The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue
Evening BookWyrms,
The Temple House Vanishing is a murder mystry and a psycological thriller. It is dark, poignant, painful and unnerving.
I was scrolling through NetGalley and just happened upon it. Here is the blurb that made me request it:
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Twenty-five years ago, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl and her charismatic teacher disappeared without trace...
In an elite Catholic girls' boarding-school the pupils live under the repressive, watchful gaze of the nuns. Seeking to break from the cloistered atmosphere two of the students - Louisa and Victoria - quickly become infatuated with their young, bohemian art teacher, and act out passionately as a result. That is, until he and Louisa suddenly disappear.
Years later, a journalist uncovers the troubled past of the school and determines to resolve the mystery of the missing pair. The search for the truth will uncover a tragic, mercurial tale of suppressed desire and long-buried secrets. It will shatter lives and lay a lost soul to rest.
The Temple House Vanishing is a stunning, intensely atmospheric novel of unrequited longing, dark obsession and uneasy consequences.
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The blurb is compelling enough but coupled with the cover art which is bold, striking and gives nothing away, I just had to read this book.
Let me just give you some trigger warnings, before I get into my thoughts on the story, because I think it is something that publishing houses should provide to readers, so we can be somewhat prepared for certain topics contained within a book. This list is not exhaustive:
1. Suicide
2. Mental Health
3. Murder
4. Abuse
5. Religion (as a form of control/abuse/repression)
6. LGBTQ (struggle with identity/questioning)
The themes in this book are unsettling and I think that this is because we all knew a teacher like Mr Lavelle or a student like Helen or Victoria or Louise. Or we were them. We can all relate to those awkward, self discovering, painful teenage years. We can all relate to those teenage crushes. But what sets this book apart and what I love most about Donohue’s novel is that she takes all of those everyday experiences and pushes them to the extreme and explores what ‘could’ happen!
There are two POV’s across two decades which keeps the pace of the book exciting and interesting. Everytime you start to find out more about what happened 25 years ago from Louise, the next chapter takes you into the present day and we start to follow the Journalist retrospectively investigating the events at Temple House. At times the switching back and forth was annoying but only because I was desperate to solve the mystery of what happened.
I remained hooked into this story until the final chapter where I basically got my heart broken! Something I wasn't expecting as I hadn't realised how much I’d grown to like one of the characters.
However, looking back the writing is honest and authentic which I think is what makes the voices of our two narrators believable, likeable and even dare I say it - loveable.
Speaking of loveable The Summer House was a location within the story that I loved from the first mention of it, in the same way that I detested Temple House from it’s first appearance. The Summer House, in my opinion, is a stage setting - its where I felt all the important looks, touches, conversations or missed words occurred. It is also the ‘Cinderella’ to the ‘ugly sister’ that is Temple House. For me Temple House was an omen of misery from the first moment it loomed out of the sea fog!
But it was the perfect setting for the intense and uncomfortable exploration of religion as a tool of fear, control, repression and punishment as well as being a perfect metaphor (pay attention to the increasing mentions of the decay) for the slow loss of control the Nuns have over the very troubling and evil events that occur within the walls of the House during the story.
All in all, I really enjoyed this story and sped through the 300 odd pages in a couple of days.
I was surprised to learn that this is Donohue’s debut novel and thrilled with the idea of what she’ll do next.
The Temple House Vanishing publishes on the 20th February 2020 and I am sure it will be a massive hit.
Here is the link to pre-order, make sure you get your copy as soon as possible:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Temple-House-Vanishing-Rachel-Donohue/dp/178649938X
Thanks to NetGalley and Corvus Publishing for letting me read and review.
As always, keep on reading,
Lottie
The Temple House Vanishing is a murder mystry and a psycological thriller. It is dark, poignant, painful and unnerving.
I was scrolling through NetGalley and just happened upon it. Here is the blurb that made me request it:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twenty-five years ago, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl and her charismatic teacher disappeared without trace...
In an elite Catholic girls' boarding-school the pupils live under the repressive, watchful gaze of the nuns. Seeking to break from the cloistered atmosphere two of the students - Louisa and Victoria - quickly become infatuated with their young, bohemian art teacher, and act out passionately as a result. That is, until he and Louisa suddenly disappear.
Years later, a journalist uncovers the troubled past of the school and determines to resolve the mystery of the missing pair. The search for the truth will uncover a tragic, mercurial tale of suppressed desire and long-buried secrets. It will shatter lives and lay a lost soul to rest.
The Temple House Vanishing is a stunning, intensely atmospheric novel of unrequited longing, dark obsession and uneasy consequences.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The blurb is compelling enough but coupled with the cover art which is bold, striking and gives nothing away, I just had to read this book.
Let me just give you some trigger warnings, before I get into my thoughts on the story, because I think it is something that publishing houses should provide to readers, so we can be somewhat prepared for certain topics contained within a book. This list is not exhaustive:
1. Suicide
2. Mental Health
3. Murder
4. Abuse
5. Religion (as a form of control/abuse/repression)
6. LGBTQ (struggle with identity/questioning)
The themes in this book are unsettling and I think that this is because we all knew a teacher like Mr Lavelle or a student like Helen or Victoria or Louise. Or we were them. We can all relate to those awkward, self discovering, painful teenage years. We can all relate to those teenage crushes. But what sets this book apart and what I love most about Donohue’s novel is that she takes all of those everyday experiences and pushes them to the extreme and explores what ‘could’ happen!
There are two POV’s across two decades which keeps the pace of the book exciting and interesting. Everytime you start to find out more about what happened 25 years ago from Louise, the next chapter takes you into the present day and we start to follow the Journalist retrospectively investigating the events at Temple House. At times the switching back and forth was annoying but only because I was desperate to solve the mystery of what happened.
I remained hooked into this story until the final chapter where I basically got my heart broken! Something I wasn't expecting as I hadn't realised how much I’d grown to like one of the characters.
However, looking back the writing is honest and authentic which I think is what makes the voices of our two narrators believable, likeable and even dare I say it - loveable.
Speaking of loveable The Summer House was a location within the story that I loved from the first mention of it, in the same way that I detested Temple House from it’s first appearance. The Summer House, in my opinion, is a stage setting - its where I felt all the important looks, touches, conversations or missed words occurred. It is also the ‘Cinderella’ to the ‘ugly sister’ that is Temple House. For me Temple House was an omen of misery from the first moment it loomed out of the sea fog!
But it was the perfect setting for the intense and uncomfortable exploration of religion as a tool of fear, control, repression and punishment as well as being a perfect metaphor (pay attention to the increasing mentions of the decay) for the slow loss of control the Nuns have over the very troubling and evil events that occur within the walls of the House during the story.
All in all, I really enjoyed this story and sped through the 300 odd pages in a couple of days.
I was surprised to learn that this is Donohue’s debut novel and thrilled with the idea of what she’ll do next.
The Temple House Vanishing publishes on the 20th February 2020 and I am sure it will be a massive hit.
Here is the link to pre-order, make sure you get your copy as soon as possible:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Temple-House-Vanishing-Rachel-Donohue/dp/178649938X
Thanks to NetGalley and Corvus Publishing for letting me read and review.
As always, keep on reading,
Lottie
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