Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Best Books of 2018Two-time Edgar Award-winning author Lori Roy spins a twisted, atmospheric tale about a small Southern town where girls disappear and boys run away.When Lane Fielding fled her isolated Florida hometown after high school for the anonymity of New York City, she swore she’d never return. But twenty years later, newly divorced and with two daughters in … divorced and with two daughters in tow, she finds herself tending bar at the local dive and living with her parents on the historic Fielding Plantation. Here, the past haunts her and the sinister crimes of her father–the former director of an infamous boys’ school–make her as unwelcome in town as she was the day she left.
Ostracized by the people she was taught to trust, Lane’s unsteady truce with the town is rattled when her older daughter suddenly vanishes. Ten days earlier, a college student went missing, and the two disappearances at first ignite fears that a serial killer who once preyed upon the town has returned. But when Lane’s younger daughter admits to having made a new and unseemly friend, a desperate Lane attacks her hometown’s façade to discover whether her daughter’s disappearance is payback for her father’s crimes–or for her own.
With reporters descending upon the town, police combing through the swamp, and events taking increasingly disturbing turns, Lane fears she faces too many enemies and too little time to bring her daughter safely home. Powerful and heart-pounding, The Disappearing questions the endurance of family bonds, the dangers of dark rumors and small town gossip, and how sometimes home is the scariest place of all.
more
Lori Roy is one of the most elegant and enchanting writers to cross my path in a long, long time. I was transfixed by The Disappearing. A story of buried secrets rising to the light, it unfolds with a hypnotic grip that won’t let go until the last secrets are revealed on the final page. This is a deep, dark and wonderful book.
As dark and atmospheric as a Northern Florida summer night, The Disappearing is Lori Roy at the top of her game. Her simmering tale is, at the heart, a compelling mystery. But it’s also a deep meditation on family and the secrets and lies that can twist through our lives like a strangler fig. The powerful sense of place and a haunting cast of characters linger long after the book is closed. If you haven’t read Lori Roy, now is the time.
I cannot WAIT to have Lori Roy on my radio show. This book is amazing. She kept me guessing, and the tension was high. Very creepy!
Beautifully written and expertly plotted, The Disappearing is a twisty, haunting, and utterly riveting thriller. Lori Roy just gets better and better.
Lori Roy has been on my must-read list since her debut. There’s a reason she’s already won two Edgar Awards — exemplary plotting, clever twists, and compelling characters — but for me it is her voice that holds the most power. She writes with an ingenious, whispering menace and a masterful understanding of the way the past works on the present, and on the human heart. The Disappearing is her finest work to date.
“Mama once said the truth always rises, sometimes in the ugliest of ways. And if you fear it, it will come for you”
Lane Fielding has returned home after divorcing the man she’d run away with decades before. The Fielding Plantation holds many secrets within its walls; secrets that hide in the mind of its inhabitants and secrets you can’t really run from because they bring you back, or you bring them out of hiding in your return.
Told in the various voices of Lane, her two daughters, her parents Erma and Neil and the echoes of the ones buried in the cemetery next door,author Lori Roy brings a compelling view of The Old South although what seems to have increasingly “disappeared” is the actual truth.Recommended 5/5
[I received this book from the author, winning it from an online book review site. I chose to voluntarily review it]
Dollycas’s Thoughts
Lane Fielding has returned to a place she had hoped to never see again. The historic Fielding Plantation, her family home. Her marriage fell apart and now she and her two daughters have moved in with her elderly parents. Her father, the former director of the boy’s school across from the home, is failing and needs constant care but he has made it well known he isn’t happy Lane has returned. Her mother, failing too, tries to placate everyone to keep the peace.
A college student that was working at the plantation went missing 10 days ago and now Lane’s oldest daughter has disappeared too. Boys used to disappear but now it is blonde girls. The police are trying to find the girls and after talking to Lane’s other daughter have started to zero in on a suspect. The question is will they find the girls in time.
This book has a haunting, almost Gothic feel. Told from several points of view and a couple different timeframes, this story slowly unfolds to reveal so many secrets and lies all attached to this one family. Twenty years have passed since Lane left her home for New York, but her own secret still has never been revealed. Having read other stories by this author I knew the mystery was not going to be as simple as it seems. There is a mighty twist that turns the story upside down.
There was truly nothing endearing about these characters, except maybe Talley, the youngest daughter, but these character’s story is a very compelling read. The family’s drama set in motion by the sins of Lane’s father had me shaking my head in disbelief of all the happenings. The final line sent chills up my spine.
I had read somewhere this book is based on the true story of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys and I just had to do a little research myself. I was surprised to see the school was just shut down in 2011 after years and years of investigations. Ms. Roy’s fictional spin on this was so interesting to read.
The only downfall in the story for me was the repetition of events from the different points of view made the plot a bit disjointed, but after getting into the story I found a good rhythm to overlook this issue.
The book ending leaves an open option to visit these characters again. It might be interesting to look back on them, say twenty years again in the future.
The Disappearing by author Lori Roy is a suspense mystery set in Florida. The story is good and it will leave you feeling emotional for this family. Lane Fielding has two daughters and she has come back home to live with her aging parents on their large Florida estate. Her father seems to have dementia, and her mother is trying to get through each day as best as she can. Lane’s oldest daughter does not return home one evening. So begins a huge media storm of speculation and a new investigation into the disappearance of Annalee.
I have liked previous books by this author, but this one is written a bit differently and I did not enjoy the way the characters were written, or maybe the timeline. I found I needed to go back and reread parts to make sure I had not misunderstood the character and the time era, whether present or past. This is in part due to one of the characters who is thinking a lot of random thoughts, some of which could have a lot of importance to what has happened in the past at the boy’s school and the present. Some of the characters thoughts are repeated, and I’m sorry, but I find that tiresome when I am wanting to really get into the plot of a good suspense. I suppose I am disappointed because the book has so many elements for a successful plot.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
The Disappearing is a mystery set in a town in northern Florida. Young women are vanishing, no one knows why. Is it nefarious, or just girls being girls?
The Disappearing struck me as more of a character study than a story. Told from multiple POVs, it moved at a glacial pace. Rather than building suspense, this writing style served to mask the true chain of events with the irrelevancies inherent in the stream-of-consciousness of unreliable narrators, which for me, resulted in a loss of interest in the overall plot. However, the characters were truly deep and artfully drawn. I just didn’t like them well enough to remain interested in their deepest thoughts.
The Disappearing by Lori Roy was very slow and a bit of a letdown for me.
What it’s about: Lane Fielding has been living in New York for 20 years after fleeing her life and past in small-town Waddell, Florida. But now she’s back after a divorce with her two daughters Talley and Annalee in tow, living with her parents Neil and Erma in their historic plantation. Suddenly Annalee goes missing and people start wondering if it has to do with another disappearance of a girl just 10 days earlier, or worse, if the serial killer from years earlier is back. As the death count mounts, Lane is desperate to find her daughter and is forced to confront the fears of her past, as well as the secrets having to do with the school for boys that her father used to work at next to their home.
The Disappearing looks at the bonds of family, small town gossip, and figuring out who you can trust. The book switches between 4 different viewpoints – Lane, Lane’s mother Erma, Lane’s daughter Talley, and Daryl who works at a church in town. I liked the different viewpoints as they were very helpful for building suspense, but sometimes they could be a little repetitive.
The main thing you need to know is that this book is decidedly NOT fast-paced, nor did I find it to be “heart-pounding”. The pace is very slow, but the pages still turn very quickly in the quest for whodunnit and figuring out just what Daryl’s role is in it all.
Unfortunately, I was also able to predict most of what ended up happening, and by the time I got to the ending I was pretty underwhelmed. I also didn’t really connect with any of the characters in the book. I didn’t find any of them all that likable, which isn’t necessarily an issue, but the fact that I couldn’t make a connection with any of them was pretty disappointing.
Final Thought: If you like a good slow-burning mystery I would recommend checking this one out. I found it predictable, but I don’t think everyone will. I think not having as many POVs may have been better (and I NEVER usually say that), but that is just my opinion. I’m not sure if it is just that I didn’t connect to the author’s writing or what it was, but I would definitely still try out another book from her.
A southern town is the backdrop for this story that is part psychological fiction and part mystery. Neither part creates the whole I had hoped for in the ending. Lane Fielding returns to her childhood home with her two daughters after her divorce. Fielding Planation has been around since the civil war and has also been the Fielding home for generations including Lane’s father who was in charge of the school for delinquent boys next door to their home. Returning home for Lane means working in a bar and also having past memories haunt her. Then Lane’s oldest daughter disappears shortly after a college girl who was working at the Fielding home disappears. With small town gossip and fear of killer stalking blond girls the small town erupts with more questions than answers. Not only about the abductions but also about went on in the boys home when Lane’s father was in charge.
Lori Roy is an impeccable writer—original, fearless, and insightful. The Disappearing, with its dark secrets and damaged souls, is another triumph of Roy’s skill: it’s insidiously sinister, seamlessly plotted, and relentlessly haunting.