The Vanishing Girl (Daphne and Velma #1): An Original Novel

Written by Josephine Ruby

Narrated by Taylor Meskimen, Em Eldridge and Amy Landon

Popular Daphne Blake and über-nerd Velma Dinkley are not friends. They aren't enemies either, but they don't have any reason to speak to each other, and that's how they prefer it. The two girls grew up together - they'd been best friends since pre-K - but when they hit middle school, Daphne dropped Velma and never looked back.

These days, Daphne's deep in the popular crowd, daughter of the richest family in town, while Velma's an outsider, hiding from the world behind her thick glasses. When they run into each other in the halls of Crystal Cove High, they look the other way.

But then Daphne's best friend, Marcy — who happens to be Velma's cousin - goes missing. A century ago, there was a wave of disappearances in Crystal Cove, and many local people believe that supernatural forces were behind it. Now the whole town believes those same forces are back . . . and up to no good.

Daphne and Velma may be the only ones who can solve the mystery and save Marcy-if they can trust each other enough to try. Especially since the truth might be stranger-and scarier-than either girl can imagine . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Release date: Mar 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781338614855

Reviews for The Vanishing Girl (Daphne and Velma #1)

[Danae Giacchino · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved it! I love scooby doo and was curious if this would be intriguing enough for an adult, and it was! Light hearted, but well written and gives some great backstory to the velma and daphne. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was kept interested in the mystery!

[Susan Terendy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was looking for something light and fun and this fit the bill perfectly! I have serious nostalgic love for Scooby Doo cartoons and when I saw this book I couldn't start it fast enough. It's everything you would expect from the Scooby gang; dastardly villains unmasked, "ghosts", Scooby and Shaggy saving the day. I did not expect all the teen drama but I quite enjoyed it. It was fascinating to see Daphne and Velma as real girls with real problems. Shaggy plays a more peripheral role but he is fleshed out a bit more than in the cartoon. If you are a Fred fan you will be disappointed because he is hardly in the story at all. The mystery the girls solve held my interest and unlike the cartoon I did not guess the identity of the villain. This was really fun, cute, sweet and a refreshing take on characters who previously never had much depth. I'm really looking forward to the next book in this series!

The narration was very good. Don't expect the characters to sound like their cartoon counterparts though because this version is very different. I liked both of the narrators and they suited their respective characters very well. The story is excellent on audio because it was pretty straight forward and uncomplicated.