Wow!

What's it like to be a Roanoke girl? Fifteen year-old Lane finds out when her mother, who has battled depression as long as Lane can remember, committs suicide. Lane goes to live with her wealthy grandparents in Kansas. Her cousin, Allegra, lives with there as well. The girls quickly bond and Lane easily adapts to a life of priveledge in a small town. But something doesn't seem quite right. Lane only stays a few months before running away...just like her mother and many other Roanoke girls did before her.

Eleven years later Lane is living in L.A.. She is called back to Kansas because Allegra has gone missing. The story unfolds in the present with flashbacks to Lane's time there. There are many darks secrets that are slowly revealed. This book kept me reading and guessing till the end.

This one had been in my queue for awhile, as I got busy with other deadlines. But I was so happy to get to read it, and I am ecstatic to say that this book was well worth the wait. Creepy, suspenseful and full of drama – this book has it all and kept me turning pages late into the night.

First: one of the themes of this book is sexual abuse, and those who wish to avoid that topic should probably skip this book.

The book follows two timelines: Lane Roanoke moves to the family home in Kansas after the suicide of her mother. Living there are her grandparents and her cousin (also 16 years old at the time) live there. All Lane knows about her relatives is that her mother was estranged from them and that her and Allegra are the last of “the Roanoke Girls,” a line of young women who either die young or run away. After one fateful summer, Lane runs. Eleven years later, she learns Allegra is missing and she decides to return to Roanoke to find Allegra and face her family’s demons once and for all.

This book packs quite an emotional punch, really grabbing you from the first page and never letting go. There is a pervading sense of something being “off” as soon as Lane gets to the house, and while it doesn’t remain a secret for long, you can’t look away because you want to know how it all ends. There are so many things that you need to know.

The book also touches on a lot of issues that are really important (fidelity, love, abuse, etc.) and it really gives a great weight to the story. You don’t feel like you’re reading a gratuitous, dramatic novel, but something much more important, if that makes sense. It gets you thinking about different issues and things people face.

I really liked this book and can’t recommend it enough. It’s hard to describe why, but I guess the book just pulls you in and makes you care about the people in it.

I can’t wait for more from Amy Engel.

Favorite Quote: “Sometimes you have to pass the pain around in order to survive it.”

Fifteen-year-old Lane Roanoke didn’t know much about her mother’s family except her mother likened the Roanoke legacy to a nightmare you can never escape from. When her mother commits suicide, leaving a note begging forgiveness for not being able to wait, Lane is sent to live with her grandparents on the family farm in Osage Flats, Kansas.

Upon arrival, she meets her high-strung cousin, Allegra, her loving grandfather, and her standoffish grandmother. Accepted into the family with open arms, Lane soaks up the love offered and blossoms. But the undercurrents that flow through the house doesn’t escape Lane’s notice. And when Lane discovers the truth, she runs as far and fast as she can.

Eleven years later, Lane receives a call from her grandfather. Her cousin has disappeared and he wants Lane to come home and help find her. Lane doesn’t want to come home but she knows she needs to face old ghosts and make amends if she wants to completely free herself from the past and have a future.

The Roanoke Girls is an evocative tale of abuse, survival, and forgiveness. It tells of a family’s insidious legacy and it’s devastating consequences through the voice of a young woman who attempts to break the cycle. Slow and steady, Lane’s conversational style narrative flashes between the past and the present and tells her story in mixture of defiance, anger, and hints of longing that haunts you

“Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.”

The story opens with a glimpse into the past, revealing the big secret almost right away, announcing it with no warning and walking away. It remains this huge elephant in the room that everyone knows about but doesn’t talk about through much of the book. The story moves forward, focusing on Lane, Allegra, and their grandfather, the fateful summer they spent together, and the catalyst that ripped them all apart. We are shown the astronomical dysfunction in this family and the coping mechanisms that Lane and Allegra unconsciously adopt to handle the confusion and turmoil in their lives. It is heartbreaking and uncomfortable to watch unfold; made more so once you realize the level of sickness involved and the efforts of those around to normalize it.

“Sometimes people who love us can still hurt us.”

Lane and Allegra are two intelligent, brilliant, and flawed individuals who don’t exactly endear themselves to you. They are cracked pieces of glass that cut and slice while you wait for them to shatter into a million pieces. As teenagers, they embraced being “the rich and beautiful Roanoke Girls” and accepted the tributes they felt due them without any thoughts to the cost. A small but potent romance only serves to intensify the pain as you watch an older and wiser Lane try to discover what happened to Allegra. Bits and pieces of hers and Allegra’s lives are slowly exposed like a raw nerve. You experience each twist and turn on the emotional roller coaster they were riding and learn the heavy price they paid for their decisions.

Guilt, I’m discovering, is an emotion that’s almost impossible to kill.

This story stayed with me long after I finished as I tried to sort out my feelings about it. Engel brings to the forefront some sensitive subjects with no excuses or attempts to sensationalize in order to add drama to the story. She streamlines the storyline, choosing to lay out the events in a brisk economical manner, making each discovery so much more shocking because of the lack of artifice and drama. We are given an intimate look into the personality of a narcissistic predator and the way they are able to manipulate their victims; using love and affection to excuse their behavior.

The Roanoke Girls was certainly not what I was expecting and for that I’m glad. I look forward to reading more Engel in the future.

Grade: B

Yuck. Is that a literary term?
I found Engel's writing to be, at best, elementary, and the storyline simply raw (in an unpleasant, coarse sort of way). The characters were flimsy and reminded me of daytime television. If lewd and shallow is your thing, have at it, but this one was not for me.

This is one of those books that feels wrong to give five stars because of the subject matter. It was suspenseful from start to finish. I had a list of suspects forming from the opening chapter, and while I had the suspect on my list early on, I didn't feel very convinced of this character's guilt.
Thanks for the advance copy, NetGalley!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an Advanced Review in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed the writing, but the story was not my cup of tea.

I struggled with this book. I’ve read lots of really great reviews of the story, but for some reason I just had a lot of trouble connecting with the characters and it took a lot of effort to read it. Maybe the dark and twisty isn’t my jam? I may come back to it at a later date when I'm in a better frame of mind for dark and twisty.

So first of all, yuck. This one made me feel icky. I started off enjoying this book until the author throws in Grandad boning his daughters and granddaughters and Gran kills them because she’s jealous. WTF.

I finished reading a few hours ago and it’s still giving me the heebie-jeebies.

I really enjoyed this book. It was easy to read (albeit a bit slow at times) but very enjoyable. There are parts that made me cringe, maybe even out loud, but I would definitely recommend this book to many people.

Was this book written just for Ms. Pickett? It’s so in my wheelhouse! It’s ringing all of my bells! I’m here for The Roanoke Girls! Here’s why: that intriguing cover, a spookily labyrinthine farmhouse, seemingly idyllic small-town life churning with betrayals, a young woman’s struggle to break free of her own history, and the (really) dark secrets of the Roanoke family ….

After her mother’s suicide, 15-year old Lane Roanoke is sent to New Osage, Kansas, to live with her grandparents and cousin Allegra. Ten years later, Allegra has vanished and Lane returns to the Roanoke estate at her grandfather’s request. Chapters alternate between Lane’s indelible summer in Osage Flats (“Then”), and the fraught days following Allegra’s disappearance (“Now”). It all feels like standard girl-gone-missing fare until Amy Engel tosses a literary flash bang at the reader on page 32. Allegra’s own words are prophetic: “Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.” It’s finding out why the Roanoke girls don’t last long that will keep you turning pages at a frantic pace even as the chills run down your spine.

This modern twist on a rural Gothic noir calls to mind some of my recent favorites: S•Town Podcast, Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy, The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh, All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda, My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh, and (from my TBR list) Let Me Die In His Footsteps by Lori Roy.

The Roanoke Girls is available now in the Ridley High School Library. Thank you to Netgalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review!

Upon finishing this book, I took a long moment to wonder what the hell I’d just read. This book makes Flowers in the Attic look conventional.

The Roanoke Girls* tells the tale of then and now, with family history woven in. Cousins Lane and Allegra, through death and dysfunction, come to live with their grandparents on a sprawling estate in rural Kansas. The novel early chapters contain this brilliant gem.

“Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die”.

It’s so simple, yet it hints at the dark and twisted family saga to come. Lane, now an adult, receives a mysterious call from her grandfather, begging her to come home. Allegra has disappeared. Reluctantly, despite the fact she swore she never would, Lane returns home to a nearly unchanged town. After her abrupt departure ten years earlier, Lane finds that she falls right back into the same relationships that were always so toxic (and wonderful). As the days pass and there is still no sign of Allegra, Lane loses hope and begins retracing Allegra’s final days. What happened to her? And why?

The Roanoke Girls is, quite simply, a page turner. I flew through it in a day. It’s absorbing, disturbing, and filled with dread. I was trying to describe this novel to a friend, and I fell woefully short, but the plot truly does defy easy description. Or if you’re capable of describing it, people might wonder what there is to like. The secrets we keep are often what bind us together, and more often, tears us apart, especially within a family. Sordid family secrets and a twisted family tree keep Engel’s novel riveting, for better or worse.

For those of you who secretly enjoyed Flowers in the Attic, The Roanoke Girls is your modern update.

After reading the synopsis when pitched this book, I was all in for a generational family drama, but after a few chapters the family secret is revealed and I just couldn't enjoy it from there. I will not spoil the family secret because I don't believe in spoiling, but just let me say that its real icky and I am mostly sure that there is just a nitsch amount of folks who would enjoy it.

It pains me to rate the book so low and I just had a hard time because I actually enjoyed the way Amy Engel wrote and the generational part of it was entertaining, but I couldn't get past the family secret and I just wished it had been something else.

There isn't much to say in this review. I wanted more from the plot of this story and I just wish it had been different.

One of my first Goodreads comments while tracking my reading progress was: "this family is severely messed up... reminds me of a VC Andrews story but BETTER!", all because of the subject matter in this story. After finishing the book, I realized it was so much more.

Lane's story is told in pieces via past and present as well as bits of stories from the other Roanoke Girls both dead and alive. It's also intertwined with Allegra's story which adds even that much more drama to the lives of the Roanoke Girls. I think having the chapters alternate between Lane, Allegra and their female relatives it creates the depth of the backstory needed to understand what was truly happening behind closed doors.

Lane has not had an easy life - her mother had mental issues stemming from her upbringing and commits suicide, then she's tossed to her grandparents whom she thinks love and want her, but it's so twisted and messed up that she runs. She doesn't have normal relationships with men because she doesn't have a role model to compare to nor does she know how to accept real love. She has many issues to work out during this story and all of the added darkness makes you root for her to rise up like a phoenix from the ashes.

Such a dark subject matter is the topic of this story, but it's handled in such a way that it doesn't overpower the mystery behind the women nor is it written in a way that you would find it overtly sexualized. It's tasteful. And the story ends up feeling like the mystery it should be. You will find yourself unraveling the pieces of where is Allegra and why did she disappear, as well as rooting for Lane to finally let herself be loved.

I had a few theories running through my mind on where Allegra was and who they should be interviewing to get more info, but I was completely wrong and I love when that happens. The best books to me are the ones that keep you guessing and blindside you in the best way.

Lane does a lot of growing up during her return to Roanoke. Not only is she determined to find out the truth, but she's also allowing herself to let go of the past and try to imagine a proper future for herself where she isn't needing to be on the run to hid from her past and her family.

The last thing to know about The Roanoke Girls is that the way it's written allows to to know the twisty secret without coming right out and saying it at the beginning. This also allows for Ms. Engel to tell the story about why the family is this way and what caused it to happen.

Remember.... Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.

A well written, twisted family story full of secrets that you won't want to miss.

Fantastic, twisty novel about a family of girls who burn bright and die young, and the secrets that their family home keeps in its walls...

This is one of those books that you fall into and have a difficult time putting down. It alternates between mesmerizing portraits of beautiful young women and brutal punches of their legacy of abuse. The reader gets glimpses into each of these girl's lives as Lane comes home to Roanoke after her grandfather calls to tell her that her cousin Allegra is missing. Lane goes home to find Allegra and learns that while time passes, some things never change.

This book turned out to be a lot more twisted than I was expecting, which made it a page turner, but also left me raising my eyebrows quite a few times as the story strayed into quite sinister territory.

After 15-year old Lane Roanoke's troubled mother commits suicide, she is sent to live with her grandparents (who are also looking after her 14-year old cousin, Allegra) on the sprawling, isolated Roanoke family farm in Kansas.

Here, Lane learns more about her family, mainly that all of the beautiful, dark-haired Roanoke girls - there are no brothers or sons - either disappear or die with startling regularity. The only man amongst these girls is Lane's grandfather, Yates.

After spending one summer on the farm, Lane adds her name to the list of Roanoke girls that runs away and she stays away until eleven years later, when Allegra goes missing. She returns to try and find out where her cousin is, and ends up having to face up to all her Roanoke demons - from the truth about Allegra, to her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Cooper.

This book definitely would have benefitted from a little more character exploration. Aside from Lane, I was left feeling that most of the characters had a 2D quality, but especially Lane's grandparents, Yates and Lillian, as although they are present throughout the story, we only see glimpses into their characters and more about their motivation would have helped to give the overall book more depth.

I read a majority of The Roanoke Girls on a plane, and it is great for a journey - when you want something that's going to grip your attention while being an easy read. My 2.5 hour journey seemed to go by in a flash, so job done there. Overall, this was a great little thriller - perfect for packing in your case this summer.

Wow!  5 holy cow stars!

“Nothing around here has ever been right.”

The subject matter of this book is quite obvious and unsettling which did make me feel slightly uncomfortable at times but in my opinion the author handles the content gently and with care!

THE ROANOKE GIRLS by AMY ENGEL is a dark, dirty and haunting tale that is emotional, thought-provoking, disturbing, and heartbreaking with a hint of a romance weaved into the story to lighten the mood ever so slightly.  I really enjoyed that part of the storyline.

"Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.”

AMY ENGEL delivers an intriguing and powerful read here with flawed and interesting characters.  The writing is absolutely phenomenal which is told mostly in Lane’s point of view alternating between then and now as well as the perspective of all the Roanoke girls and their stories.  I particularly liked the narration in Lane’s voice as she was quick-witted and had a sense of humor that I found extremely enjoyable to read.

I was also thoroughly impressed with how the author made me feel while I was reading this story.  My feelings ranged from total disgust and anger to feelings of love and hope.

Would recommend with caution as the theme of this story might be sensitive for some readers!!

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Amy Engel, and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book for a fair and honest review.

I had a hard time with this story, but it wasn't the subject matter. I think it was the back and forth in timeline and POVs that made it a bit disjointed for me to sink deep into the story. It was a well written tale. A mystery of missing Allegra and whether it was foul play or self inflicted. The reveal was (but wasn't) a surprise. You expect for something to give in this web of lies and taboo relationships. I wouldn't know how one would go about life knowing that there were lurid events occurring in the household, in the town, in the county. It was bizarre, but almost "normal."

Thanks to Netgalley and the author for the opportunity to read this book.