The Temple House Vanishing

Author/Guide: Rachel Donohue

Why a Booktrail?

2000s, 1980s: Power. Jealousy. Desire.

ISBN: 978-1786499387
Genre: Psychological, Suspense

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What you need to know before your trail

Twenty-five years ago, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl and her charismatic teacher disappeared without trace…

In an elite Catholic girls’ boarding-school, the pupils live under the repressive, watchful gaze of the nuns. Seeking to break from the cloistered atmosphere, two of the students – Louisa and Victoria – quickly become infatuated with their young, bohemian art teacher, who encourages their flirtation. Then, he and Louisa vanish.

Years later, a journalist uncovers the troubled past of the school and determines to resolve the mystery of the missing pair.

Travel Guide

Ireland

Dare to go to Temple House, religious school near a beach?

Locations are vague in this novel but with the many names starting with O’ and the fact the story takes place in a school with nuns, you can imagine this takes place somewhere in Ireland. The location is vague, the setting of a school,isolated and close to cliffs and a rough sea….is very well evoked.

“In my dream, Temple House, in all its Victorian, turreted austerity, emerges from a mist, but this must surely be a trick of memory. Though in truth, that winter, it did have its own climate, Even the sunniest of days elsewhere could be grey and dull there due to its exposed position high above the sea.”

“One side of the house is shaped like a tower and protrudes forcefully from the rest of the building The windows look dark in the early evening light, shades pulled low, giving it a subdued , half-eyed gaze.”

Then there’s the bedrooms in the school:

My room was large with a window that overlooked the forest that lay at the edge of the school grounds….There was a small bookcase and a desk beside my bed. The walls were white and empty, bar a crucifix that hung above the door and a large photograph of a nun holding a chalice.

“The chalice was a gleaming yellow and her eyes an unnatural blue.”

The woods nearby:

“Don’t go to the woods, for if you wander you will get loste and there is darkness everywhere. Wolves in the undergrowth. And be warned,only the pure and the lucky will be restored.”