November book club - The Girl in the Red Coat

Got mine yesterday. What a lovely surprise! Have to do some serious reading to finish it in time. No hardship there

Mine arrived just as I'd finished a library book....so no excuse not to start reading! As it says on the back cover: " beautifully written and impossible to put down"! I'm taking it with me to a hospital appointment this afternoon and will get stuck into it again.
Thanks for the copy GN!

I'd given up on this, so it was a lovely surprise to have my copy drop through the letterbox today. Thanks very much, Gransnet! I'll make sure I read at least enough to give a short review and ask a question by the end of the month.

I found this an enthralling and engrossing read with the device of the two main characters taking turns in telling their stories working very well. The way they never lost the belief and hopes in each other was very well described. Having once lost my son aged about 10 in a small shopping centre for about an hour 25 years ago I can relate to the initial terror Beth feels. All in all a great read well described with true to life characters throughout capturing the recalcitrant teen in Carmel as she grows especially well. I would certainly look out for future work by Ms Hamer. Thanks to her, the publisher and Gransnet for my copy.
Question may be a spoiler for those who have not reached certain points in the book. Could you clear up for me please whether you are asking the reader to believe that Mercy/Carmel does have healing powers or is she being used by others in a religious con trick? How much research did you do into religious groups in the US? The story seems ripe for a sequel, any thoughts?

Well, obviously I was very lucky - I received and acknowledged the same day and immediately started reading. Certainly, to begin, it was indeed a page turner! It was quite long and so I started to lose my enthusiasm. I expected a slightly different style between the two characters which there wasn't and found myself wondering whose chapter I was reading. The story wasn't creepy enough really to be a psychological thriller and because so long, it became, three quarters of the way through, quite dull - the main characters weren't sympathetic in any way and it did 'go on a bit'. I wouldn't recommend it really - sorry!

Can I just add one final thought! I hadn't a clue whether Carmel had any real powers and if she did, how did Gramps find out? I thought this was not brought out very well and Carmel herself seemed pretty confused I thought.

Started off with high hopes for this book but found it quite depressing and then rather dull. The characters didn't capture my imagination enough to care about them. Sorry, not for me.

Like others I started reading this with initial interest but that quickly changed to indifference and even boredom. It felt like reading a compulsory text for an exam and so I stopped.

I think the idea of the story was a good one but it needed better editing and pruning. The characters just didn't chime with me. I would not recommend it. Sorry.

Received my copy and was very reluctant to put it down. Another of Kate Hamer's intriguing story lines with an unexpecting twist to the story. Carmel is a lovable character. I reading recommend this book

I received my copy and it's giving me sleepless nights! It is a real page turner. When I get up to go to the loo in the middle of the night I think I might as well read a few pages.! I'm nearly at the end . It is BRILLIANT. Well done to a new author.

Every woman’s nightmare – one minute a child is by your side, the next minute has disappeared. A scenario familiar with many mothers, but luckily the child reappears within a short time. Not so in this story. Beth takes her 8 year old daughter, Carmel, to a festival and they become separated. With increasing panic she realises that she has completely disappeared.

The story is written from two points of view, the mother and child. Beth is overcome with grief and guilt and at first finds it difficult to carry on with her child’s loss always on her mind. Gradually she realises that the only way to cope is to set herself a challenge to try something new.

Carmel’s part of the story is written from an eight year old’s point of view. She is trusting and innocent and struggles to make sense of her new life. Physiological pressure is put on her until she believes there is no one who wants her, so she turns to her abductor for care. It is possible to start feeling annoyed with her for doing nothing to escape, then you look at her situation from a naïve child’s point of view and appreciate that she cannot know what to do. She is sad to realise that she must be nine, but there was no one to remember her birthday. She does have the determination to remember her name and where she comes from though.

It is written in a style which is very descriptive, e.g. Carmel’s hair is thick and curly and stands out like a spray of breaking glass, or a dandelion head. It is a pleasure to read, as well as having a compulsive “how will it end” aspect.

A question for Kate - Did the idea for the novel come from your creative writing course, or did the course help put an existing idea into words?

I was expecting this to be more of a thriller, but instead it was an intriguing story that was compulsive reading. I enjoyed the story developing from the mother and child viewpoints and thought it worked very well. Whenever I've read news reports of children being abducted but not kept prisoner, I've often wondered what has kept them with the abductor, and Carmel's story seemed very plausible.
I wasn't too sure about the healing powers aspect of the story and the ending did seem rushed, but overall I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more by this author.

Many thanks for the book which I have just finished. For me it started well but it tailed off in the middle. Too much was unexplained. For example how did they travel so far undiscovered? Why didn't Carmel talk more to outsiders when she had the opportunity? I also found the ending abrupt and unsatisfactory. Having said this it did make an interesting read, particularly the first half.

Hi Gransnet.... I think i have just received a copy of "The Girl in the Red Coat".
They was nothing else in the envelope, just the book.
So thank you so much.
I will be taking it with me on a trip to visit my youngest Son in Doha.
Thank you.

Thank you for my copy of The Girl in the Red Coat. Like most others, it arrived rather late and I have just finished it.

I find I can agree with most of the other readers, which is strange in view of the mixture of opinions. I found it sagged half way through and nearly lost heart, but I kept on because it was a Gransnet book, and was pleased when it recovered its momentum. I found the two voices a little hard to distinguish, which in view of the age difference, was odd. The speaker was flagged by the heading of each chapter, which helped. I enjoyed it as a whole, and I was relieved that it did not venture into some of the potential dark areas that could have been explored.

I did not see this as a magical realist book, because healing is a phenomenon which exists. We may not understand how it works,
but it is real. There are even scientific tests of the effect of the power of prayer on people who do not know they are being prayed for!

I would like to ask Kate Hamer whether she has any experience of healing, either as the person receiving or giving it? If not, what made her choose this as the focus of the narrative?

A modern, cautionary tale which I enjoyed reading.

The ultimate message it conveyed, I believe, was one of "never giving up hope" - whatever the circumstances.

Just as "Shinyredcar" states, healing does exist. Sadly it is not a cure-all. If it were there would be no lasting illness.

I too would be interested in Kate Hamel's experience/opinion on healing - whether from a personal or researched viewpoint.

I read this book very quickly...I have to say its not one I would have bought had I seen it on sale.... But I couldn't put it down and had to finish it in the early hours of the morning....It is every mothers nightmare that her child goes missing and I found it easy to relate to having had one of mine wander off at 3/4 years old... he was found in a shop by a neighbour... he had crossed a busy road going from the park to the last shop we were in..that hour was so hard to cope with.. and this book has many days of worry.

SPOILERS

I wasn’t sure I would enjoy reading a book about child abduction and found the mother, Beth’s anguish predictably upsetting. The two narratives worked well for a while but I soon found Carmel’s account unbelievable. I feel an eight year old with an enquiring mind would have pestered for an explanation of how she came to be living in America when she couldn’t even remember travelling there because she was heavily sedated.
Things picked up for me when clues to Carmel’s whereabouts began to emerge. Maybe I’ve read too many detective novels but this is the point where everything should move up a gear and give the reader a sense of excitement and anticipation. The ending was far too abrupt to allow that.
Like others on this thread I would have liked to find out what happened to the original Mercy. We weren’t even given a real account of Gramps’ police interrogation and confession which was vital to the conclusion.

Disappointing……Sorry.

I also found the story intriguing and liked the idea of reading it from both the main characters points of view, but it did get a bit long winded in the middle and I found the end was too abrupt and too many unanswered questions. I have read better books but I did quite enjoy it, I am going to pass it on to my daughter to read and see what she thinks about it.

I received my copy quite a way into the month (but gratefully received anyway) and am therefore only about a third of the way through.

I have deliberately NOT read any of the previous posts on this thread, so apologies if my comments are repeats of what might have already been said!

I think the language and style of writing is very good, although it is not of course a "light" read, by the nature of the subject.

Due to other commitments, I only currently read when I go to bed, and often find that reading this book is far from relaxing! But I suppose that in a way that is a sort of compliment to the writer, in that the tension, worry etc of the mother is put across very well.

Thank you for my copy of the book, I have finished reading it now.
I am not quite sure what to say about this book, it is not that I didnt like it, rather it is not quite what I expected. I thought it was going to be a girl gone missing, police investigation type thriller, but it is nothing like that. I thought it was good the way that it was written from the mothers point of view and then also from the child's, I enjoyed the interaction, between the characters, but there were some bits that I wasnt too keen on. It is hard to say much without giving the story away.

Fab fab fab book. Was not sure what to expect from this book as it is not a subject I would have looked for in store. I really enjoyed the twists and turns, but having said that still felt a little disturbed with some of the story line. Loved the way we went from Beth to Carmal as each chapter passed. Felt Carmal was perhaps a little too advanced thought wise for her age, would liked to of seen her question certain events in her life with Gramps.
Thanks GN, this was my first book from you, hopefully I will be lucky enough to receive more in the future.

Hard subject to write about but I'm finding it to be a page turner. I always wondered how an abducted child would feel and if they would shout it at anyone they came in contact with and how long their memory would last. I'm not quite finished it as I only received it a few days ago but thought I'd better give my opinion. I'd like to ask the author where her idea came from, was it from reports on other abducted children and does she have another book planned.

Still haven't got very far as life has been getting in the way, but I am enjoying it.

I enjoyed the book, but found the conclusion rather rushed. I was left wanting to know what really happened to the original Mercy and how Carmel reacted to the news that her mother was alive. Life back together would have made a whole final chapter.

I would like to ask Kate how she disciplines herself when writing, does she have a set routine?

I look foward to reading more from her in the future.