The Vanishing Season

The Collector #4

by Dot Hutchison

A recent abduction becomes an unexpected link to a decades-long spree of unspeakable crimes.

Eight-year-old Brooklyn Mercer has gone missing. And as accustomed as FBI agents Eliza Sterling and Brandon Eddison are to such harrowing cases, this one has struck a nerve. It marks the anniversary of the disappearance of Eddison’s own little sister. Disturbing, too, is the girl’s resemblance to Eliza—so uncanny they could be mother and daughter.

With Eddison’s unsettled past rising again with rage and pain, Eliza is determined to solve this case at any cost. But the closer she looks, the more reluctant she is to divulge to her increasingly shaken partner what she finds. Brooklyn isn’t the only girl of her exact description to go missing. She’s just the latest in a frightening pattern going back decades in cities throughout the entire country.

In a race against time, Eliza’s determined to bring Brooklyn home and somehow find the link to the cold case that has haunted Eddison—and the entire Crimes Against Children team—since its inception.

Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Audiobook, Mystery Thriller, Horror

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 2019

About the author

Dot Hutchison is the author of A Wounded Name, a young adult novel based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the adult thriller The Butterfly Garden.

With past experience working at a Boy Scout camp, a craft store, a bookstore, and the Renaissance Faire (as a human combat chess piece), Hutchison prides herself on remaining delightfully in tune with her inner young adult.

She loves thunderstorms, mythology, history, and movies that can and should be watched on repeat.

For more information on her current projects, visit www.dothutchison.com or check her out on:

Tumblr https://www.dothutchison.tumblr.com

https://www.facebook.com/DotHutchison

Reviews

[Nilufer Ozmekik · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 little sad of ending of the series that I adored but also dissatisfied because of slow burned development and frustrated by the way of storytelling stars!

Okay, Butterfly Garden is one of my best, creepiest, most blood freezing, nail biting, mind bending, nightmarish book and I enjoyed it too much. So when the new books of the series published, naturally I wanted to read more !

Other two books of the series are not bad but not masterpieces, they were regular thriller books! They’re okay-ish!
But this one isn’t okay for me!
And I have problems with this book BECAUSE:

- 8 years old Brooklyn’s kidnapping is completely overshadowed by Agent Eddison’s resuming traumatic issues about her sister’s disappearance and over dramatic connection and relationship problems between him and Sterling . ( The House, the Wedding Dress mentioned more than crimes)

- Too many characters, too many personal details and daily issues! The women agents were acting like high school girls made me question the genre ! I thought that was not a YA thriller and too many Spanish ( I hate to read a book with a dictionary)

- Burning the wedding dress part made me think maybe I’m not reading thriller, I’m reading a chic lit but I didn’t find out before I read the half of it!

- After they found the killer, the writer wanted to give the characters make their peace with the past but those dramatic parts and finding the corpses of the lost girls are slow, dull , long and not as emotional as I expected!

- The killer part was surprising but his story was too sad and traumatic made you think you have to pity on him because of his lost and his psychological problems!

This series made a great start and luckily and finally most of the characters have their HEAs. But I was expecting a page turner, riveting, gripping thriller! Instead of that I got overdramatic slow burn psychological fiction! Damn it !

[BernLuvsBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing & satisfying end to Dot Hutchinson's The Collector series!

"We heal, mostly, but even scars can bleed."

I've come to love the CAC team in this series. With the last two installments we really get to know them and become invested in the family they have formed. In The Vanishing Season 8 year old Brooklyn Mercer goes missing on her short walk home from school. The disappearance allows us to dig deeper into Brandon Eddison's past. I have thoroughly enjoyed Bran and his interaction with both the members of his team and the girls from the Garden whom he adopted over time. It was fitting to finally get his full backstory. What an emotional case and journey! This one got to me the way The Butterfly Garden did - I was emotionally invested and couldn't tear myself away from its pages.

I appreciate that Dot Hutchinson gave us this fitting conclusion to the series. The ending was like catching up with old friends and feeling that sense of contentment at finding out what they have been up to. The book was emotional, heartbreaking and absolutely wonderful! It's hard not to get sucked in to the dynamics between the members of this team. I will definitely miss them but I am satisfied with where Hutchinson chose to go with her conclusion and so happy I went along with her for the The Collector journey!

Special thanks to Dot Hutchinson, Thomas & Mercer Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an arc of this book.

[Kylie D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another powerful novel in The Collector series, this one focusing on FBI Agent Eliza Sterling searching for a missing eight year old girl. For Eliza's partner Bran the case has a special meaning. His sister, who looked a lot like the missing girl, also went missing twenty five years ago, never to be seen again. As the case open old wounds for the team, they race to save the girl, but new chilling evidence comes to light, that this girl might not be the only one. This madman, whoever he is, has been taking girls for decades...

Gee, I really enjoy this series, and I'm glad Dot Hutchison extended it past the initial trilogy. With convincing writing, along with a cast of memorable characters, these book will keep you up long into the night. I recommend these books to all lovers of crime and mystery novels.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[*•MJ•* · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, the perfect ending to the series.
Sad, so very sad, but a good ending.
A fairly mild read compared to the rest.
Farewell agents. 👏

“We heal, mostly, but even scars can bleed.” ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

[Mackey · Rating 4 out of 5]

We were first introduced to this series with The Butterfly Garden, a book that horrified and traumatized many readers several years ago. It continued with The Roses of May and last years bestseller, The Summer Children. (You can read my review of that book HERE) Each book has built on the development of the team members who originally found girls in the Butterfly Garden and their work within a special unit of the FBI. Now a child has been abducted, their specialty, but the case is eerily similar to kidnapping of Eddison’s sister years earlier. As the team members deal with their own haunting demons from past cases, they also must search through clues to see how and why this case may be linked to the cold cases from old before it is too late to save the missing child.

Let me state up front that absolutely is not a “stand alone” book. I read The Summer Children last year and only slightly fell through the cracks a few times. After that, I promptly went back and read the first two books in the series. All of these books are top notch, horrifyingly marvelous thrillers. This one, however, is the end of the story. For those of us invested in these characters it is a book that ties up all of the loose ends, answers questions from the past and allows us and the author to move on to new topics. It is a must -read for followers of Hutchison’s work, but I don’t recommend starting here. I do, however, recommend reading every single one of the books in the series. They are absolutely fantastic! Hutchison is a masterful storyteller whose tales you will not want to miss.

[destiny ♡ howling libraries]

#1 The Butterfly Garden ★★★★★
#2 Roses of May ★★★★☆
#3 The Summer Children ★★★★★

Sadly, this has been really... odd and not up to par for the series, if that makes sense? I'm setting this aside at 25% but I do plan on picking it back up later to see if it gets better.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

[Cortney - Bookworm & Vine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love this series. I devoured the first 3 books, but The Vanishing Season left a lot to be desired.

While I love the entire FBI team, the magnitude of the inane banter and chit chat was annoying. There was just so much. That's not what I'm here for. I want more of the mystery/crime. I feel like this installment was missing the magic, the on the edge of my seat suspense that the other 3 books had. And all of a sudden, all the evidence was just there and it was solved... is it really that easy? Maybe stop with the unnecessary repetition of how they're all "family" and actually delve a little more into the missing girls. And the fact that everyone made SUCH A BIG DEAL that Eliza has blonde hair and blue eyes like the missing girls was eye-roll worthy. Who cares? A ton of women are blonde with blue eyes.

Still a decent book... I'm sad that it's the last one though. Not a great note to end on.

[Rodrigo Unda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fue una muy entretenida lectura. El jardín de las mariposas fue un libro que por su concepto me atrapó, pero por sus incongruencias me perdió.
Este, aunque no tenga un concepto tan único, si narrativa le da mucho valor. La intriga y la desesperanza son partes esenciales de la historia. Lamentablemente, las desapariciones de niñas pequeñas no está solo en la ficción, y en esta novela se busca que podamos empatizar con ese dolor.
Reseña completa en mi blog ✨

[Sarah A-F · Rating 2 out of 5]

#1: The Butterfly Garden ★★★★★
#2: Roses of May ★★★
#3: The Summer Children ★★★★
#4: The Vanishing Season ★★

This review can also be found on my blog.
disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for review consideration. All of the opinions presented below are my own.

First and foremost, I need to give my thanks to Rachel who has been with me for every step of this journey (I also reread her review of The Summer Children and realized it said everything I was trying to say below, but better). By which I mean she has put up with my endless livetexting of this godforsaken novel and my incredulity whilst reading it. Which comes across as rude, but I’m not sure I would have made it through without someone to vent to.

While writing negative reviews can be freeing in a way, I’ve been dreading writing this one. I absolutely adored Dot Hutchison’s first novel in this series. The Butterfly Garden was everything I wanted in a thriller, and I was absolutely blown away by it. I could not put it down! Shortly thereafter I read The Roses of May and while my review was glowing, my star rating slowly dropped the more thought I gave to it. The Summer Children peaked in quality a bit more, but the depth of focus given to the agents’ relationships, which many had critiqued in The Roses of May, finally began to irk me. The Vanishing Season takes it to a whole other level.

The problem with these books is that they force you to completely suspend your disbelief regarding professionalism and appropriate workplace behavior. There’s a time and a place for cutesy stuff like this, but FBI agents actively working a case ain’t it. It’s to the point where I hesitate to call this a thriller, or a mystery. While the last two books at least had some sense of danger and urgency, The Vanishing Season is honestly nothing but fanservice. The tonal shift is enough to give you whiplash.

I’m not saying that books need to mirror reality perfectly and most thrillers do require you to suspend your disbelief a bit, but it would take some serious mental gymnastics to think that a law enforcement team could actually function like this without crashing and burning, or at least getting a serious talking-to from an internal affairs department. I lost track of all the things I could not believe were happening. Agent cuddle parties. They all live next to each other! Always joking about the boy being outnumbered by LOL GIRLS (realistic but annoying). Her boss kisses her on the CHEEK? Literally everyone talks about the MC looking like an 8-year-old girl constantly and I’m seriously done with women being infantilized.

Aside from that, the excess of unnecessary detail was… overwhelming. I wish I had highlighted examples as I came across them because there were so many. In instances where a sentence or two would have conveyed a process just fine, a full page is used instead. There was so much infodumping that I just didn’t understand, and it came across as the epitome of telling instead of showing.

It sucks because between all the stuff I didn’t like, there was so much promise. The crime of the week could have been so much more interesting had it been expanded on, but it became more of a background to everyone’s personal problems. There was a really interesting exploration of realizing one had been abused that would have hit so much harder if it hadn’t been crammed together with a dozen other things. I feel like this book just tried to do everything at once and ended up shooting itself in the foot because of it. It’s a bummer because we all know Dot Hutchison is an incredible writer; The Butterfly Garden was kind of a masterpiece imo. The rest of the series was just an entirely different kind of writing.

So, unfortunately this really wasn’t for me and I can’t say I recommend it in its current state -- I can only hope that some additional edits were made between the ARC and the finished copy. I guess if you’re obsessed with the characters and want to see them spend all their time goofing around or having Serious Emotional Moments together, this is the book for you. If you’re looking for an actual thriller/mystery, keep looking.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

There's a line towards the end of this book, that talks about the extraordinary kindness people can surprise you with, and I think that sums up exactly what drove this series so deep into my heart. I really don't get emotional about books any more, but I couldn't maintain dry eyes throughout the last quarter. Something about these agents and the family they've built for themselves just hits such a true note that it's like having that family as my own.

We're still only just under a month from publication, so obviously this will be a spoiler-free review. As usual, though you'll miss a lot if you do, this and all the books can be read on their own - but why would you want to not go back? I do, every time a new book comes out. In terms of the other books, this is more similar to #3 - we're back with the CAC team, rather than the survivors of a horror, but in this particular case it's hard not to blur the lines a bit. The characters we've grown to love don't disappoint, and there's a host of new people to extend your heart to.

I really am very emotional about this series, and Dot Hutchison has pulled off a true miracle in bringing such hope and happiness into what can be such a dark genre. She's an author who believes in kindness and it's extraordinary powers, and I can't wait to see what she does next.

[PETRA · Rating 5 out of 5]

This whole series is a must read! Each book ties in to the other books and they’re all very unique stories.

[Stephanie Renner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Same issues in the writing as the last one. Everyone is just giggling and blushing.

Each character has their one annoying thing that this author likes to just beat to death.
Bran like his coffee super strong, you can reference his “jet fuel” on 87 pages.
Cass- is constantly giggling and “sneeze laughing” or snorting because she’s just a small kitten.
Watts is throwing protein bars around like Oprah every chapter.

Why do we have so much focus on the main “blonde beautiful” character and Brans relationship instead of an actual case? Like what even happened to the killer in the end??

This author has good ideas for a novel but isn’t executing an actual mystery or thriller by putting rainbows on everything. Just read the Butterfly Garden and skip the rest.

[MissBecka Gee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The atmosphere on this one was far more sappy & sad than the previous three.
The POV is from Agent Sterling's perspective.
Sterling is my least favourite character and better suited as a side dish rather than the MC in my opinion.
I think that may be why I enjoyed this less than the other books.
Or maybe I am just depressed that the series is over and I have to say goodbye to all my new friends.
Who knows for sure?
"You look too sweet to be so evil."
Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for this ARC.

[Karima chermiti · Rating 4 out of 5]

#1 : The Butterfly Garden (The Collector #1) : 3 Stars
#2 : Roses of May (The Collector, #2) : 4 Stars
#3 : The Summer Children (The Collector, #3) : 5 Stars

The Vanishing Season is the conclusion to The Collector Series by Dot Hutchison and it’s a very satisfying end to on my favorite mystery thriller series. I like how we came full circle with this book and how the questions that have been haunting me through the series are now answered in the best way possible.

The whole series follows a team of FBI agents and each book is told from the perspective of one of the agents. The Vanishing Season focuses on Agent Eliza Sterling as she searches along with her team for an eight year old girl who’s gone missing when coming back from school but the similarities between her disappearance and the disappearance of Bran’s sister faith decades ago makes the case a very emotional one for the whole team.

As the investigations progresses it becomes very clear that the girl may be one of many and the culprit they’re looking for may have been taking young girls for years and years.

We heal, mostly, but even scars can bleed

As conclusions go, this one is really good. It ties all the loose ends; it respects the characters arcs and their individual journey and answers all the questions that’s been there along the way while giving us a very deep picture of who the characters are and how far they have come.

I loved everything about it from the mystery and how it was handled, to all the revelations that touched our heroes one way or another to the fact that they are finally at peace with everything they went through coming out stronger after every struggle. I really love how even though the mysteries are well done n every single book, they are written with a compassion and emotions, they’re not glorified or exaggerated for shock value. I mean the series is one of the most sensitive series I’ve read in a very long way. The author shows respect through her brilliant writing to the pain the characters endure and to the tragedies that happen in the whole series.

Life has a way of mocking our choices

The characters has always been written in a way that makes you root for them to make it through, to move on from the hurt of the past and embrace the beauty of possibilities and that’s what happened in this finale. I can’t be happier with the outcome of this book. even though, it’s was really sad, painful to read and sometimes hard to get through, at the end, I’m happy that I gave this series a chance and that I grow to know the characters more and more with every book and see them grow and change and become happier leaving the pain behind without forgetting the struggles that made them who they are.

Touching, Hopeful and deeply moving, The Collector Series is a must read for fans of the thriller/mystery genre and even if you're not a fan I think you'll become one after reading this series. Please, give it a chance, you won’t regret.

[Francesca ❆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect conclusion to an amazing series.
I devoured this book in a day and I cried the whole time; Hutchison’s writing is like a siren song: you can’t resist being lured in....
Full review to come when the publishing date is nearer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FEBRUARY 2019:
Another beautiful cover for this fantastic series!
I’ll be extremely sad when this books comes out because it’s going to be the final book of The Collector series and I’m so not ready to let go....this series is my favorite psychological thriller and each book is so fantastic!
Discovering Dot Hutchison’s writing has been life changing, I’ll forever be her fan.

[Mariota · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un fin perfecto a esta serie de libros. Me ha encantado el libro y como se ha llevado la investigación de la desaparición de una niña. Me ha encantado la relación que tiene el equipo entre sí y como han ido incorporando a las protagonistas de los libros anteriores.
Recomiendo la tetralogía. Muy bueno

[Danielle-Gemma💜 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay so I think we all know how much I’ve enjoyed this series but here is (hopefully) a balanced review

Loved:
The character development
There being actual chapters in this book (and book three)
The story being told in each book by a different agent
The author not shying away from tough topics
That I feel this book came with resolutions from answered questions throughout the series
The final part of this book had me in floods of tears!

Didn’t love:
Way too much focus on the wedding dress in this book, but I do also understand the symbolism
You really do need to read these in order - not a bad thing but not noted before you start the books and I feel it should be
No trigger warnings on subjects
There is a lot of Spanish in the book, so had to dip in and out translating and it meant the flow of the book lost its impact a little

Overall, I really did love this series and the good far outweighed the bad and I will 100% add the author to my ‘must always read’ list!

[Jane]

I love, love, loved this volume of The Collector series. Told from Agent Eliza Sterling's perspective, this might be my favourite of the 4 books. The characters, as always, are really 'real', and the mystery here was solid. I wish there were many more books to come in this series, but based on the way this one ended, I suspect my wish will not come true :(

5 stars for The Vanishing Season

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for providing me with a DRC of this book.

[Kristie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Butterfly Garden ★★★★
Roses of May ★★★★
The Summer Children ★★★★★
The Vanishing Season ★★★★

This was another excellent installment to the series. I liked the way it wrapped up a few things. However, I think before reading the next installment I will need to re-read the series. There are a lot of characters and we seem to keep picking up new characters along the way. It took me a little while to remember who was who in the beginning of the book. Also, half the time the main characters are referred to by their first names and half the time by their last names complicating the situation. Several times I had to pause for a second to remember which character was being referred to. I think it would be much easier if you are reading the whole series at once, so just binge read it.

I won't comment on the mystery part of the story, except to say that it is well-written and engaging. I would hate to give anything away.

Overall, this is a very worthy series and I'm now looking forward to the next installment. I'm really enjoying how the characters grow and their relationships develop over time.

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

The Vanishing Season is the 4rth and final book in The Collector series. I loved The Butterfly Garden (a 5 star read!) but the 3 books after just did not measure up to the first. This book was definitely a slow burner. The first 60% had to do with the character's development/drama and detailing kidnapping procedures. The story of an 8 yr old girl's kidnapping gets overshadowed. There were times when I thought I was reading about high school girls instead of adult FBI agents. And enough with the Spanish. I learned a few Spanish words in high school but if you have more than 5 Spanish words in a sentence, I need a translation. It's like an inside joke that I am missing out on. This was an annoyance in one of her previous books too.
However, once we got to the actual story about the kidnapping, it became more intriguing (and a tearjerker). It was a satisfying, if not rushed, conclusion to all the characters in this series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for a copy of Dot Hutchison's "The Vanishing Season" in exchange of an honest review.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

*A wonderful wrap-up to a thrilling and emotional series*

ARC provided by Thomas & Mercer via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.




I have such mixed feelings about The Vanishing Season. It was a solid story. I easily read it in under twenty-four hours. And I’m satisfied with the way things ended… But I’m only satisfied, not mind-blown. Although Hutchison’s writing has become more polished throughout this series, none of the subsequent books elicited anywhere near as visceral a reaction as did the first book, The Butterfly Garden.

The Vanishing Season reads more like a straightforward, mainstream thriller. The story is told almost entirely in first person, present tense from the POV of Agent Eliza Sterling. There are a few flashback scenes that don’t add much to the overall story, but everything else is told by Sterling. And unfortunately, Sterling is the weakest link in this book and probably the whole series.

I never connected with Sterling. Maybe I just got tired of hearing how young and gorgeous she was. Maybe I never entirely bought into her purported level of intelligence. But it boils down to the fact that I simply did not find her a compelling lead character. I was pretty ambivalent about her as a side character, but I was hoping she would bring more to the table as a lead. But her narration and her personality were so inconsistent. Sometimes she was cold and clinical. Other times she was frilly and almost ditsy. I felt so disconnected from her. It was engaging when she was analyzing the case, because following along with the logic of criminal profiling and narrowing the suspect pool was right up my alley. But the second the story switched to Sterling having a personal moment, my interest would lag.

I also never got used to Eliza referring to Eddison as “Bran.” Don’t change how a character is referred to four books into a series!

One aspect that I loved about the previous books was the exploration of various effects of violent trauma. From Stockholm Syndrome to survivor’s guilt, the previous books expertly presented the far-reaching ripples of these crimes. But that was barely present in The Vanishing Season. There was a small look at treatment of families of the perpetrators and some repetition of lessons from previous books, but all of that took a backseat to the rest of the story. And I greatly missed both the emotion and intellectual intrigue of exploring those difficult subjects.

This story still made me cry, but it was overall the least emotionally impactful to me of the four books. I enjoyed the parts pertaining to the case more than the interpersonal relations. Sterling was so stiff that I wasn’t invested in her romantic relationship at all. And my connection with the other characters was more due to the events of the first three books than anything specific in this installment. If anyone read this as a standalone, they wouldn’t be nearly as invested. But it bears repeating that this book literally made me cry, because I rarely cry at books. So keep that in mind despite the amount of critiques in this review. This was still an intriguing story with a strong emotional component. I enjoyed it thoroughly; it just was not as amazing as its predecessors.

According to the author’s note, this is the end of the series, and I’m very glad of that. I said after The Summer Children that as much as I enjoyed this series, I want it to end before it drags on and the quality tanks. I’m satisfied with the way things wrapped up, and I hope this truly is the end. I’m excited to see what Hutchison does next with a new concept!


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 5 Stars
Writing Style: 4 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 3 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 5 Stars
Originality: 3 Stars

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really tried to like this one, but it's nowhere near to what a masterpiece The Butterfly Garden was. Too many chapters/pages go into the intricacies of the characters so that the actual subject of the book - The Vanishing of Brooklyn Mercer gets shadowed (in my opinion). Not so much of a thriller as an overly-emotional drama, something that is not my preferred genre. I would have really liked if we'd seen more of the Brooklyn Mercer case and how it tied in with the other cold cases. Also, what happened to perp in the end? There was no clarity on that either. Everything and everyone here is just a little TOO perfect for my liking.
The only good parts in this book were where I read about the actual case that drew me to this book - The Vanishing of Brooklyn Mercer. As great as The Butterfly Garden was, the rest of the series just tanked in comparison.
Thank you Netgalley, Dot Hutchinson and Thomas & Mercer for an arc.

[Елена Павлова · Rating 5 out of 5]

Безобразно прекрасна: направо не е честно Хъчисън да успява да вдига летвата с всяка нова книга в поредицата си.
Признавам, че очаквах още от предишната тази да разказва за Едисън, но определено НЕ очаквах разказът да е на Стърлинг, която се оказва забавна и много цветна личност, със сладък и жив глас и хумор.
Криминалната загадка и разплитането на случая са също интересни и вълнуващо различни, също като предишните три, израдва ме много емоционалният фон, който Стърлинг вкарва по протежение на разследването - нещо, което определено ми липсваше поднесено по този начин в "Градината на пеперудите" и "Майските рози", и се появи и разгърна едва в третата част.
Накратко, препоръчвам с две ръце на любителите на поредицата - няма да съжалявате! - и на всички, които тепърва ще се влюбят в творчеството на Дот Хъчисън.

[Kat (Katlovesbooks) Dietrich · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

The Vanishing Season by Dot is the fourth and final book in the Collectors series.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Thomas & Mercer, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.



 Series Background:    (Warning – May contain spoilers from previous books)

FBI agents Victor Hanoverian leads a team of investigators that include Brandon Eddison, Mercedes Ramirez and Eliza Sterling. They solve complex, horrendous crimes.  Crime Against Children.   Their past cases stay with them, as they build relationships with the victims that they save.


My Synopsis:   (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)

The addition of Cassandra Kearney to the team is welcome, but they will need more than just Cass on this one.

When blonde-haired, blue-eyed, eight year old Brooklyn Mercer disappears while walking home from school one afternoon, the team is called in.  This is going to be a tough one for Brandon, as the child bears a striking resemblance to his sister Faith, who disappeared 25 years ago.  It is also a tough one for his girlfriend Eliza, as she, too, bears a striking resemblance to the missing child, and she is persuaded to work the case from the office with Brandon.

As more information is gathered, it becomes apparent that Brooklyn Mercer may not have been the first child abducted.

Meanwhile, Brandon will have to keep his emotions in check as the case takes more out of him with every discovery.


My Opinions:  

Again, I have deducted part of a star because the author is not translating some of the dialogue into English.  I don't know Spanish.....or Hebrew.

Dot Hutchison writes about some tough, rather dark subjects.  This one handles child abductions, and a lot of time is spent explaining the different reasons why a child is taken, and what the outcomes may be.  It was very interesting, although a little long.

The author usually centers her books on one of the characters. Each character has his/her own quirk.  This book is told from Sterling's point of view, often showing that her focus goes beyond the norm, and that she hasn't quite gotten over her past.  However, the actual plot centers around Brandon's missing sister, and we learned a lot more of his background in this manner.

Please, read the books in order, so you don't miss the connections that have been built over the years.  The team and familial relationships are so well done.  As well, there are references to past cases that show why the relationships developed, and why they are so deep.

This was another emotional read, which often had me in tears, commiserating along with the characters.  It was well-written, and well-paced.  Actually, these books have all been emotionally charged.  The author writes "emotions" really well, whether she is expressing anger, or fear, or sadness.  The reader feels exactly what Dot Hutchison wants us to feel.

Overall, this was a great series, and I hate that it has come to an end, but it was a good ending, and although I will miss the characters, I am looking forward to whatever comes next from this very talented author.



For a more complete review of this book and others (including author information and quotations), please visit my blog: http://katlovesbooksblog.wordpress.com/

[♠ TABI⁷ ♠]

Okay so is this series just going to keep going or what . . . ? I'll still read it because I adore the macabre beauty of The Butterfly Garden, but still!! How many books is this series going to have???

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Vanishing Season is the fourth and final book in The Collector series, and although I wasn't particularly enamoured by the previous novel this instalment has raised the bar again. Hutchison hooks you in right from the get-go and holds you hostage through to the final pages. It centres around some brutal crimes and the tension she creates is palpable as it is slowly cranked up another notch as the story progressed.

What I particularly love about her thrillers is that she understands the delicate balance between making it fast-paced enough to keep the pages turning but not so quick that it makes the character development difficult. As her unusual, quirky cast is one of the best aspects I appreciate her attention to detail and their three-dimensionality. They are relatable and most importantly believable.

As well as the intense thrills and spills we are treated to a heartbreaking emotional rollercoaster, and Hutchison really shows her storytelling prowess. I found the ending ultimately satisfying, but this is a series I feel I will miss. I guess I will have to just look forward to her next book and hope I can get as invested in it as easily as I did with these. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Thomas & Mercer for an ARC.

[mina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, I wasn’t a big Sterling fan because she was a new addition to the team. Yes, she was an interesting character in The Summer Children, her sneaking up on Eddison was *chef’s kiss*, but there wasn’t the same familiarity as with the other team members, or even with the victims that were present from the start or the second book in Prya’s case. She did grow on me somewhere along the road, and I could see how her perspective was the best to show what the new case was doing to Eddison.

I like my mystery/crime books to be concentrated on those topics and, although the abduction(s) were present thorough out the book, this was more about the characters and how they are affected by the crimes they solve. I love their dynamics and how they are a big amazing family.

[Rosie Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

kept trying to chase the high that I got from the butterfly garden and it just never quite hit the same😅

[Hollie · Rating 2 out of 5]

****May Contain Spoilers!!!****

The Collector series have been books I have looked forward to every year since I read The Butterfly Garden. Each book, I have devoured faster than the last so naturally, I was very excited to get my hands on The Vanishing Season and see how this whole series would end. I will not sugarcoat this, I am so incredibly disappointed in this book.

I don't think it deserves one star but I also can't bring myself to give it three so two it is.

This book didn't feel like the others. The first three in The Collector series were filled with horror, shocking events, mystery, thrills, and sheer terror. There is less a focus on the agents in the other books, the focus is more on the victims and the perpetrators as we get to see into their psyche - something which I always found very well done and truly terrifying. The books occasionally made me feel queasy, upset, and horrified but this book just seemed to lack that. This book felt more like a personal anecdote about the FBI agents then the victims or the perpetrator. It takes a long time to set up the case and when it is set up and the perpetrator is found, it seems quite rushed and forced. It seems the true focus of this book is on the agents themselves and this seems to be the books downfall.

Although the characters are well-established (most of them) and well-loved at this point, the author continues to add more characters and changes back and forth from using their first and the last name. For the first few chapters, this got really confusing and every time a new character got added in, I was lost. The team, who we have seen as being professional, stoic, loyal, but also kind and people who truly care for what they do, seem to have become like a gaggle of teenagers in this book. There's a lot of them telling each other to 'fuck off' in 'jest', a lot of pages wasted on them joking with Sterling (the agent who is the focus of this book) on how she can't stop working and gets absorbed into it all. There's a lot of poking, prodding, pushing, shoving, and sneezing with laughter. Little actions that get annoyingly repetitive - especially during the middle of important case material. Sterling and Eddison's relationship starts to break down the workplace professionalism boundaries, which to be honest, annoyed me a lot. There's a little girl missing and a huge case happening and they are holding hands (yes, I know it's cause of Eddison's connection to the case but still) or even having a tiff over something, one of them hurting the other, and two chapters wasted on the fall out of that.
Alongside this, there were a lot of 'smushy' moments, which definitely felt too chic lit for me, who is a horror junkie. Too much focus on an unused wedding dress, the fact that Sterling has blonde hair and blue eyes, and that Eddison has the emotional range of a teaspoon. Not enough focus on the girl that has gone missing and her family. She seemed to be a forgotten thought for a long while. There was more focus on Eddison's missing sister.

I really tried to enjoy the book but it just didn't feel like how the others have felt before. It didn't grip me and it felt really rushed and repetitive. Far too many words were wasted on saying the same thing over and over again - like I am now.

To be honest, after reading this book, I am glad this series is over. It will mean the characters I have grown to love will stay how I remember them and no more can be squeezed out of them. I do highly recommend reading the first three but miss this out if you don't mind not getting a neatly tied up ending.

[julia ☆ [owls reads] · Rating 5 out of 5]

#1 The Butterfly Garden: ★★★★☆
#2 The Roses of May: ★★★☆☆
#3 The Summer Children: ★★★★★

*

5 stars!

*

“Hope is such a strange thing…”

The Vanishing Season finally addresses the mystery I’d been waiting for since the first book in the series. We finally get to know what happened to Eddison’s little sister, Faith, and I’m happy to report that I cried a lot of tears while reading it! That just shows how complex and well developed the characters are; the book is told from Sterling and Eddison’s POVs and you really connect with them and their voices.

Dot Hutchison brings to a close a series that has fascinated me. The mystery plot in this installment is another one that’s really personal and important to the characters, and the way it’s developed and resolved is incredible! The heavy atmosphere surrounding each discovery and Eddison’s reaction to everything really wrap themselves around your heart and squeeze it until you cry.

This is such a good conclusion. The found family trope is off the charts in this book and I LOVE IT! These characters are so well developed, and layered and to have the mystery be so closely tied to one of them makes for such an amazing read. Even the sprinkling of romance strikes the right balance between friendships, the mystery behind Faith’s disappearance, and Eddison’s pain.

I really love how the mystery plays out and how it becomes connected to Faith. The scenes where the possible connection is presented and the following chapters where they find more cases similar to Faith’s is so well written and one of my favorite sections of the novel. The way Eddison takes that in and how everyone is so supportive and understanding of what he’s going through, while still making sure they do everything by the books, is heartwarming and also hella sad.

The ending totally made me cry. The final chapters were read through tears for me, because there’s so much emotion in Hutchison’s writing that it’s impossible to stay dry-eyed. And the fact that all of that is followed by a happy ending for legit everyone makes me cry even more tbh. This series has always had this overall hopeful tone to it despite all the terrible things it deals with and I’m glad the ending reflected that.

In the end The Vanishing Season is a fast and entertaining read with wonderful characters and a very well developed mystery plot. There is sadness, of course, but there’s also humor and so much love between the characters. This has been a wonderful journey and I definitely recommend this series to everyone!

*

Series: #4 in The Collector series.
POV: Told mostly from Eliza and Bran’s POVs.
Content Warnings: Terminal Illness.
Cliffhanger: No.
HEA: Yes!