The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde: The spellbinding mystery from the Richard & Judy bestselling author of The Glass House

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I can easily forgive some things that felt improbable, some things that fell into place too easily, because there were so many more things in this book that I loved. Fifty years later, Jesse is desperate to move her family out of their London home, where signs of her widower husband's previous wife are around every corner. Gorgeous Applecote Manor, nestled in the English countryside, seems the perfect solution. But Jesse finds herself increasingly isolated in their new sprawling home, at odds with her sixteen-year-old stepdaughter and haunted by the strange rumours that surround the estate. The entire novel is infused with this sort of natural wit, but it’s showcased more in the 1959 sections, the dynamics of the Wilde sisters adding that ‘something more’ to every scene that they are in. The relationship between the sisters, their deep and abiding loyalty to each other, was a wonderful part of this story. They were a unit; them against the rest of the world, and they rarely lost sight of that. Margot herself was a faithful narrator and I enjoyed experiencing the 1959 story through her eyes. She puts up with a lot on account of being Audrey’s pale comparison, and I thought she showed great strength of character on more than one occasion. When fifteen-year-old Margot and her three sisters arrive at Applecote Manor in June 1959, they expect a quiet English country summer. Instead, they find their aunt and uncle still reeling from the disappearance of their daughter, Audrey, five years before. As the sisters become divided by new tensions when two handsome neighbors drop by, Margot finds herself drawn into the life Audrey left behind. When the summer takes a deadly turn, the girls must unite behind an unthinkable choice or find themselves torn apart forever. The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde is told in two timelines. Each chapter alternates between the present day and Summer, 1959 – five years after Audrey Wilde disappeared. In the present day, Jessie, her husband, daughter and stepdaughter move into Applecote Manor, uprooting their busy London lives for a different pace. Jessie struggles with the death of her husband’s first wife, feeling the ghost of her wherever she goes. Not only does she have to deal with this but she must deal with her rebellious stepdaughter, who creates all kinds of issues.

THE VANISHING OF AUDREY WILDE/THE WILDLING SISTERS THE VANISHING OF AUDREY WILDE/THE WILDLING SISTERS

In the heatwave of 1959, four sisters arrive at Applecote Manor to relive their memories of hazy Cotswolds summers.

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To clear any confusion, when I was first sent this book it was named The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde and has since gone through a name change so I have posted both covers and both names for those of you who know the novel by each name! The dual line flips between the present day and 1959 with the full picture slowly emerging as the book progresses. The perspective is told from two perspective; 15 year old Margot in 1959 and Jessie in the present day. The storytelling was effortless, with the two times effortless leading from one to another.

The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde: Chase, Eve: 9780718180096 The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde: Chase, Eve: 9780718180096

This summer wasn't the best for anyone, though. The close knit sisters drew apart, and Margot was obsessed with finding out what really happened to Audrey. Along with everything else, Aunt Sylvia did a few odd things and kept things from the girls. The four beautiful Wilde sisters who in 1959 arrive at Applecote Manor to spend the summer with their aunt and uncle. Sadly their aunt is struggling to come to terms with the disappearance of their daughter Audrey five years earlier. In the earlier time period, I found the relationships among the four Wilde sisters, affectionately dubbed the Wildlings by their Uncle Perry, interesting, especially seeing how the dynamic between them shifts over the course of the book. They’re certainly plunged in to a difficult situation. That this is likely to be the last summer which the sisters spend together before their futures start diverging, only adds to its poignancy. Applecote Manor captivates Jessie with it promise of hazy summers in the Cotswolds a perfect escape for her troubled family, far away from London and its madness and a new beginning in a home that she can at last make her own. But the house has a hidden history and strange rumours surround the estate, rumours which the locals are not about to divulge too easily.

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I am glad this one didn’t drop completely off my radar. The story has a lot of familial touches, bringing the characters to life in a vivid and emotional way, drawing the reader into their world with lush writing, dialogue, and descriptions. Eve Chase once again impresses.

The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde: ‘Sisters. Bonded by blood’ The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde: ‘Sisters. Bonded by blood’

Houses are never just houses. I’m quite sure of this now. We leave particles behind, dust and dreams, fingerprints buried on wallpapers, our tread in the wear of the stairs. And we take bits of the houses with us. In my case, a love of the smell of wax polish on sun-warmed oak, late summer filtering through stained glass. We grow up. We stay the same. We move away, but we live forever where we were most alive." Jessie and Will believe that Applecote Manor will be “a gentler, more benign” place than London, a city that “forces girls to grow up too fast, strips them of their innocence”. Do you agree with their decision to move the girls? How does the house prove their expectations wrong? Have you ever moved somewhere in hopes of achieving a different lifestyle? The first story is told by fifteen year-old Margot Wilde, the third of four sisters who live a happy, bohemian life in fifties London. When their widowed mother is presented with the chance of a summer in Morocco she seizes it, and sends her girls to stay with their Aunt Sibyl and Uncle Perry at Applegate Manor in the Cotswolds. It would be their first visit since their cousin Audrey had disappeared five years earlier. Margot notices as the summer goes on that Sybil and Perry “really [are] one system, redistributing their appetites, that the marriage that once looked so dead may actually be alive at the roots”. How does the novel portray marriage? How is marriage different for Sybil and Perry than it is for Jessie and Will, or for Will and Mandy?Rita is nanny to the glamorous Harrington family’s two children. A small-town girl raised by her grandmother, she fell in love with the seemingly perfect London family. Then tragedy strikes. With the clan reeling, Mrs. Harrington, the children, and Rita are sent to Foxcote Manor for the summer to recuperate far from prying eyes. But when a baby is abandoned just outside their gate, the family takes her in and will never be the same. Within days a person will lie dead in the woods, and a society scandal explodes.

David Higham Associates Eve Chase - David Higham Associates

Discuss the character of Caroline Alton. She admits to Lorna that she found her stepchildren “unfathomable” (p. 168). Do you think she is a bad stepmother? Are her actions ever justified? Read the opening extract from the Booker-Prize shortlisted novel about an island where outsiders in flight from society have built their home I truly wanted to love this one more! An atmospheric, character driven, gothic novel set in an aging house in England's countryside. The story weaves past with present as it follows the mystery of Applecote Manor. It is beautifully written in a lyrical way.I do however think The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde does have potential, and it would definitely appeal to readers who love slower paced character driven mystery, that has a real gothic feel. With lots of drama. The present day is more driven by the relationship between step families and attempting to start afresh. I do think the Wilde sisters story could have been a stand alone story, but the present day brought it all together and led the book towards its fantastic conclusion. What brought the two time periods together is the theme of loss, and obviously the mystery of what happened to Audrey at Applecote that long ago summer.