C-

The Vanishing

The Vanishing by Sophia Tobin is a Gothic mystery that’s so twisty, turny, and weird, at times I would look at my glass and wonder if I just drank the laudanum.

Like any good Gothic, The Vanishing takes place in a creepy house on the desolate moors, this particular estate being called White Windows. Annaleigh Calvert is sent there to act as housekeeper to the mysterious Marcus Twentyman and his sister Hester, but almost immediately senses that things are off-kilter. Soon Annaleigh feels herself pulled into an elaborate trap set by her employers, and begins to question the wisdom of staying at White Windows, but she’s also falling in love with a local, Thomas Digby, which compels her to remain.

Trigger warning for everything, basically: sexual assault, child endangerment, physical abuse, drug abuse… This book a dark Gothic, and pretty crazysauce to boot. I really, really enjoyed the first portion of the book, as I tried to figure out what the hell was going on at White Windows. The narrative is completely immersive, which means as Annaleigh’s situation gets more bizarre and disturbing, I as the reader experienced her feelings of paranoia and fear acutely. That’s fun to begin with, but not a great thing when the book starts to veer from hints of the insidious to actual insidious and malicious acts playing out on stage in technicolor.

I would have given the first half of The Vanishing an A for it’s delicious Gothic creepiness, but I felt the second half of the book was tragic and icky enough to make me despair for Annaleigh. Add to that an unsatisfactory ending, and I was left feeling lukewarm at best.

– Elyse

On top of the Yorkshire Moors, in an isolated spot carved out of a barren landscape, lies White Windows, a house of shadows and secrets. Here lives Marcus Twentyman, a hard-drinking but sensitive man, and his sister, the brisk widow, Hester.

When runaway Annaleigh first meets the Twentymans, their offer of employment and lodgings seems a blessing. Only later does she discover the truth. But by then she is already in the middle of a web of darkness and intrigue, where murder seems the only possible means of escape…