Rules For Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall

The Blurb On The Back:

Once a year, a road appears in the woods at midnight and the ghost of Lucy Gallows beckons, inviting those who are brave enough to play her game. If you win, you escape with your life. But if you lose …

It’s almost a year since Becca went missing. Everyone else has given up searching for her, but her sister, Sara, knows she disappeared while looking for Lucy Gallows. Determined to find her, Sara and her closest friends enter the woods. But something more sinister than ghosts lurks on the road, and not everyone will survive.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Kate Alice Marshall’s YA horror novel is a haphazard, disjointed affair whose plot draws on the legend of Ys. However its connection with small-town America is never explained and neither is the narrative framing device while many of the side characters are interchangeable. That said there are some genuinely creepy moments and sinister imagery such that although the book did not work for me, I’d be interested in reading Marshall’s other work.

Thanks to Walker Books for the review copy of this book.