Kate Hamer | The Girl in the Red Coat

Hey everyone! Last night, I finished The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer. I had won a copy of this from a giveaway on Instagram through this awesome book blogger @crimebythebook. Check out her page if you don't already follow her. She's fantastic! I also love her blog.

So, I won a copy and was excited to dive into this book. The premise was there; a mother and daughter torn apart when the daughter goes missing. The book then is told in alternating perspectives from the two characters. I have a large obsession with thriller, mystery, and suspense novels and this appeared to have all three. I also have a small obsession with novels in which people go missing because I find myself scrambling through the pages, missing sleep, and ultimately trying to come up with the craziest scenario as to what happened to them and usually coming pretty close. This was not one of those cases. 

Plot: 

Eight-year-old Carmel has always been different - sensitive, distracted, with an heartstopping tendency to go missing. Her mother Beth, newly single, worries about her daughter's strangeness, especially as she is trying to rebuild a life for the two of them on her own. 

When she takes Carmel for an outing to a local festival, her worst fear is realised: Carmel disappears into the crowd. Unable to accept the possibility that her daughter might be gone for good, Beth embarks on a mission to find her. Meanwhile, Carmel begins an extraordinary and terrifying journey of her own. But do the real clues to Carmel's disappearance lie in the otherworldly qualities her mother had only begun to guess at?

Review:

I had been so hyped for this one, so I was clearly over the moon when I won a copy. As I began this one, I found myself being drawn in and almost felt hazy as I was reading it. It quickly sucked me into this world of panic, fantasy, and pain. I loved the premise of this, but this is not at all what I was expecting and anticipating. This is not a bad thing. 

I loved that the novel was told in alternating perspectives and even as Carmel continues on her journey after her abduction, the author did a fantastic job of maturing her voice in said chapters as she grew older. The author also did a fantastic job of taking a simple case of a missing child and expanding it way beyond what you read in the headlines. 

Beth's chapters were sad and lonely and fearful. Again, Hamer did a fantastic job writing as a mother who's daughter was missing and felt the loneliness, the guilt, and at times the missing desire to continue without her. 

As I said, this was not what I expected at all. This almost had a fantasy aspect to it and was very heavy into religious beliefs (and I won't spoil why). Towards the middle, I didn't know if I could continue as it did seem a little far fetched and I was having a hard time grasping some of the imagery. I'm glad I finished. 

If you're looking for a mystery/horror/thriller whodunit, read Gone Girl again. If you're looking for a psychological and domestic thriller about the relationship between a mother and a daughter that will expand your mind and tell a story I can guarantee you've never heard before, check this one out. 

Rating: 4/5