Roanoke Girls (Engle)

The Roanoke Girls 
Amy Engle, 2017
Crown/Archetype
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101906668


Summary
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 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. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Kansas
• Raised—Iran; Taiwan; Kansas City, Missouri, USA
• Education—University of Kansas; J.D. Georgetown University
• Currently—lives near Kansas City, Missouri


Amy Engle is best known as a young adult writer, but in 2017 she made her first foray into adult books with the gothic thriller The Roanoke Girls.

Born in Kansas, Amy's family moved to Iran when she was three. After her parents' divorced, she returned to the States, to Kansas City, Missouri. When her mother remarried, she moved with her mother and stepfather to Taiwan. The family eventually returned to Kansas City, Missouri, where Amy graduated from high school. She received her B.A. in English from the University of Kansas and then headed to Washington, D.C., where she earned a law degree from Georgetown University.

With her law degree in hand, Amy returned to Kansas City. During the next 10 years, she worked as a criminal defense attorney, married a another attorney, and started a family. Once her children were born, Amy decided to leave law and stay at home. However, she set a 10-year goal for herself: to write and publish a book.

The results of her efforts, after some procrastination and a false start or two, were her popular 2014 The Book of Ivy, and its sequel, The Revolution of Ivy, in 2015. Both are young adult novels. Between the two Ivy novels, Amy began work on her first adult novel, which became The Roanoke Girls, released in 2017. Amy said she enjoyed "exploring the shadowy side of the human experience." (Adapted from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
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


A page-turning thriller that will allow you to escape into another world…filled with family secrets and a legacy of death and disappearance for the infamous “Roanoke Girls” — a privileged Kansas matriarchy with more than its fair share of tragic drama.
Bustle


A crime must-read to devour.… The Roanoke Girls has nothing to do with Virginia but everything to do with missing girls, as the females in the Roanoke family, who live in a tiny town in rural Kansas not worth naming, are rich, beautiful, and generally short-lived…The farmhouse, which is "equal parts horrifying and mesmerizing," is a perfect setting for a gothic mystery full of small-town secrets, lies, and guilt.
Literary Hub


Engel drops a wicked twist in the first 35 pages—in the middle of a paragraph on the middle of the page—and lets it sit like a coiled snake…from that point on, The Roanoke Girls becomes a thrilling mystery and a satisfyingly gothic portrait of Middle America…a dark fable of trauma and acceptance about damaged people accepting their crooked parts and using them to move forward.
Bookpage


Engel hits a homerun with this “gothic suspense novel” that tells the story of the Roanoke family, a prominent and very private Kansas family…a rollercoaster ride through a dark family history and the one devastating family secret.
Pulse Magazine


[A] gripping if creepy thriller set on the Kansas prairie.… Skipping lightly between past and present…this gothic page-turner speeds inexorably toward the kinds of devastating revelations readers won’t soon forget.
Publishers Weekly


[D]ark family secrets…bring the ugly past to light. Engel… memorable cast of characters and a twisting, tangled plot that attracts readers from the first page.… [An] atmospheric and unsettling tale of the secrets and bonds of family. —Amy Hoseth, Colorado State Univ. Lib., Fort Collins
Library Journal


An emotionally captivating story.
Booklist


Whole lotta dead girls in this rural Kansas family.… In her acknowledgments, the author thanks her grandparents for showing her the joys of small-town life, but, unfortunately, the book traffics in the most vicious stereotypes.… Sordid, unrealistic, and unredeemed.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)