A journalist is chasing a story that's all too close to home. Twenty five years ago her neighbour disappeared, presumed to have run away with her art teacher, and that disappearance haunted her childhood. Now, in need of a career making story, she revisits the disappearance, finally getting access to Louisa's best friend, Victoria, a successful business woman.

Thanks t0 Victoria, the journalist starts to get an idea of life in the competitive, high pressure convent school, a place where scholarship pupils like Louisa were looked down on, money was everything and a young, bohemian, male art teacher could command adoration from his cloistered adolescent pupils. But is Victoria a reliable narrator? And is she finally ready to share her secrets?

Told in the alternating voices of Louisa and the journalist this is a tense, riveting read full of twists and turns, vividly bringing the close, fevered teen world of friendships and obsessions to life. Lyrical, dark and compelling this is an interesting debut marking the author as definitely one to watch.

Set in a darkly decrepit boarding school run by nuns and attended by teenage girls, it’s no surprise that an atmosphere of rebelliousness and sexuality runs throughout this book. Moving between the main character’s time at school and the present day, the book follows the unsolved disappearance of one of the girls and one of the teachers, a predictably attractive art teacher with an unconventional approach to his students. It is well written and the last chapter struck me as really quite beautiful, but there were times when I found the characters a bit difficult to engage with. The setting is powerfully imagined and the imagery is strong throughout.

The mystery underpinning the story centres around the disappearance of convent schoolgirl, Louisa and her charismatic teacher, Mr Lavelle. The Prologue told from the perspective of a journalist twenty five years later reveals the suicide of Victoria after she reads a newspaper detailing the case. From here we are whisked back into the past as three different narrative voices help us to piece together the truth. I did enjoy this book in parts but was continually reminded of Susie Salmon from Alice Sebold’s ‘The Lovely Bones’ which for me is the benchmark for deceased narrative voices. After this, I found it difficult to maintain a connection with the characters and found my interest began to flag although I did read to the end.

The Temple House Vanishing is the story of two teenage friends who meet at a boarding school and are befriended by their young and charismatic art teacher, Mr Lavelle. Louise is a moody cool-kid who doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks about her, and Victoria is inconspicuous and a likable character.

We learn that Victoria and Mr Lavelle went missing and haven’t been seen in years. In later life, a local journalist manages to interview Victoria, something that many journalists before have failed to do, and the secrets start falling out. The book is very nearly haunting and romantic - at points I really wanted Donohue to get deeper and darker and really lead me into the characters anxieties.

I think my favourite part of the plot was when we finally started seeing some answers. I developed a lot of theories in my head about what happened but ashamedly, I didn’t guess the ending! (Must try harder)

If I were a decade younger (21) I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more. The plot would make for an interesting Julia Stiles-type movie but I found the characters quite unrealistic - more aspiration than pragmatic.

I’d recommend the book to teenagers or someone who wants an easy holiday read.

A beautifully put together book that I really enjoyed.

I found the characters relatable and familiar but the story feels original but pays homage to others in the genre.

Read if you liked Lovely Bones.

This is a dark book - it has a very atmospheric and gothic feel about it. It is written primarily from two separate perspectives.

The first is that if Louisa, a teenager, struggling to fit in and find her identity. We see her start at a Temple House, a Catholic school and form a friendship with Victoria. The reader shares their friendship and inappropriate relationship with their teacher, Mr Lavelle.

The second perspective is a modern day journalist who is investigating the disappearance of Louisa and Mr Lavelle. They simply disappeared one day and were never found. The reader is taken on a journey back and forwards in time to find the truth.

When I realised this book was told from a predominantly YA perspective I wasn't sure I'd like it. I don't have much patience these days fir teenage angst and drama. However, it was very well written with Louisa and Victoria being very relatable characters. There were twists and turns here I didn't expect and was taken by surprise at the end.

As a rule I cannot abide epilogues. The one in this book was like a punch in the gut. It was amazing and brought this story to an amazing conclusion that just wouldn't have been as hard hitting without it.

This book tackles some difficult subjects. There are lots of secrets and lies. The gothic feel of the book is amazing. I could see this being made into a mini series... while it's not 'enjoyable' in the fun sense if the word, it's unusual yet familiar and is quite a compelling read.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fine debut from Rachel Donohoe, a dark, chillingly suspenseful mystery novel with gothic overtones, where raging teenage hormones, overheated emotions, and imaginations spill over in a all girls Roman Catholic boarding school. In a school run by nuns, there is a the juxtaposition of opposites, the strictures and repression of religion with its damnation and morality, crossed with the rampant emotional intensity, desires and obsessions of young girls, particularly with the incendiary addition of a male art teacher, Edward Lavelle. Louisa, coming from a troubled family background, is one of the first scholarship girls gaining a much prized entry to the prestigious and elite Temple House School. She is like a fish out of water, in unfamiliar territory she does not understand and not made to feel particularly welcome. What she needs is a friend to help her negotiate the pitfalls so that she can fit into this new environment and she finds that in the other worldly Victoria.

Victoria has her focus on their art teacher, and a girls boarding school is an ideal environment for rumours, rivalries, bullying, jealousy and obsessions to run rampant, one might even say more so in a religious school. Louisa and Edward Lavelle disappear in a mystery that is to remain unsolved through the years, a festering sore that ignites the curiosity of a journalist whose babysitter as a young child had been Louisa. In a tense narrative that goes back and forth through time, the revelations emerge tantalisingly slowly, the lies, secrets, the relationships, the triangles, the untold havoc wreaked by out of control emotions and the decisions that result. This is a well written, absorbing and engaging, atmospheric read that I thoroughly enjoyed. The blend of religious boarding school and teenage girls is captured remarkably well by the author. Many thanks to Atlantic Books for an ARC.

I persevered reading this book to the end and have to say the storyline was good although in places a little odd.

This is a beautifully written book; it's hard to believe it's the author's debut novel.
I can vouch that the atmosphere of a girls-only boarding school is precisely captured, the plot is gripping with an excellent twist, and the main characters are well-drawn, although (for me) maybe with not quite enough distinction between the two narrative voices.
I'm already looking forward to reading more by Rachel Donohue.
Many thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for giving me a copy of the novel in exchange for this honest review.

Temple House is a private Catholic school set on cliff tops in Ireland. Twenty five years ago a 16 year old girl and her arts teacher went missing and no trace of them was ever found. Nuns and prefects kept a very close eye on the girls - the atmosphere is repressive. Those who do not "fit in" are treated as outsiders. Enter Louisa, Victoria and Mr Lavelle - are they pretentious or independent spirits? A journalist who, as a very small child, lived close to Louisa - the girl who disappeared, looks for a story around the 25th anniversary of the disappearance.

For me this book took a slightly unusual approach which I'm still not sure about. The first thing we get is Victoria's current story. She is the girl who did not go missing and this part is dramatic. After that we hear Louisa's story in part then the journalist's take on what she finds out. The book then takes parts of each of their stories. It intrigued me but I did find it a little odd. As it started in some senses at the end.

Throughout this book I felt there was a real sense of foreboding which impressed me. The best bits are excellent. The main characters in this were well worked. The whole story felt very evocative of time and place. On some level this is rather an ordinary story. Young girl and her arts teacher go missing from a private Catholic school. 25 years later a nosy reporter decides to dig the story up again and find out what really happened. I guess I came to this book thinking that was the story. But it isn't really! This has far more to it than some I've read with a similar outline. It's about people who "fit" and people who don't; people with blinkers and those without. It is also about love and growing up and maybe some of the cracks in society.

Sometimes - though rarely - the publisher's hype lives up to the story. I think this is one of those cases. There are flaws here I think however overall this is a worthwhile read. It didn't grab me straight away but when it did it didn't let go!

The Temple House is a girl’s school, run for the privileged and (mostly) staffed by nuns who live there. Many of the girls are socially linked and their (wealthy and influential) parents sit on the management board. It was recognised that at even at the time of the “disappearance” the school could have been seen as old fashioned – even for rural and Catholic Ireland. But changes (experimental) are being implemented and they are deemed to lie at the bottom of the problem that will ultimately see the school brought into disrepute and then closed down. The seemingly simple changes – the appointment of a male art teacher, Mr Lavelle – and then the planned introduction of highly academic “scholarship pupils” trip the “vanishing” of both Mr Lavelle and the first scholarship girl Louisa.
On the 25th anniversary of the vanishing – when neither of the two missing have ever been reported seen again – amidst renewed media interest a female journalist, incidentally a younger neighbour of the missing Louisa, will research the events. She will try and persuade Victoria – believed to be Louisa’s closest friend at the School to tell what she knew of the events that led up to the day of the disappearance. Victoria will be pushed to suicide. This is a novel, so the depth and detail of the background will be supplied in memory recall by the missing Louisa whose chapters interleave those of the unnamed journalist.
Louisa wins the scholarship to part board at Temple House at the age of 16. The school is a completely alien environment to her, with esoteric rules she does not understand and with largely disinterested or hostile residents. Her parent’s marriage is falling apart and over the course of her last months her mother will leave the family home. Louisa is left coping with this, .exacerbating not just the vulnerabilities of her situation, but dealing with life as a developing teenager. When she starts to attend the relaxed art classes she meets Victoria who will be become her closest friend. But the politics of young female response to a young and attractive male teacher will lead to tensions and then public claims that he was involved in “inappropriate behaviour” that will lead to his dismissal. As this issue comes to a climax Louisa will “vanish”. The school will be remarkably lax in reporting this. But even when the police become involved she cannot be traced amidst claims of lies, prevarications and back covering. Did she run away with Mr Lavelle? Was he involved in inappropriate behaviours with minors? Where is she? Who is responsible?
Without giving away the plot it is hard to discuss this in fuller detail. But the depictions of an old fashioned school with esoteric rules and privilege supposedly looking after its own and willing to “cover up” irregularities is pinpoint accurate. Donohue gives not just a good understanding of the building within its landscape, but the feel of an old fashioned school that might well evoke personal memories. But the underlying foundations are the emotions of teenage girls in close proximity, particularly when in competition for status, friendships and the attention of the sole male teacher. As young Louisa is trying to understand her place in this circle, she has to determine whether her beliefs about and understandings of the new people around her are correct. The novel shows the pressures of the need to find a close and understanding friend that one can rely on – coupled with the stresses and urgencies of being a teenager.
This is an extremely fine novel. Donohue handles the action, the places, the people and the emotions so well. It is both absolutely believable and compelling, pulling the reader along at pace. The journalist search allows the story to develop stage by stage as her evidence grows. This allows the reader to move through what apparently happened, but to constantly re-evaluate this as more information is revealed. New truths are allowed to emerge, but old animosities and pressures to hide the truth still linger. However, the impact of an unexplained disappearance of a child on the people around her is never allowed to be forgotten. Well worth reading.

I liked this book. It was a bit slow to start, but by the time I’d reached the half way point, I was hooked.

I particularly liked the friendship between Victoria and Louisa. I’ve been a teenage girl, I HAVE a teenage girl and the intensity seemed perfect.

I don’t want to give spoilers, as this is a mystery so I’ll just say that I liked the way the story concluded and I enjoyed the journey!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my copy of this book.

The Temple House Vanishing is told by two people...Louisa and the journalist who has dug out and got caught up in the story of a disappearing student and her teacher years later around the anniversary of the disappearance.
Temple House School is a place swathed in strangeness, from the decrepit and spooky building and grounds themselves seemingly shrouded in mist and mystery, to the odd behavior of the pupils and the teacher caught up in the weeks precluding the vanishing of Louisa, to the staunchly Catholic nuns battling modern life and keeping the ethos of the school firmly rooted in the past..

The author sets the scene beautifully, of wealth and privilege, of class struggle and of the curious group psyche that the older and more established girls create around themselves, to the exclusion of others.
There are plenty of hints at wrong doing on the part of the teacher although mostly in rumour and gossip from the girls themselves and little is resolved in terms of what actually was going on in the summerhouse behind closed doors and away from the nuns compared to what may have been wishful thinking on the part of some of the girls.
.A very cleverly plotted tale with a great twist at the end.

A journalist sets out to unravel a story that happened a long time ago in a girl's school, now closed. It could be formulaic, but it isn't. The characters are well drawn, and the atmosphere is tense. At first, the two view points can be a little confusing, but it gradually falls into place
Recommended

Although atmospheric and well written I found this book too slow moving.
I enjoyed the present day journalist narrative far more than the storyline set at the school. Supposedly set in 1990 it could easily have been of an earlier era, in fact I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t.
Not my cup of tea I’m afraid with a mix of genres and characters I didn’t engage with. The author can weave a gothic type tale but I was glad when I came to the end of the book

Temple House is an elite boarding school for the daughters of wealthy families. So when Louisa wins a scholarship to the school, she is thrust into a world she doesn't know how to navigate; a world of petty jealousies, Catholic traditions, and schoolgirl fantasies. Shunned b y the popular girls, Louisa is drawn into a friendship with arty, ethereal Victoria, the pet of the handsome art teacher Mr Lavelle. And when Mr Lavelle takes Louisa under his wing as well, the three form an unlikely friendship.

Years later, a journalist is reporting on the unsolved mystery of the missing Mr Lavelle and Louisa, who are thought to have run away together when their romance was discovered. The narrative is split between the journalist, who narrates the present, and Louisa, who tells the story of her school days.

The book is finely written, but the story took a while to get going, and then seemed to lose its way in the second half - I enjoyed the story as a whole, but it took a very meandering path, and for a lot of the book, very little happened. I won't spoil the ending, except to say that the big reveal is one of my most hated literary devices, and utterly ruined the book for me - without it, the rating would have been a 3, possibly a 3.5, but I hated the ending so much that it cast a pall over the whole novel,

Thank you to NetGalley, who provided me with a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is an interesting and atmospheric read with some beautiful descriptions of the school grounds. The swimming hole and the summer house particularly appealed to me. I felt for Louisa, starting a smart new school as the ‘scholarship girl’. It was, for me, a slow burn, literary read rather than a page turner and I found it hard to engage with some of the characters but I enjoyed the undercurrent of tension and teenage obsession.

A girl Louisa and her art teacher disappear from the Temple House Convent school , 25 years later a journalist ,who used to live across from the missing girl , starts her own investigation into the story . As she delves into the disappearance a number of different theories start to appear . This story is told from the perspective of the journalist , Louisa and her best friend at the school Victoria . A well formed story framed in an unusual way , but unfortunately not my cup of tea , but I think it will appeal to many.

I’m not disputing the fact that Rachel Donohue can craft a story not that she can create convincing characters. However, this novel is a disappointing read. The first two thirds of a story which investigates the disappearance twenty-five years earlier of a teacher and one of his pupils, unfolds well. The claustrophobic Temple House school, the teenage tensions, the stultifying religious rituals, the gothic-like grounds all work to create a febrile atmosphere and it is understandable that some of the teenage girls look to their beautiful art teacher, Mr Lavelle, as the epitome of all they desire have even though, in reality, he is an inadequate waster whose ego is fed by pubescent fantasies. It is no wonder that feelings escalate, that the teacher and one of his pupils vanish, and that devastation follows.
However, the way in which the author uses narrative voice really does not work by the end of the novel – to explain more fully would be to spoil the plot. I enjoyed the focus on present-day journalism – this felt really authentic. Nevertheless, I cannot rate this novel as highly as a number of other readers because the denouement is so poorly fashioned, casting its awkward shadow over my overall view of the novel.
My thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Books for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

This was a hard one to rate, on the one hand I really wanted to know what happened to the missing people and on the other I found most of the characters slightly annoying and pretentious especially Victoria. I think it could have been longer and focused more on the friendship building of the two girls, I didn't fully feel the bond between them and found it difficult to understand Louisa's devotion. It kind of skipped the development for them and focused pretty much straight away on their growing relationship with the teacher. The obsession with him is understandable, the combination of the oppression of the Catholic boarding school with its many rules and the hormonal teenage girls makes it ripe for this kind of situation. The ending was a bit predictable once it got to a certain point but I still thought it was well done and the mystery kept me reading.