Reviews

Vanishing Falls

 

“Fans of Jane Harper’s thrillers and their atmospheric Australian settings will be riveted by this gripping novel set in a small town deep in the Tasmanian rain forest. When Celia Lily goes missing, the evidence points to her husband, Jack, who is suspected of murdering her, although there is also the possibility that she has become another victim of the dangerous Vanishing Falls. Joelle Smithton knows that her neighbors view her as simpleminded, but she is clever in her own way. However, as she listens carefully and sorts out the details, she unwittingly places herself in danger. Joelle was implicated in a tragic crime as a young teen and has guarded that secret even from her husband, who has a past of altercations with the Lily family. Jack has plenty to hide, too, as does the down-on-their-luck couple he and Celia befriended. Many secrets, many motives. The reader will be hard put to figure this one out and will be amazed by the unique and amazingly resilient protagonist, who is revealed in clear and steadily paced prose.”

— Jane Murphy, Booklist

 

 

“This literary thriller paints as vivid a landscape as any book coming out this summer, setting its story in a mysterious town within a Tasmanian rainforest. The mystery centers on the disappearance of a local socialite and eccentric, but the story soon widens to encompass the secrets kept by seemingly everyone in this odd little corner of the world. Gee creates a lush, tantalizing world that readers will want to travel into deeper and deeper.”

— CrimeReads

 

 

“VANISHING FALLS is a game of Clue in the Tasmanian rainforest with a rich cast of characters and a flawlessly sketched locale. Poppy Gee has written the perfect kind of mystery: a world that feels at once fresh and familiar with a story that drives at a frenzied clip.”

— David Joy, author of When These Mountains Burn

 

 

“VANISHING FALLS is an addictive, cleverly plotted mystery-within-a-mystery set in a vividly painted Tasmania. The cast of complex, secret-laden characters will draw you in and keep you riveted until the final page. Twisty and darkly atmospheric, Poppy Gee has created a chilling gem of a novel with a surprising heart at the center.”

— Kali White, author of The Monsters We Make

 

 

“The lush, rich landscape of the Tasmanian rain forest is the setting for Poppy Gee’s VANISHING FALLS, a novel that blends crime and women’s fiction with a mystery at its heart. Gee deals with themes of class, the legacy of wealth, and a divided society as relevant to those in the U.S. as it will be to those familiar with the razed fruit orchards and petering out roads of Vanishing Falls. Best of all, this novel introduces us to an unforgettable heroine, Jo-Jo, who will tug at your heartstrings even as you cheer for her to solve the crime.”

— Jenny Milchman, Mary Higgins Clark award winning [or USA Today bestselling] author of Cover of Snow and The Second Mother

 

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Bay of Fires

 

‘If you loved Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, you’ll like this murder mystery. Lock your doors… it will creep you out.’

— Marie Claire, USA

 

 

“POPPY Gee’s debut novel Bay of Fires is a trouble-in-paradise literary thriller set in the beautiful Tasmanian coastal region of the title.

Tasmanian-born, Brisbane-based journalist Gee delivers a compelling character-driven story that is refreshingly original.

Sarah Avery, an aquaculturist in her mid-30s, has returned to Tasmania from a job managing a Queensland barramundi farm following a relationship break-up. She’s an unlikely heroine, a complex amalgam of sensitivity, obsessiveness, misanthropy, boozer and tomboy. She’s ensconced for the summer at her family’s holiday shack in the Bay of Fires, where she lives with her parents, airline stewardess sister Erica and Erica’s pilot boyfriend Steve. Her parents are locked into their social habits and seem oblivious to her despair, which she confronts by drinking too much and fishing. Only her sister notices, but Sarah’s envy of Erica’s seemingly perfect life makes her resist finding any succour there.

When a young Swiss backpacker is found dead on the beach, the small village becomes the focus of a media pack. Among them is Hall Flynn, an old-school local journalist, broken since his wife ran off with his best friend. Against the unlikely dance of these characters is an array of fascinating minor players, all superbly drawn.

More than a murder mystery, this is a tale of odd-bods and resistance to the status quo. In many ways the smaller the community, the larger the characters become, and Bay of Fires in this respect reminds you of other writers of the geographic fringes such as E. Annie Proulx. There’s a powerful social intelligence at work here and Gee’s compassion for her characters and their predicaments is palpable. She has taken the scaffolding of a crime novel and used it to tread beyond the parameters of genre conventions and investigate the messier terrain of human frailty and endurance. It’s a book that gets you thinking about people rather than plots, and is all the better for it.”

— Ed Wright, The Australian

 

 

“This suspenseful literary fiction is journalist Poppy Gee’s first novel—and makes perfect holiday reading. When Sarah Avery returns to her family’s shack on Tasmania’s idyllic north-east coast, minus a career and a boyfriend, she’s certain she’s hit rock bottom. But when a body washes up on the beach, a journalist arrives to investigate—and begins uncovering secrets that threaten Sarah’s world. Fans of Tim Winton will be drawn in by this evocative account of a sleepy coastal town and the events that shake it to its core.”

— Rachel Lees, InStyle Australia

 

 

“Beautifully atmospheric and superbly gripping, BAY OF FIRES is a stellar debut. Poppy Gee has a deft hand with characterization, and a clear, fresh voice. She brought me straight to the wild shores of Tasmania, and into the troubled heart of her heroine — and all the while she had me eagerly turning the pages late into the night as she carefully tightened the screws of suspense.”

— Lisa Unger, author of The Stranger Inside

 

 

“A thrilling murder mystery set on the coast of Tasmania. Poppy Gee’s heroine is tough and absolutely winning. I’ve been handing this to all my friends.”

— Amanda Eyre Ward, author of The Jetsetters

 

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