A Book A Week

For twenty years, Deedee has lived in the shadow of her kid sister’s disappearance. It was a summer night in 1999 when her nine-year-old sister, Roisin, entered the Hanging Woods. Everyone in their small Irish town knew the stories about that place. Children were warned away. No one went into the woods without a reason. But Roisin did, and she was never seen again.

Deedee can’t say for certain if that night is what led her to become a cop, but she knows it never truly left her. The unanswered questions, the guilt, the sense that something was missed, it’s all still there, quietly eating away at her. She’s spent years trying to hold herself together, and it’s getting harder to pretend she’s succeeded.

When Deedee crosses paths with Caitlin again, she wants nothing to do with her. Caitlin was Roisin’s best friend, the last person to see her alive. The disappearance marked Caitlin, too, though in a very different way, sending her down a path of petty crime and bad decisions she never quite escaped. Now, with her mother’s death, Caitlin has returned to the town she once fled.

Reluctantly drawn back into each other’s lives, Deedee and Caitlin are forced to reckon with a past they’ve spent years trying to bury. The Hanging Woods are still there, waiting. Whatever happened that night in 1999 was never finished, and the woods aren’t done with them yet.

In Darkrooms, Rebecca Hannigan delivers a psychological suspense novel steeped in blame, grief, and unanswered questions. The story hinges on two characters struggling under the weight of a shared history they can’t escape, even as they desperately try to move beyond it. Both Deedee and Caitlin feel layered and authentic, drawing the reader in despite their flaws and unlikable tendencies.

The first half of the novel unfolds slowly, with Hannigan taking a deliberate approach to atmosphere and world-building. She crafts a setting that simmers with quiet menace, and her literary prose kept me engaged even as I began to wonder where it was all leading. It isn’t until a twist reframes the story that the novel truly finds its momentum. From there, the book shifts from an introspective character study into a more propulsive mystery, driving the pace through the final stretch.

While I’m not entirely convinced the ending fully justifies the journey, Darkrooms is an impressive debut. Readers who enjoy the moody, character-driven suspense of authors like Tana French or Liz Moore will find plenty here to admire. Even when it falters, Hannigan’s control of mood and character proves that she is an author with a clear vision. I’ll be curious to see how she builds on that promise in future work.

For more information, visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2026, 7)