Review: The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

If V.C. Andrews and Gillian Flynn had ever co-authored a novel the result would be something akin to The Roanoke Girls, a sinful tale of murder and incest. The Roanoke girls are rich, beautiful, mysterious, and cursed. All of the girls either run away from the family home in Kansas, or they die.

Lane is a survivor. She fled Roanoke a long time ago, but when her beloved cousin Allegra goes missing, she feels that she has no choice but to return--and hopefully to expose the wicked truth about what it means to be a Roanoke girl.

Despite the ugly subject matter, this novel was captivating. In duel narratives author Amy Engel skilfully moves between the past and the present to tell Lane's story. The first story is that of a fifteen year old girl from New York who finds herself living with her family that she has never met before, following the suicide of her mother. From the outset, it is clear that not one of the Roanoke family is quite sane or normal, not her cold grandmother, her charismatic grandfather, or her crazy cousin Allegra. In the present narrative we read of Lane as a twenty-something who is bitter, and who has every reason to hate her grandparents. The big questions are what happened to Allegra, and whether or not Lane can escape the curse of the Roanoke Girls. And while I won't reveal any spoilers here, I will say that the ending is expertly handled by the author and should satisfy even the most fussy of readers.

This one was an enjoyable read--the subject matter is heavy going, but the author handles difficult topics and nightmarish, quietly menacing situations with class, in the same way that V.C. Andrews did with Flowers in the Attic and Heaven. 

Recommended. 


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