls that might be a bit much for a lot of people. I do think the big reveal happened too early in the book, within the first 5 chapters, to have as much impact as a later reveal would have, but I this seems to have been done on purpose as nothing that comes after is sensationalized. I don't believe that the family secret itself was intended to be the focus as much as the destructiveness of families and damaged people, so the marketing as a "thriller" seems a bit misleading.

Even though the the subject matter made me uneasy and the story itself felt foreseeable, I did compulsively turn the pages in order to watch everything play out. The Roanoke Girls is a controversial yet solid first novel from Amy Engel that should cause quite a stir once released.

This book is a fast and captivating read, but also a rather disturbing one. Amy Engel does a great job setting the pace and development of the plot with flashback chapters every other chapter, thus changing between "now" and "then", providing useful background information that slowly but surely provides the reader with pieces of a puzzle that is gradually solved.
The language and story is quite graphic, but readers with the stomach to get through it all is in for a rare treat, and I was hooked if not from page 1 then from at least very early on.
Fans of Gillian Flynn, Fiona Barton and others in the genre should definitely try out this book.

Sick. Disturbing. Just a couple of words I would use to describe this book.

After her mother's suicide, fifteen-year-old Lane Roanoke goes to live with her grandparents and cousin, Allegra, in rural Kansas. Lane knew little of her mother's family except that she seemed to hate them. However, Lane quickly embraces life as a Roanoke girl. But when she begins to understand her mother’s hatred of her family, she runs. Eleven years later, Lane returns to Kansas when she learns that Allegra has gone missing. Her homecoming may mean a second chance with an old boyfriend, but it also means facing the secret that made her flee all those years ago.

Those words I mentioned above? They circled around and around in my mind after finishing this book. But don’t let these words sway you from reading The Roanoke Girls. That is not my intention. They were simply the words that best described my feelings. When I first began the book I had an inkling of what was happening. When the plot I suspected was confirmed, my stomach churned. But I couldn’t put the book down because I needed to know if the Roanoke girls survived the hand they had been dealt.

Lane tells most of the story, alternating between the past and present. However, you are given a deeper look into the horrors of the household by hearing from the other Roanoke Girls. This wasn’t an easy book to read. It broke my heart. It spoke to me about how we let some people get in our heads and control us. It was heartbreaking, simply heartbreaking. Until Lane. She ends it and brings the story of the Roanoke Girls to a satisfying conclusion.

Read this book, but don’t go into it thinking it will be a cozy, afternoon read. Be prepared to feel an assortment of emotions. Be prepared to cheer for the good guy to win. Be prepared.

Lane Roanoke is just a teenager when her mother commits suicide, and Lane is sent to live with her grandparents in Kansas. While Lane lived a sad life with her depressed, volatile mother, her wealthy grandparents represent a chance for a new start - and Lane can meet her cousin, Allegra, who is close to her age. But when Lane arrives in Kansas, while she quickly befriends Allegra and is amazed by the kindness of her grandfather, she also realizes not everything is as it seems.

Eleven years later, after Lane has fled the farm (and left her family there behind), Lane receives a call from her grandfather: Allegra is missing. Can she please come home? Reluctantly Lane returns to a place she vowed she'd never see again to search for her cousin, whom she has always felt bad about leaving behind. But returning only brings up bad memories, and Lane quickly worries that something terrible has happened to Allegra. Can Lane face her fears and figure out what happened to her cousin?

This book, oh this book. Wow. This is quite the novel! The story alternates between the present-day and that fateful summer (from Lane's point of view), with a few snippets from earlier generations of the other Roanoke girls thrown in. It's slightly confusing at first (you'll need easy access to the family tree at the beginning of the book), but quickly pulls you in and never lets you go. I was immediately captivated by this novel and read it in less than 24 hours. It's not some "feel good" novel, but it's amazingly well-written and just spellbinding. It starts off with a bombshell and then hooks you from there with the dark story of the twisted Roanoke family.

There is something completely alluring about how messed up and sick the Roanokes are. I couldn't turn away from them. The book is great because you become quickly intrigued and invested in the story of what happened to Allegra, but there's also a bit of suspense to the "then" storyline as Lane finds out something terrible about her family. Engel is remarkably talented because we know the secret already, and Lane knows it in the present-day portion of the book, but it's still enthralling watching it unravel as she's a teen. There's also just a pure fascination and horror at this family. There are also periodic shockers throughout the entire novel and several "wow" and "didn't see that coming" moments for me. The whole thing is extremely well-done.

I was extremely expressed by Engel's characters. For instance, Lane is a broken and damaged person who cannot trust or love. As such, she is frustrating with her guarded heart but still sympathetic. She drove me crazy, but I loved her. Engel did an excellent job with all of these characters. Even those that seemed (or were) absolutely awful; they all seemed so real. She also did a great job at portraying small towns and their tangled web of secrets. The broken Kansas town where the Roanokes lived was expertly done, with all of its bit characters and the descriptions of its streets and happenings.

Overall, I was incredibly impressed with this book. Its entire plot was creepy and twisted, and it was compulsively readable, with plenty of shocking moments. Yet it also had empathetic, well-written characters. It was an amazing dark look at the power of childhood, your parents, and your past. It's a mean and twisted novel and impeccably written, because you feel such a range of emotions for its characters. Definitely recommend.

Thank You to Crown Publishing for providing me with an advanced copy of Amy Engel's novel, The Roanoke Girls, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Fifteen-year-old Lane Roanoke's life has just been turned upside down. Her mother, Camilla, has committed suicide, and Lane has been uprooted from her city life in New York to live with her maternal grandparents and younger cousin, Allegra, in rural Kansas. Lane has never known her grandparents; her mother ran away from their home as a pregnant teen and remained estranged. Lane soon learns that the Roanoke family harbors a dark secret and that the females of the family either runaway or die young from tragic causes. Will Lane become the next victim in the Roanoke curse?

LIKE- The Roanoke Girls is a compelling story; a page-turner. I ripped through it in less than a day. The great Roanoke secret is so utterly disturbing, that it's like a car crash: I knew I shouldn't want to look, but I did. I had to. It's taboo, salacious, and shocking. I can't remember the last time I read a novel with this much shock value. The Roanoke secret isn't necessarily a surprise, as the hints are clear early on, however the element of surprise isn't necessary, as being in on the secret, and watching how it all plays out, is the hook. 

Shock value aside, what makes The Roanoke Girls so readable, is Engel's writing. Her narrative is strong and she deftly handles that delicate balance of writing in a way that is plain and  flows, yet is filled with unusual descriptions and sensory imagery. In other words, her writing isn't flowery or bogged down with description, yet in many place, I paused to admire her descriptive phrases. She has a knack for constructing beautiful, powerful sentences. The pacing and intensity never drops either. The Roanoke Girls has all of the elements of a well-balanced, readable novel.

The Roanoke Girls is told both in flashbacks and in the present day, where we learn that Lane left the Roanoke household shortly after arriving, but Allegra, who stayed, is now the latest girl missing. Lane returns to Kansas to search for her cousin. The story is revealed in a third way; through short chapters dedicated to each Roanoke girl, giving us a closer look at these mysterious women, such as Allegra's mother or a female baby that died. I like how Engel used these chapters to slightly lift the veil of mystery and tease out the ultimate secret of the Roanoke household.

DISLIKE- I'm trying to write this, without giving spoilers, so it may be vague...but I'm not sure why all of the Roanoke girls fell under the same spell. Although I found the story fascinating, I'm not sure that I found it believable. Maybe adding another perspective would have given this clarity? I'm not sure. 

RECOMMEND- Yes, if you can handle stories that are shocking and uncomfortable. You will squirm. The Roanoke Girls is not going to be for everyone, but if it sounds up your alley, I can recommend it as an engaging read and Engel as a talented storyteller. The Roanoke Girls will certainly stick in my memory for a long time.

DNF at 12%

Nope. There is incest in this book. Not a theme that will ever be of interest to me in a work of fiction.

Yes, yes, yes! I relished inside this novel. I knew the secret, I knew it but I wanted so desperately for them to tell me the secret, to whisper the words to me, so it would verify the truth that I harbored inside. I dreaded hearing it but I hoped hearing the words would change things. It was the secret that Allegra would not reveal, at least she said not yet. Allegra, the granddaughter of Yates and Lillian Roanoke. These grandparents were raising Allegra and would soon be raising Lane. Sixteen- year old Lane was excited that she was going to Roanoke, she was excited that they wanted her, as they were the only family she had now. Their grandfather had an outpouring of love, their grandmother a woman who stayed behind the scenes. Allegra enjoys being one of the Roanoke Girls, the secret lies within her and she had grown up living with the secret. Even after everything that Lane has lived through and now being a Roanoke Girl, this secret is too much for her. She tries to get Allegra to leave with her but Allegra will not leave Roanoke.

Over ten years have passed and grandfather calls Lane and informs her that Allegra has disappeared. He asks her to return to Roanoke. Returning to Roanoke, Lane finds that it is like walking into her past with only minimum changes. The secret still haunts Lane as she tries to locate Allegra. The police are searching also but there are no solid leads.

It’s a disturbing, troubling novel, one that stirred me until the bitter end. I became passionate about the two young characters, furious and intense, I hoped that they would find each other, that Allegra had run off, that she would soon reappear. Remarkable writing, I could not put this novel down, the story driving deeper and deeper until the final pages. Definitely one, I would recommend.

I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley and Crown Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Fascinating thriller that pulls you in, but be warned: high creepy factor!

When Lane's cousin, Allegra goes missing, she finds herself going back to her grandparent's house where she lived for a summer in her teens. Now 26, Lane has barely spoken to her cousin since that summer, and has no contact at all with other relatives. She went there right after her mother's suicide and met the family for the first time. To say the least, it was a memorable summer. She ended up running away, on her own at 16 rather than live there.

As the story goes on e fund out what is so bad about this place and it is disturbing. Fans of Flowers in the Attic may enjoy it. I couldn't put it down, kept wanting to know what was happening. There were no slow parts to this story!

Roanoke girls have dark hair and are beautiful but they never seem to last. Lane knows very little about her family since her mother refuses to talk about them. After her mother’s suicide, Lane goes to live with her grandparents and cousin Allegra in Kansas. Life seems great until something happens causing Lane to leave her family behind after only living there a summer. Eleven years later, Lane receives a call from her grandfather informing her that Allegra has disappeared. Lane returns to find out what happened to her cousin and must face the secret she’s kept hidden all these years. In the end, will Lane figure out what happened to Allegra? The Roanoke Girls is a dark and disturbing novel that sucks you in and won’t let you go. One of my top reads for 2017!

Review will be published to https://novelinkblog.com/the-roanoke-girls-by-amy-engel/ on February 20th.

Before I say anything else, let me say this. This book is seriously dark and it will not be for everyone. The things that happen in this book are disgusting and the fact that everyone acted like it was no biggie made this a very difficult read for me and it’s something that will turn a lot of readers off. With that being said, the writing and the mystery is what kept me going even though I was seriously disgusted with most of these characters.

It’s no secret that I loved Engels YA duology, The Book of Ivy, so when I saw another book with her name on it, I immediately added it to my TBR without first reading the summary. Let me be clear, this is not a YA book. I somehow missed this in my excitement. It didn’t deter me though, so after getting approved to read an early copy, I immediately jumped in and devoured this book within a day.

To say these characters are messed up would be the understatement of the century. Because of this, it’s very hard to feel any sort of connection with any of them. I felt bad for every single Roanoke girl, the things that are taught that are ok is sickening and it killed me that no one was doing anything about it. Like I said above, the only thing that kept me reading was the phenomenal writing and the mystery behind Allegra’s disappearance. Well, that and Connor.

Connor was the character that stood out most to me and one that I actually liked. While I didn’t hate Lane, our MC, I disagreed with a lot of her choices, but in the end, her loyalty to Allegra and her refusal to give up on learning the truth really made me look at her differently. Although, I still wish she would’ve made some different choices to the things she knew about Roanoke.

The Roanoke Girls is a dark and disturbing story that had some very difficult things to stomach, I couldn’t stop reading because I had to know how it was going to end.

THE ROANOKE GIRLS is not for the faint of heart. There's some dark stuff here - family secrets that will make you cringe. But wow, what a story! Engel's writing gripped me from the start. Her realistic characters overlaid with mystery make for a terrific read. Recommended for fans of Gillian Flynn and Ruth Ware.

This book is gut wrenching. It is well written but the subject is a little more than I like to deal with most of the time.