Rotorua author Zoë Rankin’s debut thriller, The Vanishing Place, shot to number one on the New Zealand fiction charts in its first week. Photo / Supplied
Rotorua author Zoë Rankin’s debut thriller, The Vanishing Place, shot to number one on the New Zealand fiction charts in its first week. Photo / Supplied
Three months after her debut novel shot to New Zealand’s No 1 spot, reporter Annabel Reid revisits the whirlwind launch where fact and fiction collided for Rotorua author Zoë Rankin.
Rotorua author Zoë Rankin “never intended” her debut thriller to echo the Tom Phillips case.
But the week TheVanishing Place hit the shelves, breaking news about the missing Marokopa children began unfolding – developments Rankin described as “eerie”, “spooky” and “incredibly unnerving” given the uncanny similarities to her fictional world.
Released in New Zealand on August 26, the novel was inspired by Rankin’s discovery of how easily someone could disappear into Aotearoa’s immense bush.
The book opens with a bloodied young girl stumbling out of the forest and collapsing inside a small-town store. A local policeman recognises her instantly: she looks exactly like a child who vanished two decades earlier.
Told through the eyes of the eldest daughter, the book captures a childhood shaped by life in the bush and the responsibility of helping raise her younger siblings.
Just a day after the book’s release, Tom Phillips was captured on CCTV breaking into a superette in Piopio, a rural Waikato town.
On September 8, police shot Phillips dead during a shootout following a four-year manhunt.
Rankin said the timing left her feeling “very nervous”, describing it as unsettling to be releasing a book with such similar themes.
“Nobody could have predicted that.”
On the day the news broke, Rankin was preparing for a national radio interview, but producers told her they couldn’t discuss the content of her book because of the “traumatic” developments dominating headlines.
Launch week only grew more “surreal” for Rankin, with “imposter syndrome” really kicking in.
The Vanishing Place hit No 1 on the New Zealand fiction charts and held the top spot for six weeks, she said. It was “the dream” and a milestone Rankin had imagined for years.
The launch also involved three sold-out events, frantic media interviews, US press, and her sick 2-year-old child, who had to be taken to Auckland, sleeping on the couch of an Airbnb between events.
Zoë Rankin reading an extract from her debut novel during her launch event at McLeods Booksellers in Rotorua. Photo / Megan Wilson
It was “a crazy whirl of everything going at once”.
Readers devoured the book at speed, many telling Rankin they finished it in one sitting. The most common feedback: they simply couldn’t put it down.
Two readers contacted her and said the story had unearthed long-buried memories and triggered intense emotional reactions.
Realising her fiction could unlock something so raw and personal for strangers made Rankin appreciate just how powerful writing could be.
International release
Internationally, her debut exploded.
In the US, the novel received “positive reviews” from major outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, both naming the novel in their top thrillers of 2025.
Rankin remembered opening her emails and thinking, “Oh my gosh” – someone in New York was reading about her book in the paper with their morning coffee.
The UK release was scheduled for much later, but because of “all the buzz in America”, it was brought forward.
Before flying to the UK, Rankin stood stunned at Auckland Airport as her husband sold three copies to travellers.
The Vanishing Place by Zoë Rankin. Image / Supplied
He’d wander into shops asking, “Do you want to read a good book?
“Because the author is over there.”
Stacks of her novel lined airport shelves – a moment Rankin’s brother had always said would be the “sign” she was famous.
The uncanny moments kept coming.
Rankin was staying on a remote golf course in rural Ireland when a severe storm tore tiles from rooftops and forced them to brace the windows with brooms.
In the middle of the chaos, a postman fought his way up the drive carrying a box “the size of my 5-year-old”, Rankin said.
Inside was a bouquet celebrating her UK book release.
What’s next?
Rankin is deep into her second novel – another nature-centred thriller, this time set around Lake Tarawera.
She had been working with a local historian to weave regional stories and mythology into the plot.
The pressure of following a chart-topping debut was real, she said.
“People are waiting for this book. You really want them to like it.”
The local support had been “phenomenal”, with Rankin still stunned at seeing 90 holds on The Vanishing Place at Christchurch Library.
She said her summer would be spent finishing the manuscript, enjoying time at home in Rotorua after her overseas travels and preparing for next year’s writers’ festivals.
Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.
