I must admit I was really excited when I found out that this author was bringing out a new novel, her last one ‘The Roanoke Girls’ was excellent. However I did find this one hard to get into and not what I was expecting. I really didn’t like this one, I just found it really slow. Sorry ... I give it 5/10.

"Truth is, there's no good way to navigate being female in this world. If you speak out, say no, stand your ground, you're a bitch and a harpy, and whatever happens to you is your own fault. You had it coming. But if you smile, say yes, survive on politeness, you're weak and desperate. An easy mark. Prey in a world full of predators."

Eve Taggart is a brilliant character with a soft heart and razor sharp edges. Born in a trailer in the poorest part of the Missouri Ozarks, she did well to escape the poverty and drug-fueled cruelty of her upbringing. She has tried hard to give her 12-year-old daughter a good life but her efforts prove in vain when Junie is found with her throat slit at a local playground. Eve doesn't trust that the local sheriff will find justice for Junie, so she decides to take matters into her own hands, venturing back to the wooded, barren landscape of her childhood, where she is reunited with her volatile, abusive and cruel addict mother. As it turns out, Eve still has lessons to learn in life and that education can only come from the woman who created her.

Amy Engel's sophomore adult novel needed to be exceptional to rival her debut release, The Roanoke Girls (one of my favourite debut novels of all time). Thankfully, Engel has talent in abundance and The Familiar Dark doesn't let her down. It is a deliciously dark and gritty thriller; a page-turning, character-driven force of fiction that will swallow you whole. While it doesn't have an abundance of gasp-worthy plot twists, it does pay more attention to the history and tensions between its characters, making it a probing and revealing examination of the complicated relationship between mothers and daughter and family dynamics.

Spellbinding and all-consuming, in return The Familiar Dark gets all the stars.

I was really excited to read The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel. I loved The Roanoke Girls, a plot which is controversial, heartbreaking but brilliantly well-written and developed. Amy Engel is a brilliant writer and I was really looking forward to more of her work.

The Familiar Dark is again, another brilliant novel. Starting with the horrific murder of two 12-year old girls, The Familiar Dark then sets the scene. A small American town where everyone knows everyone and their business. The town is poor, the people are poor, drugs, sex and crime are rife within the community.

Eve has tried to leave behind her poor, abusive upbringing and make a better life for herself and her daughter Junie. The product of a one-night stand, Junie is Eve's world and she is determined to give her daughter a better life than she ever had, keeping her far away from her own abusive mother.

When Eve discovers her daughter has been murdered, she throws herself into the very past she tried so hard to leave behind in order to find the truth and claim justice for her child. Eve finds that to track down the truth in this town, she needs to be the person she swore she would never allow herself to turn into. Her mother.

The characters and plot of this book are really well-written and make for a really enjoyable read. I struggled to put this one down as I was enjoying it so much. I'd highly recommend The Familiar Dark.

Thank you to NetGalley, Amy Engel and Hodder & Stoughton for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This masterpiece follows the remarkable, The Roanoke Girls, by the talented Amy Engel. This novel, The Familiar Dark is set in the Missouri Ozarks in the small town of Barren Springs, a place of little opportunity within a poverty stricken community where drugs and alcohol dependency are rife.

Eve Taggert, a single mum working in a diner, had a hard upbringing, as did her elder brother Cal who is now a police officer. Eve's wants the best for her own daughter, twelve-year-old Junie and has made every effort to ensure that her young life so far has been an improvement on her own. But now, Junie has been found dead in the local playground, along with Junie's best friend Izzy. Eve's whole world is shattered, but she has a mission - she's hell bent on finding out what happened to Junie and someone will answer for her murder. So using her mother's cruel strengths, Evie embarks on a journey into the darkest depths of the town, the ghosts of her past coming back to haunt her...

This is a really impressive, twisty, suspenseful novel with some jaw-dropping shocks en route. With its deep darkness, Amy Engel’s sharp, insightful prose creates layers of emotional intensity. This is a novel that I’ll remember and although The Familiar Dark will not be for everyone as its so disturbing, it is certainly worth picking up in 2020. I can recommend it with confidence to fans of the genre.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel, at my request, from Hodder & Stoughton via NetGalley and this review is my unbiased opinion.

Eve's daughter has been tragically murdered along with her best friend and Eve needs answers. Who would kill two innocent twelve year old girls? Figuring out the truth may mean confronting things she doesnt want to face including her own twisted history with her mother.

This was an interesting story though a hard one as my own daughter is 12 so that was tough. The plot was interesting and built to a clever, dramatic ending. I had begun to realize just who might be behind it but it was done well. The ending was clever and fitted really well with the tone of the story. I also liked seeing how the relationship between her mother settled as the story went on. A hard hitting raw story but a great read.

There's clearly a reason why so many of us are drawn again and again toward these thrillers told from the perspective of a parent who has, in one way or another, lost a child. It's definitely stronger now I have kids of my own, but this emotional connection to a parent - usually a mother - driven by love, fear, grief and desperation, has always been one of the strongest emotional ties I can experience to a book.

The Familiar Dark stands out because, unlike many thrillers of this kind, it focuses on working class people, struggling with poverty, addiction, and abuse. Eve knows most people view her as "white trash". She knows her mother's ugly reputation as the local dealer proceeds her. When her daughter is found dead, she knows everyone is scrutinizing her behaviour, looking for some way to blame her for not reacting in the right way.

Well, I loved Eve. She is such an easy character to feel sympathy for, but she also has a lot of bite. She simply cannot play the part they want her to play when her daughter is murdered-- the part of meek brokenhearted mother --because that is only a tiny fraction of what she is. Because far more than she is sad, she is furious. She wants to know who took away her baby. And she wants to kill them.

I definitely think this is more of a character-driven thriller than a twist-driven shockfest. It explores what it is like to try so hard for a better life, to work your ass off so your kid can have something better than you did, and then to find that none of what you did was good enough anyway. The Familiar Dark takes on all kinds of dark themes, like poverty, partner abuse and child abuse. It looks at how women continue to suffer most in low-income areas.

Truth is, there's no good way to navigate being female in this world. If you speak out, say no, stand your ground, you're a bitch and a harpy, and whatever happens to you is your own fault. You had it coming. But if you smile, say yes, survive on politeness, you're weak and desperate. An easy mark. Prey in a world full of predators.


Definitely not an easy or a light read, but it was an effective one for me. While the mystery itself is quite easily solvable, it is Eve Taggert I will remember long after putting this book down.

I must admit I am rather partial to a journey into the redneck heartlands of America, so it was pretty much a dead cert that The Familiar Dark would be tailor made for this reader. Also every so often a book comes along with such an understated, but breathtakingly powerful, writing style that knocks your socks off, and yes folks, you guessed it, this box is firmly ticked too. Focussing on the character of Eve Taggert, a weary and careworn but devoted mother whose world is shattered by the seemingly unexplainable murder of her young daughter, Engel weaves a tale of simmering violence and deceit that absolutely grabs you by the throat, and at times heart and refuses to ease its grip. As the story unfolds I couldn’t help but think of the quote, “Oh what a tangled web we weave when at first we start to deceive” as Eve edges ever closer to the truth of this senseless crime, and shocking secrets come to the surface.

I absolutely adored the character of Eve, scarred by the physical and mental claustrophobia of a childhood with an abusive mother, and by a series of similarly abusive interactions with men, “here it was still the same old merry-go-round of drugs and poverty and women being chewed up and spit out by men,” in the small town of Barren Springs. She exhibits a fortitude and strength that belies her previous state of victimhood, and like her hometown itself, whose residents have a “sheer, stubborn wilfulness that kept people breathing when it might have been easier to give up,” so she embarks on an increasingly dangerous, and emotionally testing path to uncover the truth behind her daughter’s murder. What I found incredibly affecting in the book was the way that Engels dissects the very nature of womanhood, and a woman’s part in this incredibly controlling patriarchal community. In one passage the author refers to the fact that women were expected to show weakness and conformity, but anger and any form of challenge to the accepted norms was not acceptable. Hence, as Eve, fuelled by anger and a sense of injustice, begins to routinely challenge the notions of how she should be behaving, and the posturing masculinity she encounters, and as a consequence our respect for, and empathy with her is heightened. Although she cannot evade the pernicious grip entirely of some of the male figures in her life, inch by inch she begins to garner the strength to chew them up and spit them out herself…

I found her relationship with her previously estranged mother, a real lynchpin of the book, as Eve had so effectively distanced herself from this less than stellar influence in her formative years. Where Eve has on the surface of it effectively turned her back on, and grown away from her poor and abusive roots, her mother has stayed rooted in a destructive and criminal life. What becomes increasingly interesting in the book is the enforced return of Eve to her mother’s influence, and what this means in terms of her relationship with her. There’s some surprises in store from our initial perception of this relationship, and none more so than closing chapters of the book. Eve’s relationships with others (aside from her work colleagues) are guarded and defensive, but like her increasing interactions with her mother, Eve, and the reader, make some interesting discoveries along the way. It’s so hard to review this without spoilers…

Engel has a laconic, lean and incredibly rhythmical cadence to her writing style, where the brevity of her prose works to increase every word and image used. Little wonder that I read this in pretty much one sitting, and really appreciated the book as not only a fully formed and compelling murder mystery, but also as the exposure of one woman’s harsh and emotionally isolated existence, outside of the fullness of love for her daughter. As we learn more about Eve, both good and bad, we care increasingly more about her, and her search for justice, however this is to be meted out.

Amy Engel is a new-to-me author, and if The Familiar Dark is anything to go by, one whose previous books are going to be investigated. From its heart-in-the-mouth and visceral opening, to its superb characterisation and beautiful writing style, this book is one that will stay with me for a long time, and I will most certainly read again. Highly recommended.

I found this book very exciting to read. The plot was dark and gritty and sucked me in. I was on the edge of my seat throughout reading this one. It was very well written.

This is a great book that had me hooked from the first few pages.
Eve receives the life changing news that her 12 year old daughter has been murdered and her world crumbles around her.
Eve is desparate to know who killed her daughter and best friend and risks her own life trying to find out.
Her grief soon turns to anger as she is prepared to do anything to get her hands on the person who took her daughter from her.
We find out about Eve’s childhood and her volatile relationship with her mother and also see how close she is to her brother Cal.
There’s other characters in the book who Eve has to speak to to try and get the truth and none of them are pleasant.
This is a gripping mystery thriller that has a very satisfying ending.
Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

WOW !! A raw and Heart stopping story that is so dark and terrifying that it stays with you long after you've finished the book !! Masterfully written ! Thanks to Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the opportunity to read and review this book ! The opinions are entirely my own ! #Netgalley #Hodder #Stoughton #TheFamiliarDark

This was a gut hammering ride of a book! Dark, disturbing, taut and suspenseful, with an unflinching protagonist in Eve, mother of a murdered daughter.

Funnily, given the dark themes of the story, the writing is beautiful. Superb characterisation, not just in Eve, but in the secondary characters, particularly Eve's mother, Lynette.

Not just a murder story, this is an exploration of the relationship between mother and daughter, between childhood experience and adult actions, and how desperate events resonate.

A solid 5 stars! My first book by this author and definitely not my last. I was gripped from the first page. It is not a book to be skimmed - every word has a relevance. This book explores grief, anger, violence, all the emotions. There are many twists and the tale is dark and atmospheric. Fascinating from start to finish.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Amy Engel/Hodder & Stoughton for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

Welcome to Barren Springs. I’ve rarely come across a more appropriately named setting & once you’ve spent some time here, I think you’ll agree.

Our MC & narrator is Eve Taggart. She & brother Cal somehow survived a childhood of poverty, fear & neglect courtesy of their drug dealing mother. Now Cal is a cop & Eve is a single mom, struggling to make ends meet on a waitress’ salary. Twelve year old Junie is the one good thing in Eve’s life & she’s determined to be the mother she never had.

So it’s no surprise that her daughter’s murder marks the beginning of Eve’s descent into darkness. After the bodies of Junie & best friend Izzy are found in a local park, it falls on Cal to break the news to Eve. Meanwhile, his boss Sheriff Land heads to the more genteel side of town to inform Jenny & Zach, Izzy’s wealthy parents. There’s bad blood between Eve & Land & when you learn of their shared history, you’ll understand why Eve decides she must search for the killer herself.

Oh man, prepare yourself…..this one is going to put you through the wringer. On one level, you have a devastated mother’s search for her daughter’s killer. But along the way, the author includes scenes that have you pondering so much more. Casual racism, domestic abuse, the social chasm between poverty & wealth & how we (unconsciously?) judge the parents of missing/murdered children. These are some of the themes that run through the background & shape the course of Eve’s investigation.

The setting effectively sets the tone for what’s to come. Barren Springs is a place that reeks of hopelessness & despair. Opportunity has bypassed it completely & virtually every character is just trying to survive. If it had a town square, a statue of Dante would not be out of place. As with many insular communities, everybody know your business. So the odds of someone rising above their predetermined place in the pecking order is essentially nil.

With this in mind, we follow Eve as she begins digging into events surrounding the death of the 2 girls. Unfortunately, it brings her into contact with her toxic mother & Junie’s estranged father. Eve cut them from her life in an effort to rise above her birthright but as she swings from crippling grief to blind rage, the temptation to return to her roots only grows stronger. With Junie gone, her only reason to keep breathing is revenge.

Once again, this author has created a cast of characters that evoke every emotion. Eve’s mother is a feral woman who survives on cigarettes & hate. Sheriff Land makes your skin crawl every time he steps on the page & you’ll begin to consider ways of wiping the smarmy grin off his face (note to self: delete search history 😈). Eve & Jenny seem polar opposites until events force them together & I really enjoyed the evolution of their relationship.

The story is relentlessly bleak so it seems wrong to say I “enjoyed” it. It’s grim, gritty & makes no attempt to gloss over the ugly sides of human nature. The ending left me drained & in need of a beverage while I processed what happened. But you can only become that immersed in a work of fiction if the author has the tools & ability to pull it off. Ms. Engel clearly does.

Two teenagers found murdered. The single parent of one of the fatalities has spent every day sine the birth of her daughter fighting to move on from a dangerous and abusive childhood determined to provide her child with a loving mother and better life. Now all bets are off. Her reason for living has gone. All that is left is a burning desire for revenge. A community comprising of an underclass from society built on the foundations of poverty, lies and deceit are determined to prevent any spotlight on their activities and illegal actions. Three dimensional characters hard to categorise leave the reader struggling to identify the corrupt from the intrinsically evil. Our protagonist determined to find the murderer will not be deterred from her mission and any conclusion will only be reached when the perpetrator is found and punished in the age old retribution of an eye for an eye.. Fast paced, highly emotive and pulling no punches a well crafted storyline with an unexpected yet more than satisfying conclusion. Recommended. Thank you to publisher and NetGalley for ARC.

Eve’s quest for retribution!

‘The Familiar Dark’ is a deeply courageous tale, telling of Eve’s quest for retribution, after the shocking double murders of her 12 year old daughter Janey, and her best friend Izzy.

The setting is in the Missouri Ozarks where Eve grew up in the poorest part of a small town. Her upbringing was unconventional and tough for both Eve and her brother Cal. They both wanted to make a better life for themselves and to escape from their rough meth addicted mother.

Amy Engel’s poignant writing certainly brings home the hopeless heartache for Eve, who is determined to find the truth at all costs. The trouble is ... sometimes the truth isn’t what anyone would want to hear!

I did wonder if the murderer could possibly be??? ...But there were certainly many possible suspects. It may not appeal to everyone due to such a dark, dismal psychological tale. However for me, it was a great page turner.

Galadriel

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review

I really loved The Roanoke Girls when I read it a while back so I was quite excited to see what this author had next for me. Yep... another cracking character driven book which gripped me all the way through and spat me out at the end completely knackered but satisfied.
We open with the brutal murder of 12yo Junie and her friend. Junie's mother Eve is beside herself and with no answers to her questions from the authorities, takes it upon herself to get to the truth of what happened. Eve is no stranger to bad things, having grown up in a toxic environment with a lacking mother, but she has pulled herself out of that cycle and was trying her best to shelter her daughter from a similar fate. She ropes her brother Cal, a police officer, in to help her as much as he can but will she manage to get to the truth? And at what cost?
This is all things gritty and dark. It's brutal and Eve's sense of loss and justice pours from each page. She is forced to revisit a past she thought she had left behind in order to get answers to the questions she desperately needs to know. Emotionally charged and delivering shock after shock all the way through, this book will haunt me for a while yet. Although I twigged the baddie quite early on, this book was way more than that. It's more of a snapshot into Eve's life, her beginnings, her escape, her getting by, and the brutal thing that shocked her world. It's about justice and, for her, vengeance, and exactly how far she is willing to go to get just that. It's a powerful and brutal read that delivered on all levels.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

It's a dark, heart breaking and bleak tale, very well written and gripping.
It's like being punched and loving it. The mystery is solid and kept me guessing.
This is a story that features strong characters and you cannot help being involved.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Two 12-year-old girls have been murdered, but except for their parents, nobody really seems to care about it. Maybe they had it coming, that’s how it is with girls their age, they should have paid more attention to whom they mingle with. Eve Taggert is not willing to simply accept that her daughter Junie has gone and nobody is hold responsible for the senseless death. What did she and her friend Izzy do in the park at that time and bad weather? She starts to ask questions even though her brother Cal, a policeman and close to the investigation, tries to keep her away and out of trouble which her private research soon causes. The more Eve learns, the closer she also gets to her own family and especially her mother with whom she had cut all contact before Junie was born because she never wanted to be like her. But in the course of the events, Eve must realise that she shares more traits with her mother than she ever expected.

Amy Engel’s mystery novel deals with the greatest horror that parents could ever go through: learning about the death of their beloved child and having the impression that nobody bothers to find the culprit and to bring him or her to justice. However, it is also about life in small and remote community where poverty and precarious standards of living are a daily occurrence. Growing up in trailer homes or small, run-down apartments where children only get a nook for themselves and see the adults drink alcohol or being addicted to drugs of all kinds – this is not the childhood one could ever wish for. Even if some want the best for their children, just like Eve, getting out of this isn’t as easy as it seems.

The story is narrated from Eve’s point of view which gives you a deep insight in the emotions she goes through. Not just losing her daughter and thus the sense of life, but she also falls back into old patterns she had given up and totally loses her footing. Even though she could not offer Junie much, she put an effort in her daughter’s education and she lead a decent life and loved her – more than she herself had experienced as a kid. To see such a woman being hit by fate is especially bitter.

Amy Engel does a great job in showing the development of Eve, going from being totally blinded by mourning and anger to gaining strength – even if she becomes a bit too reckless and headless at times – and in the end, fearlessly doing what she needs to do.

Notwithstanding that a lot is going wrong in the small town of Barren Springs, what I liked a lot is that the author did not paint the characters in black and white. The greatest villains do also show their positive and human sides – just as the “good” ones suddenly are capable of quite some crime. Albeit a murder investigation is at the centre of the novel, for me it was much more a psychological study of small town life and people who struggle in life. It does not lack suspense though and several unexpected twists and turns keep you reading on.

A really short, sharp thriller that will leave you breathless until the end. It's dark and gritty, but super gripping full of raw emotions and tension.
I totally recommend it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy.

When I read The Roanoke Girls a few years back I liked It, but I loved The Familiar Dark. The Familiar Dark was raw and powerful and left me wanting more. It was one of those books you finish and want to read it again straight away.

One of the things that was impressive about it was that the basic outline of the story is quite basic – a mother wanting to avenge her daughter’s death – but the execution felt unlike anything I had ever read.

Amy Engel managed to create a setting for the story that oozes hopelessness and desolation. Barren Springs is exactly the kind of place you would expect this story to be set. It is remote, isolated and has stunning views but underneath it all there is a seedy background of corrupt policemen and meth dealers.

When twelve-year-old Junie and her best friend are found murdered in a local playground Eve knows that she can’t rely on the police to help catch the killer. She has spent years trying to distance herself from her meth-addicted, white trash mother but now she must go back to her roots in order to find and take revenge on her daughter’s killer.

The author doesn’t shy away from the gruesome in depicting the children’s deaths.

“They died during a freak April snowstorm, blood pooling on a patchy bed of white. Afterwards, people said the killer must have kept an eye on the gathering grey clouds. Taken them as a cue to strike and picked the moment when everyone else huddled indoors…Izzy died first, dark brown hair tangled over face and one eye peering out between strands…Junie waited for a third blink that never came, watched blood unspool in the space between them.”

Eve works in a local diner and is speaking to her friend Louise about the friendship between Izzy and Junie. I like the way the author uses this conversation to illuminate the reader as to the unusual nature of this friendship.

“Those two are thick as thieves,” Louise said, and I didn’t miss the slight note of disbelief in her voice. I was used to it by now, understood that girls like Junie and girls like Izzy didn’t usually run in the same crowd. Especially not in this town, which might as well have a neon strip painted down the middle. Poor white trash on this side. Do not cross. Didn’t seem to matter that 90 per cent of the town was stranded on the wrong side.”

When Eve’s police officer brother Cal shows up at the diner, she immediately knows something is wrong. She reads the signs in his hesitating to get out the cruiser and in his body language before he even enters the building.

“Look at me,” Cal said, gentle but firm. His big-brother voice. I raised my eyes slowly, not wanting to see, not wanting to know. Cal’s eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. He’d been crying, I realised with a little electric jolt. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Caleb cry, not once in our shitty shared childhood.”

Eve knows before he speaks what he is going to say. Her childhood has prepared her to acknowledge the darker side of life.

“Is she dead?” Next to me Louise sucked in a sharp breath. That one sound letting me know that I’d gone a step too far, made a leap that Louise never would have. But Louise hadn’t grown up the same way I had. No money, yeah. Food stamps and government cheese, yeah. But no violence. Not raised in a double-wide that stank of random men and meth burners. Not strange faces and too much laughter, most of it jagged and mean. All of it nestled in the armpit of the Ozarks, a place only fifteen miles down the road but so backwater, so hidden from the wider world, that it felt like it’s own dark pocket of time.”

The whole process of identifying her daughter is made worse by the adversarial nature of her relationship with the local sheriff, sheriff Land. Everything he says and does gets her back up. Some of the things she says to him help reveal more of Eve’s troubled past with her mother to the reader.

“I thought that was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard. Women might not act out as often as men, but there were capable of anything, could be as awful and vicious as men when they wanted to be. I knew firsthand the violence that live inside women.”

Eve quickly realises that the police are not going to find the killer, so she decides to take matters into her own hands and in doing so she brings herself into contact with her abusive ex Jimmy Ray.

Barren Springs was the perfect depressing and bleak setting for this book.

“Here it was still the same old merry-go- round of drugs and poverty and women being chewed up and spit out by men. People in other worlds could wear black evening gowns and give speeches about equality and not backing down, but out here in the trenches we fought our war alone and we lost the battles every day”

One of the things that struck a chord with me the most whilst reading The Familiar Dark was the author’s observations on press conferences.

“I thought about all the press conferences I’d seen over the years, parents trotted out for missing kids, killed kids, abused kids. Everyone feels sorry for those parents, those mothers, until they don’t. Until the mothers don’t cry enough or cry too much. Until the mothers are too put-together or not put-together enough. Until the mothers are angry. Because that is the one thing women are never ever allowed to be. We can be sad, distraught, confused, pleading, forgiving. But not furious. Furious is reserved for other people. The worst thing you can be is an angry woman, an angry mother.”

Eve blames herself for not teaching Junie that the world is a dark place and wonders throughout the book if she could have done more to save her.

“I wondered if maybe a mouth like I used to have might have helped help save her. Maybe she’d have been more likely to scream. To tell someone to go fuck themselves. To fight back. Or maybe it would have only meant the knife moved faster. Truth is there’s no good way to navigate being female in this world. If you speak out, say no, stand your ground, you’re a bitch and a harpy, and whatever happens is your own fault. You had it coming. But if you smile, say yes, survive on politeness, you’re weak and desperate. An easy make. Prey in a world full of predators. There are no risk free options for women, no choices that don’t come back to smack us in the face. Junie hadn’t learnt that yet. But she would have eventually. We all do, one way or the other."

The Familar Dark is one of my favourite books of this year.