Book Review: The Vanishing Hour | Seraphina Nova Glass

A gritty story of missing girls, murder, and the seedy underbelly of a small town. The Vanishing Hour by Seraphina Nova Glass is a compelling mystery with a twist-filled ending.

About the Book

From the Edgar Award–nominated author of On a Quiet Street comes a shocking thriller about secrets…and the lengths some people will go to keep them.

Grace Holloway keeps to herself. Since narrowly escaping death at the hands of the man who kidnapped her, she’s thrown herself into the small inn she runs in Rock Harbor, Maine. It’s quiet, quaint and, in the off-season, completely isolated—the perfect place for Grace to keep her own secrets.

But Grace isn’t the only one with something to hide, and Rock Harbor isn’t just a sleepy vacation town. Someone is taking young women—girls who look an awful lot like Grace did when she was kidnapped so many years ago.

When a surge of disappearances brings the investigation to her door, Grace finds herself unwillingly at the center of it all and doing everything she can to keep her distance. Because Grace knows something…something that could change everything. And when the truth comes to light, getting justice for the vanished might be more than Grace can handle alone…

Reflection

I’ve read several books by Seraphina Nova Glass and The Vanishing Hour is very different from her other books. The other books I’ve read by this author (my favorite was On a Quiet Street) are much more in the domestic suspense side of psychological thrillers, while The Vanishing Hour is more of a gritty hometown mystery. Her other books are to me more about the characters, while this is truly about the mystery and the town itself. None of the characters have much of a growth arc, and they are more there for different perspectives to build the story.

Told from three alternating narrators, The Vanishing Hour tells the story of missing girls in the small town of Rock Harbor, Maine. Grace narrowly escaped death years ago at the hands of the man who kidnapped her. Now she runs a small inn and keeps to herself as much as possible.

A local man who moved away named Aden shows up at the inn in the off-season because his father Martin has gone missing and he has returned home to help with the search. Grace is thrown by the arrival of Aden, disrupting her much-coveted solitude. Still, she finds his company more engaging than she expects. Meanwhile Kira’s daughter Brooke has gone missing as well, and a search into her disappearance brings up some troubling secrets that make it clear Kira didn’t know her daughter at all.

Soon it becomes clear that other girls have gone missing. What is really going on in Rock Harbor? Are the disappearances connected, and how do they relate to Grace’s traumatic past?

I read this as a buddy read with my friend Carrie and we both struggled a bit in the first half to keep the characters and storylines straight. However, towards the middle of the book the stories merge together and the book races towards the finish. The characters themselves don’t show a ton of growth throughout the book, but the reader’s opinion of them may change as more twisted secrets and hidden truths come to light. The stories each serve an important role in understanding the broader scope of what is happening in Rock Harbor. The ending was twisted and satisfying.

This is a bit different from other books I’ve read by this author, and felt more mystery/thriller than domestic suspense. Compelling and engaging!