NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “With more twists than a bag of pretzels, this compelling family saga may make you question what you think you know about your own relatives.”—Cosmopolitan “Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.” After her mother’s suicide, fifteen year-old Lane Roanoke came to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, on their … grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, on their vast estate in rural Kansas. Lane knew little of her mother’s mysterious family, but she quickly embraced life as one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But when she discovered the dark truth at the heart of the family, she ran…fast and far away.
Eleven years later, Lane is adrift in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls to tell her Allegra has gone missing. Did she run too? Or something worse? Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to help search, and to ease her guilt at having left Allegra behind. Her homecoming may mean a second chance with the boyfriend whose heart she broke that long ago summer. But it also means facing the devastating secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.
As it weaves between Lane’s first Roanoke summer and her return, The Roanoke Girls shocks and tantalizes, twisting its way through revelation after mesmerizing revelation, exploring the secrets families keep and the fierce and terrible love that both binds them together and rips them apart.
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Twisted is the only word I can think of to describe this book, yet I could not put it down! I listen to audio books while working, but listening was not enough for me. I downloaded the novel too. This book will haunt you and leave you wanting more.
This was one of those books that grabbed my attention immediately and didn’t let it go. I was interested throughout the whole book, and stayed up late to finish it.
This is the story of a family with a long history of abuse. It is pretty clear from the start what is going on in this family. All of the girls in the family seem to meet a bad end. The book focuses on Lane Roanoke, who moves to her grandparents home after the death of her mother. Over the course of one summer, she becomes close to her cousin Allegra, and learns the terrible secrets of the Roanoke girls. 11 years later, Allegra is missing, and Lane returns home to try and find her.
The story was told with shifting timelines, and sometimes different narrators. I prefer a more linear story, but it was pretty easy to follow what was going on. The reader figures out the big secret pretty early on, and then it becomes a matter of when are other people going to figure it out. I thought this was a good book about a difficult subject.
I received a free copy from the publisher and goodreads giveaways.
“Nothing around here is right without her,” he says, voice muffled. “Without Allegra.”
“News flash,” I tell him. “Nothing around here has ever been right.”
½
Central character: Allegra is missing, and her cousin: Lane has been called home to help in her search. And so begins the journey through troubling and destructive family secrets. The Roanoke Girls is told from the POV of Lane, who was raised with Allegra since the age of 15 in their grandparents’ home. The POV alternates from past when Allegra and Lane were teenagers to present-day adulthood. The Roanoke family secret was not written as much of a secret at all in my opinion but it provided a dynamic that made the Roanoke family an interesting (although disturbing) one to explore. The mystery component was an additional element that kept this story engaging as I went back and forth wondering if Allegra was absent of her own accord or if ill-will fell upon her.
Overall, I liked The Roanoke Girls. I found the flow to be slow in my opinion, causing me to fluctuate between 3 and 4 stars based on my personal enjoyment. However, Amy Engel’s writing allowed me to invest myself in a theme that I might otherwise avoid and that should not go unnoted. Check it out!
Note: Just so you know, there are many trigger warnings for this book. Please seek out online reviews that have a spoiler feature if needed.
My favorite quote:
“Oh, so it’s okay that it happens, right?” I say. “But talking about it, that’s crossing the line.”
This is an extremely dark story with a tough subject matter. The chapters alternate between “Then” and “Now”, so the reader gets a good feel for what is going on. Some chapters also center on the other Roanoke girls who have run away or died. It’s a very quick enthralling book that I found hard to put down. I just needed to know what was going to happen and how Lane and Allegra handled everything. I figured out the secret early on and knew what had happened to Allegra and who was involved long before it was revealed.
Lane, Allegra, Tommy and Cooper are great, yet dysfunctional, characters that capture your heart right away. You can’t help but pray for them to figure everything out in their lives and move on. The ending was expected, but it did have a disturbing twist that bothered me. Most of my questions were answered, but I was left feeling sorry for all of the Roanoke girls and their grandmother, Lillian.
Trigger warning: this is not the book for you if you have a history of trauma. At heart it’s about families at their deepest and darkest. Not an uplifting read, but one I could literally not put down as the story of multiple generations of “Roanoke girls” emerged. Written from the various girls’ perspectives, it primarily follows Lane, who returns to Roanoke when her cousin Allegra goes missing. Allegra has attempted to reach out to Lane, who does not respond, trying her best to leave behind Roanoke and the memories of her mother’s suicide. With Allegra missing, Lane returns to Roanoke and to the many people who were there the year her own mother died and before she herself fled to California. As the story emerges and we learn about Lane’s background, the author paints a complex picture filled with deep but dark scenes. You may hate this book or love it as I did — there seems to be little in between.
I loved this book. It has stuck with me long after I read the last page. The characters are so real, sympathetic but severely flawed. You relate to the characters because they are real, not because you’re supposed to. They are so complex and layered. I loved how the main character, Lane, is not particularly likable but I still ended up loving her despite it. Let me caution any potential reader: this book is NOT for everyone. It deals with issues like sexual abuse and incest. If those are not subjects you can read without feeling uncomfortable or upset, then this book is not for you.
The book is about incest in one wealthy and powerful family and the damage it does to all those involved even just for those outside of the immediate family.
This isn’t the kind of book I usually read, but I both loved and hated it! I think I hated it because it was so realistic and possible. It was tragic, but you were rooting for the heroine!
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.
Good read
Well written. Just hard for me considering the incest issue. Kept thinking about all those poor women and the end they came to.
This review may be a bit spoilery concerning the theme of this novel, this couldn’t be helped but I’ve tried to be as vague as possible.
“Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.”
These were the words that originally captivated me, pulling me in and compelling me to pick up The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel.
This was quite a read, an unusual one, reminiscent of bygone authors, setting a stage of intrigue, mystery and dysfunctional family dynamics.
The secrets surrounding Roanoke are subtlely revealed early on leaving the reader highly aware of what flows beneath the seemingly normal surface.
This is a definite page-turner despite the exploration of (view spoiler)
This tale is told in two parts “Now and Then” and the storyline seamlessly hops between these two timelines.
We also get to jump briefly into the heads of each Roanoke girl that came before, which I found very enlightening, I really loved this touch and it greatly added to the storyline giving the reader an insight into what each girl was feeling deep inside her own skin.
Jane, Sophia, Penelope, Eleanor, Camilla, Allegra, Lane there is also little Emmaline but she died of a crib death as a baby.
All Roanoke girls, all carrying the same secrets down through the years, messed up heads and lives affected tragically.
The echoes of this rebounding out through each new generation.
This story is told through Lane Roanoke’s point of view after her mother commits suicide and Lane comes to live with her Rich grandparents and cousin Allegra on the family estate.
This is the “THEN” portrayed in the narrative.
The “NOW” is Eleven years later when Lane returns to the family home after a frantic call from her granddad informing her that her cousin Allegra is missing.
After vowing never to return, Lane reluctantly returns home confronting secrets shes buried deep down inside.
I loved Lane as a character, she was a bit of a messed up headcase, but who can blame her.
It’s obvious Lane Loved Allegra so deeply and this was the only thing, I think, her disappearing, that could have dragged her back to the bowels of Roanoke.
It was also very thought-provoking to observe Lane’s former teenage toxic relationship with cooper rekindled as adults and I really did like him he had his own past baggage but really seemed to have evolved from this, unlike Lane.
I was so rooting for these two and I thought they made a great match, neither party having had it easy in life, they both deserved a bit of stability in the now.
Now Lanes connection with her grandad this was a strange one, confusing even I think to lane herself she really seemed to feel equal measures hate and love towards him.
Struggling with her mixed up emotions, greatly wanting to loathe him but feeling a strange pull, maybe because Lane feels he was the first person to actually seem to want and love her after enduring a lifetime of apathy from her mother.
As for the gran, well, What a cold selfish bitch she was.
I felt she herself held a huge role in what had been allowed to transpire, isn’t it a mothers job to protect her daughters.
In this Lillian Roanoke has failed epically actually blaming her daughters instead of shielding them, she was such a cold fish only seeming to feel any affection towards her twisted husband.
Turning a blind eye and looking the other way is her game.
Surprisingly she was my least favourite character even over Myles Roanoke himself.
I think it was the whole lack of maternal anything that contributed to my dislike of her immensely.
The Roanoke Girls has so many diverse flawed individuals that all do their part in making this an enthralling page-turner.
This is a portrayal of a family that is so not right and has not been for a very long time.
It is Love expressed so wrongly and out of context that it has become a sickness consuming from the inside out devouring till nothing remains standing.
A Dysfunctional family with dark concealed secrets at his core.
So I felt the author Amy Engel did an amazing job of dealing with such an explosive subject matter. she has handled it beautifully with finesse and a great understanding of such a delicate topic. Not everyone could have done this so sensitively and without sensationalising it so Really well done.
So that’s it from me folk’s, I could waffle on all day about this fascinating story, but I’m going to leave it here, but before I go a trigger warning The Roanoke Girls deals with themes of incest, but bar the one small kiss it is only referred to in words not actions and it is really not graphic in its content at all, but if this is a trigger for you please do avoid.
So all that’s left is for me to say Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author Amy Engel herself for providing me with an arc of The Roanoke Girls this is my own honest unbiased opinion.
Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
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This book is not for the faint of heart. It deals with some pretty real life situations. Murder, incest to name a few. That being said it was still a very interesting book.
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. Thank you to First to Read for giving me an opportunity to read this book.