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 beautifully atmospheric and involving novel, written in a lyrical literary style with a mysteriously compelling story.
Louisa and her art teacher disappeared one night many years ago. In a case that engaged the nation, neither of them were ever found.
Through the voices of Louisa and a journalist writing a case study 25 years later, we learn about Temple House school, the cliques and the friendships, the social divide and the slow burn of an obsessive relationship.
This is the sort of story I fall into, the past haunting the present in this case almost literally. The truth about what happened back then is revealed in slow, delicious detail where you can almost see what’s coming, a book where at several points you stop and consider, wishing different choices were being made. The author allows you to see her characters with their flaws in full view, their own personality affecting how they interpret words and actions.
Really thought this was terrific. It’s just the kind of literary mystery I look for these days and highly recommend you consider adding it to your 2020 reading lists.
Intelligent, insightful and intriguing.
You can purchase The Temple House Vanishing (Corvus) Here.
Happy Reading!
