The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

A different cover for the ISBN 9780755308446.

Readers are taken on a voyage into the murkier corners of the human heart by Maggie O'Farrell, where impulses clash with the demands of societal mores. The dark history of Victorian asylums, the repression of family secrets, and how the discovery of the truth may alter everything are all explored in this eerie tale.

Iris Lockhart is ignoring her married boyfriend's efforts at commitment while running her vintage clothes store and then she gets this amazing phone call: She is getting out of Cauldstone Hospital, where she has been confined for more than 60 years, together with her great-aunt Esme, who she had no idea existed. Kitty, Iris's grandmother, had always said that she was raised alone. However, Esme's documents attest to her status as Kitty's sister, and Iris perceives her father's ghost in Esme's features. Esme has been declared to be inoffensive and rational enough to live in harmony with the outside world. Esme, however, is still essentially a stranger, a family member that the family has never acknowledged, and someone who will undoubtedly take secrets that will change lives with her when she leaves the hospital. What dark facts may she inherit if Iris takes her in?

Readers will be troubled long beyond the last page of Maggie O'Farrell's complex story of family secrets, lost lives, and the liberation that comes with the truth.