Vanishing Falls

<b>Be sure to visit <a href="https://www.banteringbooks.com" rel="nofollow noopener">Bantering Books</a> to read all my latest reviews.</b><br /><br /><b>1.5 stars</b><br /><br />Months ago, I made a promise to myself. <br /><br />I swore to always write fair and honest book reviews. I swore to never pad ratings out of sympathy. I swore to never award unwarranted low ratings.<br /><br />For honesty is always the best policy. To this belief, I cling tightly.<br /><br />Honesty, however, is not always easy. It’s not fun to deliver bad news. It can be rather challenging. And it pains me to write the words that follow. It truly does. <br /><br />But if I’m being honest, Poppy Gee’s latest mystery/thriller, <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/48716982.Vanishing_Falls" title="Vanishing Falls by Poppy Gee" rel="noopener">Vanishing Falls</a>, stands to be one of the worst novels I have ever read. It is mind-numbingly terrible. It is the kind of awful the literary world has not seen since Baldacci first published <i>The Christmas Train</i>. (Those of you who have read Baldacci's holiday gem know <i>exactly</i> what I mean. Don’t even try to deny it.)<br /><br />The premise of the novel is solid – <br /><br />Deep within the Tasmanian rainforest lies Vanishing Falls, a town famous for its contentious past. Within Vanishing Falls sits Calendar House, a magnificent mansion owned by the Lily family and currently occupied by art collector, Jack, his socialite wife, Celia, and their four young daughters.<br /><br />All is well with the Lily family -- until Jack returns home one night and discovers that Celia has disappeared. Crazed with worry, Jack enlists the help of the local police, only to then somehow find himself to be the prime suspect in their investigation. <br /><br />Where has Celia gone? Is it an abduction? A planned escape of her own orchestration? Or has something far more sinister and unfortunate happened to her?<br /> <br />And I will leave it at that. If I reveal any further information regarding the plot, I fear I may spoil the (minuscule bit of) fun of the outcome. <br /><br />On its face, <i>Vanishing Falls</i> appears to be right up my alley. I love a good mystery; I love a good Gothic house. And there aren’t many stories set in a small town in the middle of the rainforest of Australia. A reader is hard-pressed to find a novel with a more unique scenic backdrop.<br /><br />But all the enticing elements don’t mesh very well. The tone of the novel is scattered and ever changing. One minute it feels like you’re reading a gothic mystery. The next minute it feels like you’re reading a cozy. And then after that, it's as if you’ve stepped into a time warp and switched to reading a historical mystery. Gee fails to successfully blend the various tones and genres together, resulting in a very bumpy and disjointed reading experience.<br /><br />Plus, her prose is beyond rough and choppy. It's infantile, as well. It lacks any sort of flow whatsoever, and the words trip and stumble over one another as you read them silently in your mind. Gee’s writing has no subtlety; she bluntly tells all to the reader, never shows.<br /><br />And Gee’s characterization isn’t any better either. The narrative of <i>Vanishing Falls</i> is told through the alternating viewpoints of three separate characters – Jack, his friend, Cliff, and Joelle, a town resident – and all three are severely underdeveloped and flat. The secondary characters fare even worse.<br /><br />Oh! I mustn’t forget to also mention the dialogue. Wooden, stiff, forced, awkward, and unnatural. Those five adjectives sum it up nicely.<br /><br />Typically, I can somewhat overlook poor technical and stylistic writing skills in a novel if the story is at least entertaining. But in this case, I can’t even claim that to be true. Because <i>Vanishing Falls</i> is downright boring. The core mystery is not anything new, and it’s certainly not very clever. There aren’t any surprising, jaw-dropping twists. It takes way too long to discover exactly what happens to Celia. And it is so simple to predict the outcome and solve the mystery. The final revelation can be seen hundreds of pages away.<br /><br />Boring. Boring. Boring.<br /><br />Still, the setting is terrific! Yes. The Tasmanian rainforest is quite fantastic. (Look at that. I found one positive to share.)<br /><br />Bottom line – <i>Vanishing Falls</i> is a dreadful chore of a read. I tried to like it. Really, I did. I stuck with it to the very end, hoping and thinking it would improve. <br /><br />But if I’m being honest, it just never did. <br /><br /><br /><i>I received an Advanced Readers Copy from William Morrow and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions included herein are my own.</i><br /><br /><b> <a href="https://www.banteringbooks.com" rel="nofollow noopener">Bantering Books</a> </b><br /><b> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/banteringbooks/" rel="nofollow noopener">Instagram</a> </b><br /><b> <a href="https://twitter.com/BooksBantering" rel="nofollow noopener">Twitter</a> </b><br /><b> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/banteringbooks" rel="nofollow noopener">Facebook</a> </b><br />

I really enjoyed this mystery and while I had ideas of what happened to one of the characters, I didn't crack the case until right before the author revealed everything. Some readers might not like the slow pace of the story, but that combined with the Tasmanian setting and an intriguing female lead character all worked together nicely to hold my interest.<br /><br />Vanishing Falls is a remote town located in Tasmania, Australia. Jack Lily comes from a prominent family and lives in Calendar House which has been the residence for generations of the Lily family. Jack is married to Celia, who goes missing. The story will follow a few characters including Jack, Jack's friend Cliff, and Joelle who some might call simple-minded. So where is Celia and what happened?<br /><br />Joelle is the character who really drives the story. Without her, I don't think the story works as well. Most of the other characters are miserable, self-involved people and so you don't feel as invested in them as you do with Joelle. By far, she was the most fascinating character to me.<br /><br />I do have some mixed thoughts about the ending. The author did have me guessing until the end which is always good. However, I don't really like how things were wrapped up and without getting into spoilers, I questioned the actions of a particular character in the last few chapters. The ending was conveniently wrapped up by using one of those common mystery tropes that feels like the easy way out for a writer. So in some ways, the ending wasn't completely satisfying but I don't think it belongs in the bad category either.<br /><br />Given the slow pace, this book might not appeal to every mystery reader but I thought it had a unique feel to it at least compared to other books I have read recently in the same genre. <br /><br />I won a free copy of this book in a giveaway by Goodreads and the publisher but I was not obligated to post a review. All views expressed are my honest opinion. <br /><br /><br />

Celia Lily is from a small Tasmanian town in the rain forest; she is also missing. Joelle Smithton is a little slow and sees a lot of things people are not aware of. People are not ready for what is about to be revealed. This book is described very well, and I believe it will be loved by many!

This is a mystery about the disappearance of Claire Lily. Each chapter of this book is rather awkwardly broken into sections describing the doings of three characters - Joelle, a mentally challenged wife and mother, Claire’s husband Jack, a wealthy art collector, and Jacks’s friend Cliff, a meth-addicted chicken farmer. That made the book bloated and disjointed and brought in a lot of details that were irrelevant to the mystery. When I finally got to the end I was annoyed that I had slogged through all of the red herrings for nothing (and there were too many dead dogs). It also took too long to actually get to Lily’s disappearance. The book should have stuck with Joelle and explored the situation solely through her child-like interpretation of events. <br /><br />I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

*this one is now available!<br /><br />4 slow-build stars<br /><br />This one is set on the island of Tasmania, which is located about 150 miles south of Melbourne, Australia. For some reason, I thought it was desert, but it actually has gorgeous lush scenery and rainforests. A slow-building mystery, this one is set in a remote town called Vanishing Falls. Once known for great apple orchards, the town is now limping by and meth addiction is on the rise.<br /><br />There are several characters in this one, the wealthy family that lives in the fancy house in town – Jack and Celia and their four daughters. There’s Joelle and Brian and their twins, Brian is the town butcher and Joelle is a little different – mostly because of a horrible childhood and trauma she experienced. Then there’s Kim and Cliff who are friends with Jack and Celia.<br /><br />The book opens with Celia going missing and then we go back in time to get all the clues. The town is full of secrets and even some dark history from years ago. This tale was filled with water – rain, waterfalls, rivers – and great descriptions of the beauty of this island.<br /><br />As the police dig into the case, Joelle is trying to put all the pieces together herself. I was a bit worried that some unscrupulous townspeople would take advantage of Joelle, but she can handle things! I really enjoyed her character and I will remember her for sure!<br /><br />Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins/William Morrow, and Poppy Gee for an early copy of this one to read.

Jack Lily arrives home to find the front door of his house wide open, the lights on and his wife's coat, jewelry and a half-drunk glass of champagne carelessly abandoned. His wife, however, cannot be found. So begins <b>Vanishing Falls</b> a novel set in a small town in Tasmania. <br /><br />The reader is then taken back a week in time and introduced to the main characters: a slightly mentally-challenged woman named Joelle and her butcher husband, Brian; Cliff, a meth-addicted chicken farmer and his wife Kim; lord-of-the-manor born Jack and his wife Celia. Unfortunately, the only sympathetic character out of the whole lot is Joelle. Her child-like outlook is refreshing but it's hard to watch the other characters try and manipulate her. Her eventual resolve to do what is right and seeing people for what they are is satisfying.<br /><br />The book starts out slowly as the characters and their relationships are introduced. It seems everyone is hiding something and it feels like it takes forever to find out what happened to Celia. Once it gets going, however, the story moves right along.<br /><br />Overall, I liked this book. There was some animal cruelty I didn't care for but that went along with the less than desirable characters. I liked the writing and felt Joelle's character especially rang true. Thank you HarperCollins and NetGalley for this ARC. The book will be published August 4, 2020. <br /><br /><br /><br />

This goes against the grain of most other reviews currently available for this book, but I felt like Vanishing Falls was an awful mess from beginning to end. The writing style is juvenile and simplistic. The characters are pretty poorly developed and completely inconsistent, with the exception of Joelle. This isn't saying much because Joelle is mentally traumatized from an incident when she was fourteen. This could be a strong point for the book, but it just doesn't work for me. The book is also told from three other points of view, one of which is completely unnecessary and adds no value to what story exists. Which was another issue with the book. What is the book supposed to be about? Cliff's drug usage? Jack's painting that's worth a boatload of money? Jack's wife disappearing? Joelle's husband potentially having a secret past? Then there's the random insinuations that come and go about Cliff and Jack's wife and Jack and Cliff's wife. It was incredibly difficult to follow where the author wanted to take the story and I probably would have never attempted to finish it if I wasn't writing a review for it. I do not recommend this book.

3.5/5<br /><br /><a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/48716982.Vanishing_Falls" title="Vanishing Falls by Poppy Gee" rel="noopener">Vanishing Falls</a> by <a href="https://goodreads.com/author/show/5427782.Poppy_Gee" title="Poppy Gee" rel="noopener">Poppy Gee</a> is a very atmospheric mystery that has both a slow pace and a whole lot of characters. There are quite a few viewpoints and people to keep track of, but over time as I read on, I was able to get better at keeping everyone straight. The town of Vanishing Falls was very unique, and I absolutely loved the setting. Those small-town stories are good enough, but then get even better if they are in the middle of nowhere and that is what happens for this story. I really liked the mystery surrounding Celia's disappearance alongside the art aspect, and I had fun following along with Joelle as she goes sleuthing. Joelle was by far my favorite character in this book as well as the driving force, and almost every single one of the others is unlikeable and really frustrated me at times. I do wish Gee would have toned it down with some of the viewpoints, as I don't think that many were needed, but I'm glad I had Joelle.<br /><br />I also would have loved some more narrators for the audiobook, and with this many characters, it would have been truly helpful. Be that as it may, our narrator Caroline Lee did a fantastic job and I am glad that she was the person I got to listen to. She is a very talented voice artist, and if I have to have one narrator, I am glad it was her. I did not figure out what had happened until the moment it was revealed but be warned it does take a decent amount of time to get there and find out what happened to our missing woman. There are some parts that are really hard to read, especially in regard to animals and how certain people treat Joelle, but overall, I was interested in what was going on and there were a lot of moving parts. The setting of Tasmania and the character of Joelle are definitely the two things that shine in this novel and ended up being my favorite things about it. Not a bad read, but I was hoping for a bit more. I will still read more from Gee though and am looking forward to it! <br /><br /><b>I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.</b>

As a senior English teacher I see my fair share of thrillers, mystery and crime fiction texts. I bought this novel via Booktopia and it arrived a couple of days later. The meandering style, particularly at the beginning, establishes a laidback and imperturbable ambience which offers a synecdochic representation of the town itself – nothing much happens here, the worst thing that’s occurred in Vanishing Falls is an argument about the name of the local creek. But behold dear reader, this is just a ruse utilised by the author to immerse you into this apparently insipid milieu in order to establish a sense of complacency and tedium. The author works on characterisation and setting in a deft and considered fashion, offering a slow burn mystery where her pastiche of punchy dialogue, vivid description of the surroundings, and historical references all come together in order to provide a mystery novel of authenticity, vicissitudes and nuance. Gee uses the backdrop of impenetrable forests, unforgiving terrains and harsh weather to establish a gothic feel which often leaves you feeling unsettled and perturbed. The third person narration fluctuates between the central characters and provides the reader with ample opportunity to fill in the blanks as you try to piece the puzzle together – I will say no more as not to give away the plot, suffice to say all the main characters have their own peccadillos and, as such, the author provides a subtle treatment of the darker recesses of the human condition. And to the question of whodunit? You will change your mind numerous times!

This is a leisurely paced mystery set in a remote town in Tasmania, not a thriller as it says on the book jacket. As long as you’re not looking for a fast-paced adventure, you may enjoy the lush, exotic setting and the interesting cast of characters as much as I did.