"The first time I saw Roanoke was in a dream." From that first line onward, there are distinct shades of Daphne du Maurier here.
The Roanoke Girls came garlanded with praise. Compelling... addictive... disturbing... challenging. And dark. Always the dark.
Lane is not quite sixteen when her mother - a deeply damaged woman incapable of normal mothering - takes her own life, leaving only a baffling note: "I tried to wait. I'm sorry." Luckily for Lane (or so she's told), her hitherto unknown grandparents Yates and Lillian Roanoke, who are already raising her similarly-aged cousin Allegra, are keen to offer her a home, and Lane is duly dispatched from New York to the old family home in a remote part of Kansas. After one hot summer, she's gone - returning ten years later for the only reason which could draw her back - Allegra has disappeared.
This family is full of damaged girls and Lane is no exception, angry and prone to verbally lashing out at those who care for her. As Allegra tells her on her first day, "Roanoke girls never last long around here... In the end, we either run or we die." And the litany of lost girls... Jane, Sophia, Penelope, Eleanor, Camilla, Emmeline.... proves the truth of her words.
There aren't a lot of surprises here - the never-spoken secret at the heart of the Roanoke family is revealed early on, and the rest of the book mainly expands on that. There is an element of mystery around Allegra's disappearance, but this is low key and the resolution is no real shock. Nonetheless the novel is compelling, atmospheric and haunting - and yes, it's dark - and will, I suspect, remain in the minds of most readers for a long while as a horrifying portrayal of some deeply twisted relationships and the harm caused as a result.
Many thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.
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