Last fall or summer, I read a review of a book that sounded good to me, but now I can’t remember the name and I can’t seem to figure it out. From what I can remember, the premise is that a town is found completely abandoned - dishes left on the table, etc., like everyone left suddenly. Someone comes across the town (years later?) and is trying to figure out what happened. The book switches back and forth between the present day and when the town was populated. It seems like the title was one word (Vanished or Missing or something like that).
It got a good review. Sorry for my vagueness…I’m getting old. Any ideas?
That sounds a lot like Phantoms by Dean Koonts. It’s not even remotely recent (1983) but it IS a lot like what you describe. It’s also been reprinted a few times, so maybe that’s what you saw. Here’s a snippet from the review on Amazon for the paperback
Be warned though, a few years back the book was made into a baaaaad movie starring Ben Affleck.
It sounds a teensy bit like Eifelheim by Michael Flynn, but Eifelheim was a medieval village in Bavaria and the abandonment didn’t happen that quickly. Amazing book though. (Priests and aliens.)