Poppy Gee

One of CrimeReads Most Anticipated Books of the Year This literary thriller paints as vivid a landscape as any book coming out this summer...Gee creates a lush, tantalizing world that readers will want to travel into deeper and deeper.--CrimeReadsCelia Lily is rich, beautiful, and admired. She's also missing. And the search for the glamorous socialite is about to expose all the dark, dirty secrets of Vanishing Falls...Deep within the lush Tasmanian rainforest is the remote town of Vanishing Falls, a place with a storied past. The town's showpiece, built in the 1800s, is its Calendar House--currently occupied by Jack Lily, a prominent art collector and landowner; his wife, Celia; and their four daughters. The elaborate, eccentrically designed mansion houses one masterpiece and 52 rooms--and Celia Lily isn't in any of them. She has vanished without a trace....Joelle Smithton knows that a few folks in Vanishing Falls believe that she's simple-minded. It's true that Joelle's brain works a little differently--a legacy of shocking childhood trauma. But Joelle sees far more than most people realize, and remembers details that others cast away. For instance, she knows that Celia's husband, Jack, has connections to unsavory local characters whom he's desperate to keep hidden. He's not the only one in town with something to conceal. Even Joelle's own husband, Brian, a butcher, is acting suspiciously. While the police flounder, unable to find Celia, Joelle is gradually parsing the truth from the gossip she hears and from the simple gestures and statements that can unwittingly reveal so much. Just as the water from the falls disappears into the ground, gushing away through subterranean creeks, the secrets in Vanishing Falls are pulsing through the town, about to converge. And when they do, Joelle must summon the courage to reveal what really happened to Celia, even if it means exposing her own past...

One of CrimeReads Most Anticipated Books of the Year "This literary thriller paints as vivid a landscape as any book coming out this summer...Gee creates a lush, tantalizing world that readers will want to travel into deeper and deeper."--CrimeReadsCelia Lily is rich, beautiful, and admired. She's also missing. And the search for the glamorous socialite is about to expose all the dark, dirty secrets of Vanishing Falls... Deep within the lush Tasmanian rainforest is the remote town of Vanishing Falls, a place with a storied past. The town's showpiece, built in the 1800s, is its Calendar House--currently occupied by Jack Lily, a prominent art collector and landowner; his wife, Celia; and their four daughters. The elaborate, eccentrically designed mansion houses one masterpiece and 52 rooms--and Celia Lily isn't in any of them. She has vanished without a trace.... Joelle Smithton knows that a few folks in Vanishing Falls believe that she's simple-minded. It's true that Joelle's brain works a little differently--a legacy of shocking childhood trauma. But Joelle sees far more than most people realize, and remembers details that others cast away. For instance, she knows that Celia's husband, Jack, has connections to unsavory local characters whom he's desperate to keep hidden. He's not the only one in town with something to conceal. Even Joelle's own husband, Brian, a butcher, is acting suspiciously. While the police flounder, unable to find Celia, Joelle is gradually parsing the truth from the gossip she hears and from the simple gestures and statements that can unwittingly reveal so much. Just as the water from the falls disappears into the ground, gushing away through subterranean creeks, the secrets in Vanishing Falls are pulsing through the town, about to converge. And when they do, Joelle must summon the courage to reveal what really happened to Celia, even if it means exposing her own past...

A darkly suspenseful thriller set in coastal Tasmania, where an idyllic calm is shattered by the death of a young tourist Sarah Avery's reckless behavior has cost her a job, her boyfriend, and the independence she desperately craves. While she is home (reluctantly) for the holidays in the tiny seaside town where her parents live, Sarah's hopes for calm are shattered when she finds the body of a young female backpacker washed up on the shore. A year earlier, another woman went missing and hasn't been seen since. Is there a killer in this quiet harbor?The arrival of the journalist Hall Flynn to investigate the murder sets the locals reeling. Hall, haunted by demons of his own and yearning for a fresh start, will do whatever it takes to break the story. And Sarah will do whatever it takes to keep her own secrets safe.

Deep in a national park on the east coast of Tasmania, the Bay of Fires is an idyllic holiday community. There are no more than a dozen shacks beside the lagoon - and secrets are hard to keep; the intimacy of other people's lives is their nourishment. The fact that Sarah Avery has returned, having left her boyfriend and her job, is cause for gossip in itself. Then, the bikini-clad body of a young girl is found washed up on the beach; a year after another teenage girl went missing. Journalist Hall Flynn is sent to the coast to investigate, and all too quickly the close-knit community turns in on itself. As he uncovers long-buried secrets, the delicate balance of their fragile lives is threatened. . .