Genre Fiction
![Eliza Jane Brazier - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B08KFGHT53.jpg)
If I Disappear
"This new novel has more twists and fakeouts than an episode of Serial."
-Rolling Stone
"An eerie, twisted thriller sure to shake up the most seasoned true crime die-hard."
-Harper's Bazaar
A Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Rolling Stone • CNN • E! Online • Buzzfeed • New York Post • Popsugar • Woman's Day • Crime Reads • Hello Giggles
When her favorite true crime podcast host goes missing, an adrift young woman sets out to investigate and plunges headfirst into the wild backcountry of Northern California and her own dangerous obsession.
Sera loves true crime podcasts. They give her a sense of control in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She's sure they are preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it's time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts.
Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel's small hometown to begin her search. She's convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won't be the last...
Rachel did try to warn her.
-Rolling Stone
"An eerie, twisted thriller sure to shake up the most seasoned true crime die-hard."
-Harper's Bazaar
A Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Rolling Stone • CNN • E! Online • Buzzfeed • New York Post • Popsugar • Woman's Day • Crime Reads • Hello Giggles
When her favorite true crime podcast host goes missing, an adrift young woman sets out to investigate and plunges headfirst into the wild backcountry of Northern California and her own dangerous obsession.
Sera loves true crime podcasts. They give her a sense of control in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She's sure they are preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it's time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts.
Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel's small hometown to begin her search. She's convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won't be the last...
Rachel did try to warn her.
Editorial Reviews
"A slick, smart thriller you don't want to miss."
-Samantha Downing, bestselling author of My Lovely Wife
"This twisted and riveting thriller is one that will keep you up late at night with suspense."
-CNN
"Fans of true crime will devour this mystery."
-E! Online
"Deliciously eerie."
-Popsugar
"Sinister characters and inexplicable occurrences punctuate the dreamlike trance and surreal landscapes in this debut novel, where everything might just be exactly as it seems."
-Newsweek
"A skillful dissection of true-crime podcast culture and those obsessed with it, this new novel has more twists and fakeouts than an episode of Serial… If I Disappear throws into sharp relief how desensitized we can become when we treat real life like a game."
-Rolling Stone
"True crime podcast fans: We've got your next read right here."
-Woman's Day
"Blending the true crime compulsion of Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark with the immersive creepy-craziness of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects, Brazier creates a heady, pitch-dark cocktail all her own."
-Publishers Weekly
"This author is a breath of fresh air in an oversaturated, congested world of thrillers. Watch out, Gillian Flynn - mystery thrillers have a new ingenue and her name is Eliza Jane Brazier."
-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Eliza Jane Brazier lays out a thrilling mystery here that plays out in a beautiful, wild setting. What's not to love?"
-Bookreporter
"Sleek, exciting, and twisty."
-Rene Denfeld, author of The Child Finder
"A spellbinding tale of obsession and isolation, and the darkness that can unspool when the two intertwine. Thick with atmosphere and dripping with tension, this is a book you'll want to devour in one sitting-if you dare."
-Kathleen Barber, author Apple TV+ series Truth Be Told
"A clever, sinister read with a surprising sting in the tail."
-Kimberly Belle, author of The Marriage Lie
"A propulsive thrill ride full of surprises right through the firecracker ending."
-Lisa Unger, author of The Stranger Inside
"A wild, thrilling, fast-paced ride from start to finish."
-Hello Giggles
"Seductively disquieting."
-Shelf Awareness
"A disquieting and distinctly creepy debut."
-Kirkus
"Subtle, surprising, and genuinely scary...an unflinching exploration of our obsession with true crime and the darkness marbling our psyches. With sinewy prose and nuanced observations about the female experience, this debut m...
-Samantha Downing, bestselling author of My Lovely Wife
"This twisted and riveting thriller is one that will keep you up late at night with suspense."
-CNN
"Fans of true crime will devour this mystery."
-E! Online
"Deliciously eerie."
-Popsugar
"Sinister characters and inexplicable occurrences punctuate the dreamlike trance and surreal landscapes in this debut novel, where everything might just be exactly as it seems."
-Newsweek
"A skillful dissection of true-crime podcast culture and those obsessed with it, this new novel has more twists and fakeouts than an episode of Serial… If I Disappear throws into sharp relief how desensitized we can become when we treat real life like a game."
-Rolling Stone
"True crime podcast fans: We've got your next read right here."
-Woman's Day
"Blending the true crime compulsion of Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark with the immersive creepy-craziness of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects, Brazier creates a heady, pitch-dark cocktail all her own."
-Publishers Weekly
"This author is a breath of fresh air in an oversaturated, congested world of thrillers. Watch out, Gillian Flynn - mystery thrillers have a new ingenue and her name is Eliza Jane Brazier."
-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Eliza Jane Brazier lays out a thrilling mystery here that plays out in a beautiful, wild setting. What's not to love?"
-Bookreporter
"Sleek, exciting, and twisty."
-Rene Denfeld, author of The Child Finder
"A spellbinding tale of obsession and isolation, and the darkness that can unspool when the two intertwine. Thick with atmosphere and dripping with tension, this is a book you'll want to devour in one sitting-if you dare."
-Kathleen Barber, author Apple TV+ series Truth Be Told
"A clever, sinister read with a surprising sting in the tail."
-Kimberly Belle, author of The Marriage Lie
"A propulsive thrill ride full of surprises right through the firecracker ending."
-Lisa Unger, author of The Stranger Inside
"A wild, thrilling, fast-paced ride from start to finish."
-Hello Giggles
"Seductively disquieting."
-Shelf Awareness
"A disquieting and distinctly creepy debut."
-Kirkus
"Subtle, surprising, and genuinely scary...an unflinching exploration of our obsession with true crime and the darkness marbling our psyches. With sinewy prose and nuanced observations about the female experience, this debut m...
Readers Top Reviews
Ellie
So chilling! I was hooked from the first page and loved the claustrophobic, wild setting. I couldn't guess where the plot was going, it keeps you on the edge of your seat, and I LOVED the final twist which I didn't see coming. A very original and sinister psychological thriller.
Melinda
Sera Fleece, is divorced and unemployed with the only solace in her life being crime podcasts. When Rachel, the host of Sera's favourite podcast, Murder, She Spoke, goes missing Sera drives out to Rachel's hometown and isolated family ranch. Armed with the knowledge she picked up from Rachel's podcast, Sera is determined to find out what happened to her - even though no one else seems concerned for her disappearance. Let me start of by saying that all of the characters in this book are quite shady and unlikeable - including Sera herself. If unreliable and unlikeable main characters aren't your thing, you probably won't enjoy this. Written as if Sera is talking to Rachel, it's clear that Sera is a little unhinged but no more than the rest of the people on this desolate ranch. The combination of the eerie setting and the constant questioning of every characters motives made this impossible to put down.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Episode 1:
On the Murder Line
San Quentin Prison is located eight hours south of the Siskiyou Forest. There is one bus route that travels through this wilderness, into the dead space between Eureka and Yreka. The locals call it the Murder Line. Recently released convicts, prison escapees and drifters hop on this line and vanish into the forest.
One blue-skied summer day, four teenage girls in tank tops and cutoff jeans hopped on the eleven thirty bus from Happy Camp, headed north. One was never seen again.
The road to your parents' ranch coils up from Eureka, a port city in Northern California. You warned me that the road was winding, but I didn't expect the way it bends and twists, collapsing in and out like an accordion, offering one lonely vista. Spin. Offering another. The mountains above, crowded with trees. The snaking river. The falling rocks on the flexing road. My mind flexes with it, in and out, in and out. And then another bend in the road.
Trucks start to stack up behind me, and I search frantically for a place to pull over. A pale sliver of a turnout appears, on the edge of the cliff above the river. I glance at the line of cars behind me. I jerk the wheel, and my car drops off the road, juddering on the dirt. My hands are sticky with sweat. My heart pulses.
I stop the car, yank up the parking brake. I flinch as I envision the brake snapping, the inevitable slide to the river below. Even on flat ground, I picture the land giving way. And I race headlong into the river. I know about the Klamath River from Episode 15: a muddy brown color; Episode 43: so strong that when people drown, their bodies are swept all the way to the ocean. My body will wash up along the shore, hundreds of miles away from here.
I wait for my heart to stop racing, give up and check the parking brake again.
I stick one white, chalky, Dramamine between my teeth. In Episode 13, you said you took two Dramamine a day just to get to and from high school. But still you got dizzy; you still felt sick. Eventually, you said, I realized it wasn't worth leaving the ranch.
Fountain Creek Guest Ranch, the place you grew up. They offer fishing, horseback riding, breathtaking vistas, but most of all, they offer isolation. You grew up in a place where no one else lived.
Episode 18: I could hear myself think, which wasn't always a good thing.
Episode 34: I will never not know what it's like to enjoy my own company.
Your life was idyllic, until a local girl-a girl just like you-disappeared.
Episode 1: When bad things happen in a small town-I don't mean to say it's worse. I don't mean to diminish anyone's experience. But there were twenty-three kids in my entire school. And then there were twenty-two.
Nothing truly bad has ever happened to me, and I envy you this, a clear reason: my life changed when, things fell apart when. I break a sweat and think it must be my fault.
You became fascinated, first by her disappearance, and then by the disappearances of others: local, national, global. You researched, you became a part of the true-crime community and then you started your own podcast. You wanted to make a difference. You wanted to save someone. You wanted to save everyone.
Episode 14: When I think someone somewhere might hear this . . . when I think anyone anywhere can access it . . . Yes, I don't have the audience of Dateline or even My Favorite Murder, but the thing about a podcast is, anyone anywhere can listen. And maybe you will be the one to find someone who is missing. Maybe you hold the key to the evidence that will solve a murder. Maybe I can be the reason someone is saved.
You broadcast from your house on your parents' land: a yellow house with a red roof drawn in lines so idealized, it could be a Disneyland attraction.
I found the ranch website online. It bragged that it was a "family-run business." I saw your picture, you for the first time, and you looked exactly like I thought you would. You looked like me.
Below me the Klamath River is fast and brown. Above me the mountains are piled with trees. From Episode 1, I know that they are firs, pines, oaks, maples, madrones, spruce and manzanitas. I recognize this world from your pictures, but I am not prepared for the sheer majesty of it, the car-commercial, Reese Witherspoon-in-Wild, Instagram-is-not-enough expanse. I've never been anywhere like this. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't even know it existed.
I think, oddly, how excited you would be, if you were ...
On the Murder Line
San Quentin Prison is located eight hours south of the Siskiyou Forest. There is one bus route that travels through this wilderness, into the dead space between Eureka and Yreka. The locals call it the Murder Line. Recently released convicts, prison escapees and drifters hop on this line and vanish into the forest.
One blue-skied summer day, four teenage girls in tank tops and cutoff jeans hopped on the eleven thirty bus from Happy Camp, headed north. One was never seen again.
The road to your parents' ranch coils up from Eureka, a port city in Northern California. You warned me that the road was winding, but I didn't expect the way it bends and twists, collapsing in and out like an accordion, offering one lonely vista. Spin. Offering another. The mountains above, crowded with trees. The snaking river. The falling rocks on the flexing road. My mind flexes with it, in and out, in and out. And then another bend in the road.
Trucks start to stack up behind me, and I search frantically for a place to pull over. A pale sliver of a turnout appears, on the edge of the cliff above the river. I glance at the line of cars behind me. I jerk the wheel, and my car drops off the road, juddering on the dirt. My hands are sticky with sweat. My heart pulses.
I stop the car, yank up the parking brake. I flinch as I envision the brake snapping, the inevitable slide to the river below. Even on flat ground, I picture the land giving way. And I race headlong into the river. I know about the Klamath River from Episode 15: a muddy brown color; Episode 43: so strong that when people drown, their bodies are swept all the way to the ocean. My body will wash up along the shore, hundreds of miles away from here.
I wait for my heart to stop racing, give up and check the parking brake again.
I stick one white, chalky, Dramamine between my teeth. In Episode 13, you said you took two Dramamine a day just to get to and from high school. But still you got dizzy; you still felt sick. Eventually, you said, I realized it wasn't worth leaving the ranch.
Fountain Creek Guest Ranch, the place you grew up. They offer fishing, horseback riding, breathtaking vistas, but most of all, they offer isolation. You grew up in a place where no one else lived.
Episode 18: I could hear myself think, which wasn't always a good thing.
Episode 34: I will never not know what it's like to enjoy my own company.
Your life was idyllic, until a local girl-a girl just like you-disappeared.
Episode 1: When bad things happen in a small town-I don't mean to say it's worse. I don't mean to diminish anyone's experience. But there were twenty-three kids in my entire school. And then there were twenty-two.
Nothing truly bad has ever happened to me, and I envy you this, a clear reason: my life changed when, things fell apart when. I break a sweat and think it must be my fault.
You became fascinated, first by her disappearance, and then by the disappearances of others: local, national, global. You researched, you became a part of the true-crime community and then you started your own podcast. You wanted to make a difference. You wanted to save someone. You wanted to save everyone.
Episode 14: When I think someone somewhere might hear this . . . when I think anyone anywhere can access it . . . Yes, I don't have the audience of Dateline or even My Favorite Murder, but the thing about a podcast is, anyone anywhere can listen. And maybe you will be the one to find someone who is missing. Maybe you hold the key to the evidence that will solve a murder. Maybe I can be the reason someone is saved.
You broadcast from your house on your parents' land: a yellow house with a red roof drawn in lines so idealized, it could be a Disneyland attraction.
I found the ranch website online. It bragged that it was a "family-run business." I saw your picture, you for the first time, and you looked exactly like I thought you would. You looked like me.
Below me the Klamath River is fast and brown. Above me the mountains are piled with trees. From Episode 1, I know that they are firs, pines, oaks, maples, madrones, spruce and manzanitas. I recognize this world from your pictures, but I am not prepared for the sheer majesty of it, the car-commercial, Reese Witherspoon-in-Wild, Instagram-is-not-enough expanse. I've never been anywhere like this. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't even know it existed.
I think, oddly, how excited you would be, if you were ...
