November book club - The Girl in the Red Coat

shysal

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.

shysal – I'm always fascinated by peoples' writing routines! I always try to be at my desk by 9.30 and the morning is often the most productive part of the day for me. On a good day I'll work steadily to mid late afternoon and then go out for a much needed walk to stretch my legs and get the blood circulating again! On a not so good day I don't push it and stay looking at a blank screen for hours though, as I think this can be counter productive. I'll walk or just do something completely different. Thinking time is just as important as writing time anyway and actually many of my ideas come when I'm miles away from my desk.

GrannyGlyn

Thanks again Gransnet for encouraging me to read a book I would have walked away from. I've said before that I only go for "light" subjects in the books I choose.
I'm glad I didn't have long to read it or I might have put it off. I was very unsure if I could read a book about child abduction.

I found it a very compelling read. Hard to put down and read in about 4 sessions which is good for me.
Having said that for a book with such detailed descriptions most of the way through, I was disappointed that the end was so sudden and there were, for me, unanswered questions.
What happened to the original Mercy?
Did Carmel's gift stay with her or was Maxine the last person she healed (did she heal her?)
What happened after Beth and Carmel were reunited?

Is Kate going to revisit the characters or is the next book going to be totally different?

GrannyGlyn – Together with my editor I thought long and hard to really spell out Mercy's story and in the end we decided to leave as is – in my editor's words "I love knowing and not knowing" and because Mercy plays a small part in the narrative I hope that's not too frustrating for the reader. I didn't want her story to take over Carmel's at the end of the day. As to your other questions I can be more specific because it's completely clear in my mind! Yes, she did heal Maxine and Maxine would not be the last person she'd heal. As for the rest – my feeling is that's another story although the book I'm working on now has a completely different set of characters. It does have a good dose of the supernatural again though!

grandma60

Just finished this book today. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would as I wouldn't choose a thriller. However it was much more than that even though as others have said it was a bit slow in parts and a lot of the ending was left unexplained. I used to work with a lady who was an Evangelical Christian and I was fascinated by how many things that happened in the book were things that she mentioned in her descriptions of what went on in her church. (healing, uneven legs growing etc). I wonder if the author has had any first hand connection with this sect.

Thanks grandma60 – I've always had a fascination for cults, partly because a distant relative of mine started one and there's always been talk of it in the family. Joanna Southcott lived in the eighteenth century and began her own religion where she somehow persuaded people that she was bearing the new messiah. She attracted a fair amount of followers and one branch of them was only disbanded in the 1970's! For the book I undertook research into 'healing' cults and read a fair bit and watched some really good documentaries, so I'm really glad the instances that you mention ring true. Ultimately it's the power of the mind that really interests me – to see things, heal the body or have an overwhelming belief in something. Sometimes I think the human imagination is capable of anything.