Rankin said the idea that in a modern world where \u201ceveryone knows everything about everyone\u201d, you can still vanish, grew into The Vanishing Place.<\/p>\n
The novel opens with a bloodied young girl staggering out of the bush and collapsing in a small-town store. A policeman recognises her face. She looks exactly like a girl who vanished 20 years ago. <\/p>\n
Rankin said early readers found themselves constantly wrong-footed by the twists. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re 90% through and they\u2019ve got 800 questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
It all comes together in the last 10%, she said. <\/p>\n
She set her novel in a fictional town called Koraha, meaning \u201cwilderness\u201d in te reo M\u0101ori. <\/p>\n
It was modelled on Haast, after she spent time on the West Coast.<\/p>\n
Every other place, river, mountain and road in the book carried its true NZ name.<\/p>\n
Rankin has lived in Rotorua for nine years, and wrote much of the book while raising her two young children, drafting scenes in stolen moments at home or at Ciabatta Cafe and Bakery.<\/p>\n
The novel opens with a bloodied young girl staggering out of the bush and collapsing in a small-town store. <\/p>\n
She described her cafe sessions as \u201cintense writing\u201d, so immersive that when she went up to order, she sometimes had to remind herself where she was.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cried writing it,\u201d Rankin said of one scene.<\/p>\n
Rankin said she loved the idea of placing a child\u2019s voice at the centre of the novel.<\/p>\n
Her teaching background fed into that choice. She taught in Rotorua and Marotiri, a rural community outside Taup\u014d. At 17, Rankin volunteered as a teacher in Uganda, an experience she said shaped her personality and self-belief.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing to Uganda had literally been all I\u2019d ever dreamed about since I was 8 years old,\u201d Rankin said. <\/p>\n
When she fell ill and a doctor sent her back to Scotland early, it felt like failure.<\/p>\n
Rankin had been travelling her whole life to prove to herself she was not a failure. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it could be why I now live in NZ, the furthest possible point from my home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Rotorua-based author Zoe Rankin pictured in 2020. Photo \/ Stephen Parker<\/p>\n
The main character of The Vanishing Place, Effie, reflected that part of Rankin, carrying the same weighted childhood events. <\/p>\n
Rankin said Effie isn\u2019t based on her, but they share similarities including a love of the outdoors and a mountaineering background.<\/p>\n
Rankin said her father was the oldest member of his Scottish mountain rescue team until his recent retirement. His knowledge made for realistic retellings of mountain rescues in the novel. <\/p>\n
She also drew on her own hikes and nights in backcountry huts to capture the rawness of the NZ wilderness.<\/p>\n
The Vanishing Place had already leapt beyond NZ, with Penguin Random House set to publish it in the United States and United Kingdom imprint Viper releasing it later this year.<\/p>\n
Rankin said it was \u201creally lovely\u201d to share NZ\u2019s landscapes with readers abroad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really wanted to make you feel like when you\u2019re reading it, you\u2019re in the trees.\u201d<\/p>\n
She credits the support of her husband and Rotorua\u2019s close-knit writing community with making the book possible.<\/p>\n
Rankin is already halfway through her second thriller.<\/p>\n