The Roanoke Girls - Amy Engel

EVERYONE WANTS TO BE A ROANOKE GIRL. BUT YOU WON'T WHEN YOU KNOW THE TRUTH.

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.

She is a Roanoke girl.

Is she strong enough to escape a second time?

What did I think?

I was aware before I read The Roanoke Girls that it may be an uncomfortable read, and it was but not to the degree that I expected; perhaps I have become hardened to shocking dark fiction.  I think some people will find it very difficult to read, but as a piece of fiction it was quite riveting.

When Lane's mother commits suicide she is sent to live with her grandparents' who she has never met, so you know there is some kind of family secret that caused the fracturing in the family.  Lane's cousin, Allegra, already lives with her grandparents and the pair form a natural bond, but things with Allegra aren't quite what they seem.  When Lane sees her family for what they really are she leaves Roanoke, never to return, until Allegra goes missing and she has no alternative but to go back.

As Lane uncovers the truth around Allegra's disappearance, be prepared for some very difficult reading.  Praise to Amy Engel for not being too graphic but it still made my skin crawl.  It's very difficult to talk about this book without giving anything away but I think of it as sort of a guilty pleasure.  I really enjoyed it but felt I shouldn't have, if you know what I mean?  You'll know what I mean if you've read it.

It's the darkest book I've read for a long time but it still defies you to have the courage to remove your eyes from the page.  I loved how what was going on was insinuated but when proof was revealed in front of my eyes I felt shock and disgust.  It just shows that seeing is believing!  Although the story is told from Lane's point of view, we mustn't forget Allegra: she is a true Roanoke girl and the thread that draws us into this fascinating story.

The Roanoke Girls is a story that will shock and horrify you, but it is so compelling that you can't tear your eyes from the page until the inevitable heart-breaking ending is revealed.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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The Seed Collectors - Scarlett Thomas

Synopsis

"I have no idea why everyone thinks nature is so benign and glorious and wonderful. All nature is trying to do is kill us as efficiently as possible."

Great Aunt Oleander is dead. To each of her nearest and dearest she has left a seed pod. The seed pods might be deadly, but then again they might also contain the secret of enlightenment. Not that anyone has much time for enlightenment. Fleur, left behind at the crumbling Namaste House, must step into Oleander's role as guru to lost and lonely celebrities. Bryony wants to lose the weight she put on after her botanist parents disappeared, but can't stop drinking. And Charlie struggles to make sense of his life after losing the one woman he could truly love.

A complex and fiercely contemporary tale of inheritance, enlightenment, life, death, desire and family trees, The Seed Collectors is the most important novel yet from one of the world's most daring and brilliant writers. As Henry James said of George Elliot's Middlemarch, The Seed Collectors is a 'treasurehouse of detail' revealing all that it means to be connected, to be part of a society, to be part of the universe and to be human.

What did I think?

I didn’t really enjoy this.  I found it terribly confusing at first as there seemed to be so many names thrown in at once.  By the time I got to know who the characters were I had pretty much lost interest.

I enjoyed the chapter that described Bryony’s shopping trip in Selfridges.  It very cleverly described the thought processes of an addict, whether it be drugs, alcohol or shopping – just one more designer bag after this one!

The seed pod premise sounded intriguing but the pods were hardly mentioned in the first part of the book.  They do have a huge part to play in the ending but I felt a bit duped into reading a book that I felt was mainly about adultery and incest rather than the clever quirky book I expected.

I received this e-book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.