Library Manager
Manage your library—your way. Keep a running list or organize the books you've read into little stacks. i.e. Beach Reads, Cozy Covers, True Crime, etc.
The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone
A Mystery Novel by Felicity McLean
Subgenres:
- Coming-of-Age,
- Australia,
- Small Town
This book is for you if you're into...
- Australian coming-of-age mysteries with unresolved disappearances
- Stories where childhood memories collide with adult reckoning
- Dark humor woven through small-town secrets and loss
From Little Stack
We’re back in Australia for this haunting mystery about childhood adolescence, secrets and regrets. Taking place over the transformative summer of 1992, when Hannah, Cordelia and Ruth Van Apfel vanished. Their school friend and neighbour, Tikka Malloy, was just eleven that unforgettable summer and has been haunted by the mystery of what happened to them ever since. The night they vanished is burned into her memory and she is plagued by guilt and regret. When Tikka travels back to the small suburb she grew up in, she decides it's finally time to make sense of her memories and try to find out the truth.
Atmospheric and nostalgic, this book had me hooked from the first page, exploring how a tragedy can shape our future and how we see things differently as an adult versus as a child. But will we find out what happened to the Van Apfel girls? You’ll have to read it to find out.
Tikka Malloy was eleven and one-sixth years old during the long, hot, Australian summer of 1992. The TV news in the background chattered with debate about the exoneration of Lindy ("dingo took my baby") Chamberlain. That summer was when the Van Apfel sisters--Ruth, Hannah, and the beautiful Cordelia--mysteriously disappeared.
Did they just run far away from their harsh, evangelical parents, or were they taken? While the search for the girls united the small community, the mystery of their disappearance was never solved, and Tikka and her older sister, Laura, have been haunted ever since by the loss of their friends and playmates.
Now, years later, Tikka has returned home to try to make sense of that strange moment in time. Part mystery, part darkly comic coming-of-age story, The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone is a page-turning read--with a dark, shimmering absence at its heart.
Follow This Author
Sign up & we'll email you when a new title is available for pre-order or hits the bookshelf
Red
2022
Little Stacks of Mystery
7 Mystery Books About Toxic Friendships
Are these relationships built to last or will the truth be too much to bear?
Best Summer Mystery and Thriller Books for Beach Reading
Six irresistible crime thrillers packed with twists and tension for your summer escape.
Midsummer Mysteries for the Longest Day of the Year
Seven gripping titles where the sun stands still and nothing is as it seems.
Get Mystery eBook Deals
Curated reads, irresistible prices—subscribe now