What do readers think of The Vanishing Place by Zoë Rankin? Write your own review.

I loved the writing style of this novel, with it's short chapters and multiple timelines. The book starts with a situation that introduces us to Effie and also lets the reader know that there will be surprises and scares! As we delve into Effie's life, a child appears, in apparent distress. The book then continues to solve the mystery around this child. There are several plot twists that were completely a surprise to me. There were a couple that I started to figure out, but was never fully correct. There was one character that puzzled me throughout...what was her real role in the mystery? However, the author finally answered that question at the conclusion when this thrilling, scary and violent story came to an end. This was an enjoyable page turner!

This beautifully written novel unfolds through dual timelines, telling a haunting tale of a young girl who emerges from the New Zealand bush, starving and bloodied. Who is she? Where did she come from? Why does she bear such a strong resemblance to another girl who stumbled out of the same bush under similar circumstances 17 years ago? The story captured my attention from the very first pages and held it throughout.

My only complaint is that the author seems to have started down one path but then shifted direction. As a result, there are several loose ends and unresolved issues that definitely need clarification.

Set in the bush of the South Island New Zealand. A woman returns to help solve the mystery of the sudden appearance of a child in her remote village; and to find the family she ran from when she was 16. Moving back and forth in time, you find why this family lived isolated. The timeline gets confusing moving back and forth and with a sudden addition of new characters in the last quarter of the book, that really enhances the confusion. While a quick read, the mystery unfolds slowly and could have stood with some background filler on the location.

Rankin's novel is an extremely powerful and disturbing story that weaves in deep family loss, stolen childhoods and extreme manipulation that mirrors enslavement. It's not an easy read and I found myself several times thinking this can't get more twisted and then it did.

In the Vanishing Place, Scottish police officer, Effie, is compelled to return to the New Zealand bush she escaped 17 years earlier to aid a child who looks exactly like she did at that age. The child leads Effie back into the bush—to a place she never wanted to see again—and she is shocked and heartbroken by what she finds there. Solving the present day mystery requires digging back into her painful past.

The book moves back and forth from Effie's childhood to the present day. There are many references to a trauma that led Effie to leave her younger siblings and move across the world. However, that event is not explained till late in the book. In fact, there are a number of out-of-the-blue revelations late in the book. Unfortunately, the thing that had vanished by that time was my interest.