The girls of the Roanoke family - beautiful, rich, mysterious - seem to have it all. But there's a dark truth about them that's never spoken. Either the girls run away... or they die.

Lane is one of the lucky ones. When she was fifteen, over one long, hot summer at her grandparents' estate in rural Kansas, she found out what it really means to be a Roanoke girl. Lane ran, far and fast. Until eleven years later, when her cousin Allegra goes missing - and Lane has no choice but to go back.

I heard such wonderful things about this book, but unfortunately, the story did not live up to the hype in my opinion.

Quite dark and very intriguing, this book keeps you guessing throughout. A great thriller - I recommend this book.

This was a brilliant read. As soon as I started reading this book I just knew I was going to love it. Highly recommended

Omg wow this book is amazing it's full of twists and turns it will keep you up all night I really enjoyed this book

Dark and twisted, brimming with secrets and things unsaid, this book had me hooked. I read it a long time ago and it's stayed with me, often pulling me back to it's disturbing secrets - the mark of a great book. No wonder it's so loved!

We loved this book. We read it quite a while back when it was published, so sorry for the delayed feedback.

Fantastic storyline!
This isn’t my normal choice of book and I’d probably say I wouldn’t normally have picked this up but after seeing so many great reviews I couldn’t not request it.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and will read other books by the author

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

This book surprised me. With similar vibes to 'Flowers in the Attic; by Virginia Andrews, it's one that remains shocking throughout. Lane Roanoke, is 15 when her mother dies by suicide. She is sent to live with family that she has never met before: Gran and Grandad, and Allegra, her strange cousin.
Lane discovers all the family secrets and does everything she can to not succumb to the Roanoke curse. Even though there are lots of shocking moments and action in the text, it all seems very passive and doesn't get you excited to read it. The characters are good but I feel like there is a lot lost.

This books starts off as a mystery story but evolves into something much more sinister.

When 15-year-old Lane Roanoke’s mother commits suicide she is contacted by a social worker who tells her that her grandparents (whom her mother refused to talk about) live in Kansas and have offered for her to come and live with them. Yet we first meet Lane she is reluctantly going back to Roanoke after having lived in LA for some time. However, she has learned that her cousin is missing and she reluctantly answers her grandparent’s pleas to go back to help to try and find her.
This novel swaps between the past and present in Roanoke, and we the reader become aware of the disturbing secret that Roanoke holds a long time before Lane does.
Lanes soon finds carved ‘clues’ that Allegra left all over the farmhouse, and her dogged determination to find out what happened to her cousin eventually pays off, and she learns the awful truth about what has been going on at the farm.
I found the novel was a well written and dark disturbing tale, with some good characters, although I was a bit frustrated that two really important characters in the book were not so well developed apart from them being both equally unpleasant.

This was a compelling narrative but ultimately, it didn't do anything wildly original and I found the plotting quite predictable. It tells the story of Lane, one of the infamous Roanoke girls, and her search for her missing cousin, Allegra. The narrative is split into two timelines, one of which in the present day and the other set ten years in the past during the summer that Lane spent with her grandparents in Osage Flats, Kansas. The 'reveal' of the plot occurs quite early on into the story and I honestly felt that it was quite obvious. I did not like the way in which the girls in the narrative were pitted against each other - fighting over men and I thought that too many plot points were telegraphed. All in all, this was o.k. but ultimately, pretty forgettable.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Never has an incest book enthralled me so much since Virgina Andrew’s ‘Flowers in the Attic’. Amy Engel’s writing is soo much better though, and I felt that the issues of sexual exploitation were presented in the correct way rather than romanticising it (although you could argue that Allegra’s character did).
I basically read this whole book in one sitting because I couldn’t put it down, and the plot twist at the end was a nice surprise too.
Highly recommended to anyone that needs a little bit more depth to their storylines.

A wonderfully disturbing book about one family’s chequered past and the connections of the female lineage. This book was gripping and yet challenging at the same time, somehow getting inside your head until the very last page. I enjoyed the characters and the plot, and although it wasn’t the greatest of mysteries, I thought the suspense was created well and I look forward to reading more by Amy Engel.

*Full review available on the blog*

I found the premise of this book quite interesting, but it didn't particularly capture my attention. The main character, Lane, annoyed med, and it's one of those books which is hard to talk about without giving away too much of the plot. It's disturbing in places, which would put some people off - I did finish it, but it wasn't the book for me.

'Lily Alone' by Vivien Brown, really tugged at my heart strings and caught at my imagination. Little Lily really is all alone when she wakes one day in an empty house with nothing but her teddy bear for company. Why is she alone? What has happened to her mum? And who is the woman who lies in a coma in hospital not far away?
I love the way this story rippled, like a stone in a pond, around the central figure of Lily who is completely unaware of the stories unravelling around her. Her dad, Michael and fiancée Patsy, all ready to challenge his estranged ex-girlfriend over the custody of his daughter; her grandmother, regretting their separation as it means she rarely sees Lily; William, the bachelor, who saves Lily...and hopes also to save himself with a beautiful new woman in his life. So many individual stories, held together by the life and fate one lost little girl. Fortunately, this story does have a happy ending!

I really wanted to like this book as it had had a lot of hype and great reviews. However I found it really hard to get into and struggled to get through it. I think it was mainly due to the fact that I just didn't like the main character Lane and then when she was back in the town I just didn't find the mystery that interesting. One of the few books that unfortunately is still on my list to finish!

Ohh. Emm. Gee. This is one hot, sticky, creepy AF book and I loved it.

“Our barbed-wire affection was the type of love I understood”

The Roanoke Girls is a beautifully written, hypnotic and seductive story. The images drawn are striking and Amy Engel’s writing is lush, but lean: she is skillfully vivid but does not allow the descriptions to drag on for five extra pages, outstay their welcome and detract from the gripping story.

And gripping it is. Although there are some relatively early revelations in the book, the clever plotting and ‘then and now’ structure keeps the suspense and tension alive and there are plenty of developments throughout.

There were many characters I liked, and several I did not (no spoilers) but each and every one of them made me feel something. I was genuinely gripped by this from the first surprising page to its satisfying ending.

Part mystery, part thriller, part drama and part shocker, I would recommend this to anyone who doesn’t mind feeling a bit disconcerted and is looking to dive into a sumptuous and compelling beach read. Perfect for our current UK #heatwave! 🙂

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC of The Roanoke Girls.

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

The Roanoke Girls is such a disturbing and dark tale yet I'd highly recommend it to my fellow readers. From the very first page, you are hooked and I could not put it down. The alternate now and then chapters offer you an insight into all of the Roanoke girls and their chilling family secret. Amy Engel is a highly skilled writer & I hope to read many more books by her.

I found this book very disturbing and compelling. Just how did Yates justify his behaviour? What was it about his background that meant that his love for his sister and then all the girls got so twisted?

How can I critique this book without giving away the whole story? Except to say that it was very well written. The story was told in such a way that you understood the characters of the girls as they were introduced and you also understood their behaviour, and yet you wondered about the Grandmother. All the way through, her behaviour seemed at odds to what she must have known about. And then there was Charlie and Sharon also living in that household. What did they know and why didn't they say anything?

The ties that bind - once you know something and don't tell, then these ties get stronger and bind more tightly, and that was what happened at Roanoke. And by the way, Kansas summers sound awful! 7 months of the year when the temperature is above 20 and at least 3 of those above 30 degrees! And then a very cold winter.

Written very well but the constant talk of incest had finally gotten on my nerves. Unfortunately, i couldn’t finish it. It’s a shame, too, because if I could’ve stomached it, I’m sure it would be a great book. The writing is superb, creative and inclusive. I just could not get past the gratuitous references of incest that perforated this book.